testing

French testing

Dear Sir,

Your January issue offered exten sive coverage of Gaby Tetiarahi’s allegations concern ing health problems related to French

nuclear testing.

I suppose that your readers will have accorded to them the credit they deserve when Tetiarahi states that “it was not before 1995 that we got to know what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki”.

What happened in the two Japanese cities has, of course, been well known everywhere in the world and in French Polynesia since August 1945. In addi tion, both foreign and local anti-nuclear movements have been very active in Tahiti, and have been free to do so, for the past 30 years.

I do not see how, as Tetiarahi alleges, workers might be suffering from cancer for 20 years, and pass on their jobs to their healthy children. His claims imply that radioactivity would affect only Polynesian workers. What about the many thousands who came from France?

What about the population of Pitcairn or Cook Islands, which are as close to Mururoa as some parts of French

Polynesia?

Court claims pleading for state responsibility are easy and common in Tahiti as well as in France: why not a sin gle one in relation to cancer amongst Mururoa’s workers; amongst the nearly 200,000 tourists who visit French Polynesia every year; amongst pearl oys ter farmers or fishermen on islands near the former testing site? How could widespread cancer have remained unno ticed for decades in a population so easy

to identify?

How does one hide this epidemic in an open and democratic country like French Polynesia? In Tahiti, the pro independence party led by (Oscar) Temaru scored 25 per cent of votes at last year’s election. Tetiarahi’s movement was not in a position to contest even one

seat. Why?

There are already many studies about radioactivity and cancer in the Pacific, including some by scientists of the United Nations Environment Programme as well as of the South Pacific Commission. [A list of studies was attached with the letter.] None of them ever showed that any thing went wrong in Tahiti, contrary to

groundless rumours spread by self

appointed experts.

Nevertheless, a special medical com mission was set up in Papeete in order to examine and possibly treat free of charge, anyone who might have thought he was suffering from radiation contami nation. Orfly one person turned up - just in order to have a free check-up. No names or list of people supposed to be suffering from radiation exposure were ever released.

Despite accusations of secrecy, France is the only nuclear power which has made public scientific data on all its nuclear experiments, opened its testing ground to international scientific mis sions and world media, closed its testing facility, started to dismantle it, and final ly asked the International Atomic Energy Agency (lAEA) to conduct an indepen dent and comprehensive study on its radiological situation. France did so because she has nothing to hide.

Of all testing sites, Mururoa has been the most visited (by many protesters as well), has received the largest media cov erage and been the most studied: visitors have seen for themselves local military and civil staff drinking desalinated

lagoon water, swimming and enjoying a

beautiful environment. They could also see that Mururoa was one of the very few places in the Pacific to have facilities such as a domestic waste and used lubri cants incinerator, as well as a fresh water plant.

Gail de Planque, head of the lAEA mission swam in the lagoon and declared in Suva on December 4 last year that it

was “wonderful” and that she found “a beautiful bird colony, thriving there, unafraid”.

But there are still ‘reports’ ... There have also been, for a longer time, reports about the Loch Ness monster and flying saucers.

Alarming rumours about cancer in Tahiti exist only in the minds of people who dare not expose their bias to reality, or in those who use their imagination for political purposes.

Michel Jolivet

Ambassador of France to Fiji Suva Fiji