MANUSCRIPT XLIII: Petition to the United Nations Trusteeship Council from the Marshallese People, 20 April 1954

ABSTRACT

Anti-nuclear protests in the Pacific Islands began in the 1950s. There were a series of petitions throughout the decade as Islanders living under colonial administration sought assistance from the United Nations Trusteeship Council, the newly created Non-Aligned Movement, and international ecumenical networks such as the World Council of Churches. At the height of the 1950s Cold War between the United States and USSR, these calls were mostly brushed aside by the nuclear weapons states. Despite this, Islanders from French Polynesia, Fiji, Cook Islands, Marshall Islands, Western Samoa, and other colonial dependencies spoke out against nuclear weapons and especially the US and British nuclear programmes in the Pacific, petitioning for an end to nuclear testing. This document is a striking example of these petitions, inspired by the March 1954 atmospheric nuclear test, codenamed Bravo, in the Marshall Islands.

Key words:

• Nuclear disarmament; petition
• Marshall Islands; nuclear testing
• United Nations Trusteeship Council

Introduction

The articles in this special issue of the Journal of Pacific History highlight the upsurge of anti-nuclear activity across the Pacific in the 1970s: newly independent states created the South Pacific Forum in 1971; Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji sought to take France before the International Court of Justice in 1973, seeking a halt to nuclear testing; and church and civil society groups mobilized after 1975 through the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement.

Anti-nuclear protests in the Islands, however, began in the 1950s. There were a series of petitions throughout the decade as Islanders living under colonial administration sought assistance from the United Nations Trusteeship Council, the newly created Non-Aligned Movement, and international ecumenical networks such as the World Council of Churches.

At the height of the 1950s Cold War between the United States and USSR, these calls were mostly brushed aside by the nuclear weapons states. Despite this, Islanders from French Polynesia, Fiji, Cook Islands, Marshall Islands, Western Samoa, and other colonial dependencies spoke out against nuclear weapons, and especially the US and British nuclear programs in the Pacific, petitioning for an end to nuclear testing.¹ In subsequent decades, widespread sentiment against nuclear testing contributed to wider calls for self-determination and political independence across the region.

The following document from the Marshall Islands is a striking example of these petitions in the 1950s and highlights longstanding Marshallese efforts to seek redress over the cultural, health, and environmental impacts of 67 US nuclear tests at Bikini and Enewetak atolls.²

This petition was inspired by the 1954 atmospheric nuclear test on Bikini, codenamed Bravo. This test is described by Jonathan Weisgall as ‘the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated by the United States and was, at the time, the largest manmade explosion in the history of the world’.³

On 1 March 1954, the US government exploded a thermonuclear weapon on Bikini Atoll. The test had an explosive yield of nearly 15 megatons, a thousand times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It sent a cloud of radioactive fallout across the Marshall Islands, affecting 20 of 22 atolls, but especially impacting Marshall Islanders and US servicemen living on the northern atolls of Rongelap, Utirik, Rongerik, and Ailinginae.⁴ US military personnel were quickly evacuated from the northern atolls, before action was taken to assist the hundreds of Islanders affected by ionizing radiation.

At the time, these Islands were part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI), the only strategic trust territory created by the United Nations after the Second World War. While administered by the US armed forces, the TTPI came under the mandate of the UN Trusteeship Council.

Soon after the Bravo test on 1 March, Marshall Islanders, led by Superintendent of schools Dwight Heine, teacher Atlan Anien, and customary chiefs Kabua and Dorothy Kabua, prepared a petition for the UN Trusteeship Council. As detailed below, the petition was completed on 20 April and requested that ‘all experiments with lethal weapons in this area be immediately ceased’.⁵ It highlighted the importance of land as a source of culture and identity – land that was being vaporized or contaminated by the nuclear tests.

US authorities were suspicious that sympathetic Americans resident in the TTPI had been involved in drafting the petition. However, co-author Dwight Heine denied this, telling Associated Press reporter Bill Waugh that,

it taxed me to write it. We worked every day for nearly a month. We would meet with other Marshallese and put down their ideas. Then we would make a rough draft. I thought we had too many “dangers” in it. So I looked through the dictionary and decided on “lethal”. I also found the word “circumvent” as a substitute for “prevent”.⁶

The petition arrived in New York on 30 April 1954, with support from the American Friends Service Committee. On 3 May, two days before the Secretary General of the United Nations formally submitted it to Washington, the Deputy United States Representative at the United Nations James Jeremiah Wadsworth telegrammed the US Department of State with the full text of the petition. Wadsworth noted that the

Petition is signed with 111 signatures, 11 purported to be members of the Marshallese Congress hold-over committee and 100, separately numbered, purported to be interested Marshallese citizens. First name amongst interested Marshallese citizens is Dorothy Kabu [sic], who is identified as first Marshallese delegate to UN Trusteeship Council. She also apparently signed on behalf of two members Marshallese Congress hold-over committee.⁷

It appears that the US diplomat was not aware that Dorothy Kabu was Dorothy Tarjikit Laelan Kabua, a paramount chief of Majuro. Desmond Narain Doulatram notes that ‘as early as 1953, an original request to cease nuclear testing was presented by Marshallese Congresswoman Dorothy Kabua, the first indigenous inhabitant of the Trust Territory to sit in a UN Trusteeship Meeting’.⁸

Dwight Heine travelled to New York to speak before the UN Trusteeship Council on 9 July 1954, calling for an end to testing.⁹ In its formal response, the Trusteeship Council noted: ‘The Administering Authority adds that any Marshallese citizens who are removed as a result of test activities will be re-established in their original habitat in such a way that no financial loss would be involved’.¹⁰

Mason Sears, the US representative on the Trusteeship Council, said that ‘the United States Government considers the resulting petition of the Marshall islanders to be both reasonable and helpful’ and noted that ‘it can be categorically stated that no stone will be left unturned to safeguard the present and future well-being of the islanders’.¹¹

US Ambassador to the United Nations Henry Cabot Lodge Jr told the media that ‘the authorities were doing everything humanly possible to take care of everyone who was in the area’ and that ‘any Marshall islanders removed because of the tests would be re-established without incurring financial loss’.¹²

Today, 70 years on, those US pledges are yet to be fulfilled. Many former residents of Bikini and Rongelap live in exile. On the 70th anniversary of Bravo, the people of the Marshall Islands continue to call on the US government to address the damage to health and property assessed by the RMI Nuclear Claims Tribunal.

The Document

Petition from the Marshallese People Concerning the Pacific Islands: Complaint regarding explosions of lethal weapons within our home islands to United Nations Trusteeship Council, 20 April 1954.¹³

April 20, 1954

To: The United Nations.

From: The Marshallese people.

Subject: Complaint regarding the explosion of lethal weapons within our home islands.

The following should not be misconstrued as a repudiation of the United States as our governing agency for the United Nations under the trusteeship agreement, for aside from the complaint registered in this petition we have found the American Administration by far the most agreeable one in our memory. But in view of the increasing danger from the experiments with deadly explosives thousands of times more powerful than anything previously known to men, the lethal effects of which have already touched the inhabitants of two of the atolls in the Marshalls, namely, Rongelab and Uterik, who are now suffering in various degrees from ‘lowering of blood count’, burns, nausea and the falling off of hair from the head, and whose complete recovery no one can promise with any certainty, we, the Marshallese people feel that we must follow the dictates of our consciences to bring forth this urgent plea to the United Nations, which has pledged itself to safeguard the life, liberty and the general wellbeing of the people of the Trust Territory, of which the Marshallese people are a part.

[Page 2] The Marshallese people are not only fearful of the danger to their persons from these deadly weapons in case of another miscalculation, but they are also very concerned for the increasing number of people who are being removed from their land.

Land means a great deal to the Marshallese. It means more than just a place you can plant your food crops and build your houses; or a place where you can bury your dead. It is the very life of the people. Take away their land and their spirits go also.

The Marshall Islands are all low coral atolls with land area where food plants can be cultivated quite limited, even for today’s population of about eleven thousand people. But the population is growing rapidly; the time when this number will be doubled is not far off.

The Japanese had taken away the best portions of the following atolls; Jaluit, Kwajalein, Enewetak, Mille, Maloelap and Wotje to be fortified as part of their preparation for the last war, World War II. So far, only Imedj Island on Jaluit Atoll has been returned to its former owners.

For security reasons, Kwajalein Island is being kept for the military use. Bikini and Eniwetak were taken away for Atomic bomb tests and their inhabitants were moved to Kili Island and Ujelang Atoll respectively. Because Rongelab and Uterik are now radio-active, their inhabitants are being kept on Kwajalein for an indeterminate length of time. ‘Where next?’ is the big question which looms large in all of our minds.

Therefore, we the members of the Marshallese Congress Hold-Over Committee, writers of this petition, who are empowered by the Marshallese Congress, to act in its name when it is not in session and which is in turn a group of members representing all the municipalities in the Marshalls, due to the increasing threat to our life, liberty, happiness and possession of land, do hereby submit this petition to the United Nations with the hope that it will act on our urgent plea.

Thus, we request that:

1. All the experiments with lethal weapons within this area be immediately ceased.

2. If the experiments with said weapons should be judged absolutely necessary for the eventual well being of all the people of this world [Page 3] and cannot be stopped or changed to other areas due to the unavailability of other locations, we then submit the following suggestions:

   1. All possible precautionary measures be taken before such weapons are exploded. All human beings and their valuable possessions be transported to safe distances first, before such explosions occur.

   2. All the people living in this area be instructed in safety measures. The people of Rongelab would have avoided much danger if they had known not to drink the waters on their home island after the radio-active dusts had settled on them.

   3. Adequate funds be set aside to pay for the possessions of the people in case they will have to be moved from their homes. This will include lands, houses and whatever possessions they cannot take with them, so that the unsatisfactory arrangements for the Bikinians and Eniwetak people shall not be repeated.

   4. Courses be taught to Marshallese Medical Practitioners and Health-Aides which will be useful in the detecting of and the circumventing of preventable dangers.

We would be very pleased to submit more information or explain further any points we have raised that may need clarifications.

The Marshallese people who signed this petition are on the following sheets, divided in the following manner: The first group are members of the Marshallese Congress Hold-Over Committee. The second group are some of the many interested Marshallese citizens. The name of each person appears on the left-hand side and his or her home atoll and occupation on the right-hand side opposite the signature. If more signatures are needed we will promptly supply them. The only reason we are not supplying more now is because to do so would mean a delay of some three months, the time necessary to make complete circuit of our far-flung attolls and islands by ship.

[Page 4] Members of the Marshallese Congress Hold-Over Committee

1. Kabua Kabua, Ailinglaplap, District Judge, Marshall Is.

2. Atlan Anien, Namu, Teacher

3. Dwight Heine, Ebon, Superintendent of Schools, Marshall Is.

4. Robert Reimers, Jaluit, Businessman

5. Carl Dominick, Likiep, Businessman

6. Namu Ermius, Aur, Maloelap, Wotje, Senior clerk, Marshall administration

7. Henry Samuel, Majuro, Medical Practitioner

8. Jiblock, Businessman (signed by his cousin Joab)

9. Aisaia David, Majuro, Magistrate, Majuro Atoll (signed by his sister Dorothy Kabua)

10. Amata Kabua, Majuro, Teacher (signed by his mother Dorothy Kabua)

11. Lazarus Simon, Majuro, Scribe, Majuro Atoll and 100 other interested Marshallese Citizens.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nic Maclellan

Nic Maclellan – journalist and researcher in the Pacific Islands, correspondent for Islands Business magazine (Fiji). [email protected]

Notes

¹ For examples from French Polynesia, Western Samoa, and Cook Islands, see Nic Maclellan, Grappling with the Bomb: Britain’s H-Bomb tests in the Pacific (Canberra: ANU Press, 2017), 7, 75–9.

² For studies on Marshallese campaigns of resistance and redress in subsequent decades, see Martha Smith-Norris, Domination and Resistance: The United States and the Marshall Islands During the Cold War (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2016); Barbara Rose Johnston and Holly Barker, Consequential Damages of Nuclear War: The Rongelap Report (Santa Monica: Left Coast Press, 2008); Mary Mitchell, ‘Land, Culture, and Marshall Islanders’ Struggles for Self-Determination During the 1970s’, Environmental History 22 (2017): 209–34.

³ Jonathan M. Weisgall, Operation Crossroads: The Atomic Tests at Bikini Atoll (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1994), 302.

⁴ The health and environmental consequences for Marshallese and US service personnel are documented in Holly Barker, Bravo for the Marshallese: Regaining Control in a Post-Nuclear, Post-Colonial World (Belmont: Wadsworth, 2004); Giff Johnson, Nuclear Past, Unclear Future (Majuro: Micronitor, 2009); Jack Niedenthal, For the Good of Mankind: A History of the People of Bikini and their Islands (Majuro: Micronitor, 2001). US government perspectives are detailed in Thomas Kunkle and Byron Ristvet, ‘Castle Bravo: Fifty Years of Legend and Lore’, Jan. 2013, US Defence Threat Reduction Agency, DSTRIAC SR-12-001.

⁵ Petition from the Marshallese People Concerning the Pacific Islands, ‘Complaint Regarding Explosions of Lethal Weapons within our Home Islands to United Nations Trusteeship Council’, 20 Apr. 1954, circulated as UN Trusteeship Council document T/PET.10/28, 6 May 1954, United Nations Archives, Series S-0504, Box 0013, File 0010.

⁶ Bill Waugh, ‘Creation of the N-petition’, Associated Press, 29 May 1954.

⁷ Office of the Historian, ‘Foreign Relations of the United States 1952–54’, United Nations Affairs, Washington, Department of State, vol. 3, 350/5–354, Telegram 933, 1479-81.

⁸ Desmond Narain Doulatram, ‘Marshallese Downwinders and a Shared Nuclear Legacy of Global Proportions’ (Presentation to Human Rights, Future Generations and Crimes in the Nuclear Age Conference, University of Basel, 14–17 Sept. 2017).

⁹ In 1956, Heine presented a second petition to the UN Trusteeship Council, and as payback was suspended from his post by US authorities. Doulatram, ‘Marshallese Downwinders’.

¹⁰ United Nations Trusteeship Council, ‘Petition concerning the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands’, 14 July 1954, 5.

¹¹ Statement of the US Mission to the United Nations, Press Release no. 1932, 7 July 1954, cited in Barbara Rose Johnston and Holly Barker, eds, Consequential Damages, 18–19.

¹² ‘Marshall Islanders Urgent Pleas – End A-Bomb Tests’, The Times (London), 15 May 1954.

¹³ Circulated as UN Trusteeship Council document T/PET.10/28, 6 May 1954, United Nations archives, Series S-0504, Box 0013, File 0010.