by Zoe Curtaz
In 2024, the U.S. began its Nuclear Modernization program to update its nuclear strategic forces, an endeavor that will cost $1.5 trillion over its lifetime. Yet even as the nation is set to move forward, the mistakes of the past remain unresolved, and the U.S. government continues to turn a blind-eye to compensating its nuclear victims. While many U.S. citizens have some awareness of the atomic bombing of the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, few are fully informed about other victims of the ongoing U.S. atomic and nuclear weapons program.
On March 1st, Nuclear Remembrance Day will mark the 71st anniversary since our government’s detonation of a gigantic thermonuclear device, known as Castle Bravo, on the Bikini Atoll of the Marshall Islands, a bombing that has left the region uninhabitable. In February 1946, the Bikini people were relocated to make room for the U.S. nuclear testing program. Castle Bravo was detonated in 1954, producing a 15 megaton yield – a force one thousand times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the late 1960s, the Bikini people attempted to return home, only to leave again in 1978 when it became clear that a permanent stay would result in intolerable radiation exposure. Other atolls in the Marshall Islands have also faced devastating consequences from the nuclear fallout. People in Rongelap were not evacuated for two days after the test, and unaware children began to play in the radioactive “snow” that covered the ground. Lasting health concerns due to burns and radioactive diseases remain; in fact, the National Cancer Institute suggested in 2010 that 55 percent of all cancers in the northern atolls are linked to the Bikini Test.
The U.S. originally chose the Marshall Islands for its nuclear testing site because of its strategic position in the Central Pacific. Under the Compact of Free Association (COFA) agreement, the U.S. was given exclusive military access to the islands and airspace of the Marshall Islands in exchange for U.S. funding. Under this agreement in 1986, the U.S. allocated $150 million in compensation to be divided between the four most affected atolls. However, the COFA-established Nuclear Claims Tribunal has tallied compensation claims to reach $3.4 billion, a price much higher than the $150 million that the U.S. considers to be a “full and final” settlement.
The nuclear legacy of the Marshall Islands is a prime example of the reality that nuclear weapons programs bring more harm than good. Embarking on an expensive and deadly modernization program should not take precedence over compensating the Marshallese people for their sacrifice in the race of the U.S. and other nations to accumulate nuclear weapons. How can we justify allocating ten thousand times more tax dollars to the Nuclear Modernization program than the settlement with the Marshallese? This Nuclear Remembrance Day, the choice is ours: fight to eliminate nuclear weapons and compensate their victims or allow further development of nuclear weapons to destroy us.
__
Zoe Curtaz is a junior at Lesley University and an intern at Massachusetts Peace Action