The International Press Institute (IPI) has condemned the arrest and interrogation of French journalist Ariane Lavrilleux and demanded her immediate release. She was released after 39 hours in custody.

IPI has also called on French law enforcement authorities to ensure full respect for international media freedom standards on source protection.

Lavrilleux, a journalist with French non-profit investigative platform Disclose was taken into custody last Tuesday, September 19, after a dawn raid on her home by officers from France’s domestic intelligence agency, the DGSI, said an IPI statement.

Her apartment was searched and her computer was confiscated, in the presence of a judge, according to news media reports.

Journalists at Disclose played a key role in a major investigation of French nuclear tests secrecy in the South Pacific in March 2021.

Lavrilleux was taken to the DGSI headquarters in Marseille and questioned for several hours in the presence of her lawyer as part of an investigation into the publication of highly confidential documents in the investigative series, the “Egypt Papers”. She remained in custody overnight and into Wednesday, September 20.

In November 2021, Lavrilleux had co-authored and published the Egypt Papers, about the Sirli operation, an investigative series based on hundreds of leaked documents which revealed how information gathered by French counter-intelligence bodies was abused by the Egyptian military to carry out a campaign of bombings and arbitrary killings of alleged smugglers and innocent civilians.

French state’s potential complicity
At the time, Disclose had issued a statement justifying its decision to publish the confidential information, citing the evidence of the French state’s potential complicity in serious human rights abuses committed by a foreign regime, and the public’s right to know about such matters of public interest.

In July 2022, prosecutors in Paris opened an investigation that was later handed over to the DGSI. They alleged the publication had compromised national defence secrets and revealed information that could lead to the identification of a protected agent.

It is unclear whether any intelligence official was compromised.

“IPI is highly alarmed by the continued detention and interrogation of Ariane Lavrilleux and urges the General Directorate for Internal Security to proceed with extreme caution and full respect for French law and international legal standards regarding journalistic source protection”, IPI executive director Frane Maroevic said.

“Any charges against Lavrilleux must be dropped immediately and all pressure on Disclose and its journalists related to their investigative work must cease.

“The arrest of an investigative journalist is extremely serious, as it has major ramifications for press freedom”, he added.

“Journalists’ right to protect their sources is enshrined in national and international law as it essential for journalists to expose wrongdoing and hold power to account. The public interest defence of revealing the information published in Disclose’s investigative reporting on the Egyptian military is clear.

“IPI and our global network stand behind Lavrilleux and her colleagues at Disclose and will continue to monitor the situation closely.”

First home search since 2007
The arrest of Lavrilleux is believed to be the first time since 2007 that the home of a French journalist had been searched by police.

In a statement released immediately after the arrest, Disclose said: “The aim of this latest episode of unacceptable intimidation of Disclose journalists is clear: to identify our sources that revealed the Sirli military operation in Egypt.

“In November 2021, Disclose revealed an alleged campaign of arbitrary executions orchestrated by the Egyptian dictatorship of President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, with the complicity of the French state, based on several hundred documents marked ‘defence – confidential”.

IPI’s Maroevic added that the institute had been in contact with staff at Disclose after the arrest and has offered to help provide legal support through the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a European consortium which offers legal aid.

He noted that the arrest was the latest in a number of worrying incidents involving the interrogation of journalists from Disclose in relation to their reporting on the Egyptian government, and its sources for those stories.

This statement by IPI is part of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States, Candidate Countries, and Ukraine. The project is co-funded by the European Commission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The French nuclear compensation commission CIVEN says that last year it paid out US$16.6 million to victims of France’s nuclear weapons tests.

France tested 193 atomic weapons in French Polynesia over three decades from 1966 to 1996 after abandoning its testing regime in Algeria.

In its report for 2021, the commission said it had processed 199 applications of which 46 percent were found to be eligible for compensation.

It said a further 217 compensation claims were filed last year, which was an increase of 79 over 2020.

Until 2010 when a compensation law was passed, France had claimed that its weapons tests were clean and caused no harm to human health.

The provisions of the law have been controversial because of the large number of rejected claims, which led to amendments.

In 2020, CIVEN said it had paid out US$30m to victims of France’s nuclear weapons test since 2010.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Following the publication of the book Toxic some 9 months ago and President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to French Polynesia last July, the response from the French administration has been to send French nuclear experts to Tahiti.

Their mission was to give clear and transparent answers about the state of former nuclear test sites among other topics. It was a way to counter the book’s anti-official version of the CEA’s (Centre d’Experimentation Atomique) claim of “clean and non-contaminating radioactivity” on both atolls.

The Commission of information created for those former sites of nuclear tests of the Pacific, was made up of 3 French civil servants involved in the controversial Paris roundtable — also called Reko Tika — organised by President Macron last July.

In a media conference, they talked about radiological and geo-mechanical surveillance of the Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls. They came with more scientific expertise and data that seemed to dispel the original idea of “clear and transparent answers”.

As far as the environment was concerned around those former nuclear sites, the conclusion was that the sites were much safer now after the presence of caesium-137 (a radioactive isotope of caesium formed as one of the more common products of nuclear fission) was noticed to be less year by year in all parts of the environment.

To “prove” their case of an independent and transparent study, they took samples of beef meat, whole milk or coconut juice from both atolls and are readily available to the population and analysed those samples.

Their results showed that the levels of radioactive concentration were far less than the “maximum levels admissible” — or whatever that means for the Ma’ohi who are not versed in the scientific jargon.

Artificial radioactive fallout level ‘low’
As for the health of the population, they reassured the people from the atolls that the level of toxicity of artificial radioactive fallout measured from 2019 to 2020 was extremely low, according to the data collected by the Institute of Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety (IRNS).

They established that the overall efficient dose (external exposition, internal exposition by ingestion and inhalation) of radioactivity was evaluated at 1,4 mSv (the measure of radiation exposure) in Mā’ohi Nui — which is two times lower than in France.

An even stronger reassurance was offered to the media when the question of a possible collapse of the northern part of the atoll of Moruroa was mentioned. The French experts replied that such a disastrous scenario was extremely unlikely, because the geo-mechanical system Telsite 2 put in place in 2000, would detect signs of unusual activities weeks beforehand.

Notwithstanding their initial answer, they added that even in the worst-case scenario, preventative measures would be taken to evacuate the population of Moruroa, and Tureia would not be hit by this improbable landslide.

A reassurance that clearly leaves doubt on whether Moruroa is at all safe.

When asked by one of the local journalists, Vaite Pambrun, why the atolls were not “retroceded” (ceded back) to their people now that it is “safe”, the delegate to Nuclear Safety M. Bugault was at pains to explain that it was not possible because plutonium was not buried deep enough under the coral layer, and for safety reasons the French state still needed to monitor the atolls.

A somehow contradictory response that does not surprise the people who are used to the rhetoric used by the French state for the last 50 years.

France seems to offer very reassuring measures and answers, but the populations have learnt in the past that the word of the French state must be taken with a lot of mistrust and scepticism especially when it comes to nuclear matters.

France trying to wipe out nuclear traces from Polynesian memory

Independence leader Oscar Temaru, and former president of Tahiti, was quick to organise a press conference where he criticised the conclusions reached by the nuclear experts who seemed to contradict their findings about the safety of the atolls that still needed more monitoring, hence the refusal to retrocede.

After the last Paris roundtable, Temaru accused the French state and the local government — which he calls the local “collabos” (alluding to the French who collaborated with the Germans during the Second World War) to try “to wipe out the last evidence and vestiges that constitute the history of nuclear colonisation by the army and the money”.

According to Temaru, there is a trust crisis against the local government of territorial President Eduard Fritch and the French state that is going to last for a long time.

Those strong words also came after the decision was taken to completely destroy the last nuclear concrete shelter on the atoll of Tureia, wiping out for ever any traces of nuclear presence.

This decision is reminiscent of the one taken by the same French state to raze to the ground the two nuclear shelters used by the army on Mangareva.

By the same occasion, the hangar with the flimsy protection of corrugated iron used for the local population during the nuclear tests was also demolished. All those structures were pulled down in the early 2000s.

Father Auguste Ube Carlson, president of the anti-nuclear lobby Association 193, has also denounced the rhetoric used by the French state which “pretends’ to bring some new answers that have a “sound of deja-vu and that do not fool any of the populations who have suffered through the nuclear era”.

According to one of the Association 193 spokespeople, France is telling local populations that all is well in the best of worlds and there is nothing to worry about.

A more mitigated reaction

Local historian Jean-Marc Regnault conceded that it has been a struggle to get the French state to give access to files that at one point were declassified and then re-classified to now be reopened to the public which he considers a victory.

He does not share the same stance taken by Oscar Temaru regarding the wiping out of the last atomic shelter in Tureia. According to the historian, the shelter is a hazard to the population of Tureia as it contains asbestos and therefore needs to be destroyed.

Regnault positions himself as a researcher who, like any other member of the public, will be able to write the history of the nuclear era thanks to all those thousands of documents now available to be consulted, unless classified as state secrets.

He sees the history of a nation not in terms of buildings but in terms of what can be written and taught to the younger generations. The destruction of the building does not equal the wiping-out of a nation’s memory.

He finds it remarkable that teachers will have the material to teach the history of the atomic tests in Mā’ohi Nui, which was one the tenants of the Tavini party when they were at the helm of the country in 2004.

It is up to the women and men of Ma’ohi Nui to realise their dreams of writing the history of their islands by consulting those archives, especially the military ones and not be forced to only hear one narrative, that of the French state.

There is a movement toward more transparency, according to Regnault.

What about the conclusions drawn by the book Toxic?
The Delegate to Nuclear Safety M. Bugault, has been particularly dismissive of the book Toxic. He says that it is clear that the calculations based on the simulations are wrong and he rejected the deductions made by the book that the French state have played down the impacts of nuclear tests fallout on the Polynesians.

However, he admitted that 6 nuclear tests did not have favourable weather forecasts and generated radioactive fallout that led to doses “below the limit accepted by those working on the nuclear sites” but “higher than the doses accepted by the public”.

This is the reason why it is absolutely legitimate for people who have been contaminated to seek compensation.

He tells the press that the calculations and the investigation by Disclose wrongly contradict those made by the CEA in 2006 where the data and the mode of calculations were extremely technical and scientific and 450 pages long.

He suggested that those who were involved in the research and the publishing of Toxic were not versed enough in the technical jargon of the final document released by the CEA.
It is not enough to tell the truth but it must be accessible to the public, according to Bugault.

The book Toxic fails to explain in a clear and simple way how its calculations were carried out and achieved. He promised that in April 2022 the anti-Toxic book will be published by the CEA on Tahiti.

Ena Manuireva, born in Mangareva (Gambier islands) in Ma’ohi Nui (French Polynesia), is a language revitalisation researcher at Auckland University of Technology and is currently completing his doctorate on the Mangarevan language. He is also a campaigner for nuclear reparations justice from France over the 193 tests staged in Polynesia over three decades and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

About 35 people joined an Auckland rally last Sunday in solidarity with a Mā’ohi Nui Lives Matter demonstration by thousands of Tahitians happening in Pape’ete, the capital.

In solidarity and in sync with the Pape’ete event, the Mai te Paura Atōmī i te ti’amara’a: From Bomb Contamination to Self-determination rally was organised by Les Tahitiens de Nouvelle-Zélande (Tahitians of New Zealand) and hosted at Auckland University of Technology.

Ena Manuireva and colleague Tony Fala were the main organisers at AUT.

With the live feed from Tahiti in the background, the message was clear to those who attended:

• French nuclear tests were wrong, killed people, and destroyed the environment; and
• France must now pay reparations.

The organisers wanted to remind the audience about the important date of July 17, 1974, as the largest radioactive nuclear test named Centaur — a test that contaminated more than 100,00 people which was nearly the entire population of Mā’ohi Nui at the time.

Nine takeaways from the event

1. This rally is the start of more solidarity action for Mā’ohi Nui people. We hope to engage more members of the Mā’ohi Nui community living in Aotearoa in this work.
2. It is reassuring to have the support of rally speakers in Auckland who represent different peoples of Oceania.
3. The nuclear issue in Mā’ohi Nui is being commemorated in other ways in Aotearoa. The Auckland Museum launched an exhibition on Remembering Moruroa and the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū is celebrating the artistic vision of one of Aotearoa’s most significant artists, the late Ralph Hotere. His collection includes the Moruroa watercolours — which has a fitting title, Ātete! (to resist).
4. The organisers plan to have further meaningful discussions with the Green MPs concerning the Mā’ohi Nui issues. They hope to work with Green MPs to develop concrete proposals so that the issue of nuclear waste in Mā’ohi Nui can be tabled in Parliament.
5. The organisers intend to reach out to the Department of Disarmament and Arms Control. They plan to talk to Nuclear Disarmament Minister Phil Twyford about this issue.
6. In the same vein, the organisers will approach the Ministry of Education to propose changes to the new school curriculum emerging in 2022 — changes that would include the teaching of the history of the anti-nuclear stand that New Zealand took in Oceania.
7. Rally organisers Ena, David, James, Mua, and Tony acknowledge the support of Greenpeace, former members of NFIP, and Peace Movement Aotearoa.
8. The organisers thank Mahealani Coxhead, Tasha Dalton, Ma’ara Maeva, Sally Manuireva, and Jos Wheeler for their invaluable contributions to the rally.
9. The organisers thank the Auckland rally audience and express solidarity to Oscar Temaru over the continuing struggle in Mā’ohi Nui.

The MC and speakers

Reverend Mua Strickson-Pua is an activist, educator, and poet. He was the master of ceremonies for the rally and event co-organiser. He introduced all the speakers.

Ena Manuireva is a Mangarevan-Tahitian, Mā’ohi Nui activist whose story started back on his native island of Mangareva. Mangarevans were the first people in French-occupied Polynesia to be used as guinea pigs and contaminated during the first so-called “clean” French nuclear tests on July 2, 1966. Ena narrated the personal story of how his mother became sick and vomited as her lips bled after she unknowingly ate contaminated fish; of how his older sister had weak bones as a baby, and how she developed a vulnerable body that forced his family to flee to Tahiti to save her life and find refuge. Manuireva challenged France to restore truth and justice through reparations and to return independence to Mā’ohi Nui.

The generation that paved the path for activism in Aotearoa and around the Moana-Nui-a-Hiva:

Hilda Halkyard-Harawira is a distinguished Māori activist, community worker, educator, and founder of the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Movement (NFIP). She shared some rich impressions regarding her work as a Māori activist working in the NFIP movement from 1980. Hilda told the moving story of travelling with Māori activists to Mā’ohi Nui in 1995; of witnessing the vibrant anti-nuclear struggle in Tahiti, and of meeting Mā’ohi anti-nuclear protest leaders Charlie Ching and Oscar Temaru. She read extracts from an important address she presented at a 1995 anti-nuclear activist gathering in Tahiti. Moreover, Hilda spoke of her great friendship with Oscar Temaru while expressing her abiding support for Mā’ohi Nui’s struggle for nuclear justice and for independence from France today. Hilda Halkyard-Harawira’s rich address reminded the audience of the profound whakapapa interlinking Māori activists with Mā’ohi Nui, the wider Pacific, and the NFIP Movement.

Maire Leadbeater is of Pākehā heritage. She is an activist, former Auckland city councillor, historian, and writer. Maire is a member of West Papua Action Auckland. Maire expressed solidarity with Mā’ohi Nui in her oration. She explained why West Papua is not on the United Nations list of territories to be decolonised. Maire provided an important update on the contemporary West Papua struggle. Maire Leadbeater’s speech allowed the rally audience space to consider the significance of the West Papua struggle alongside that of the noble Mā’ohi Nui resistance in wider Oceania.

Dr David Robie is a Pākehā environmental activist, editor of Asia Pacific Report, and retired founding director of the AUT Pacific Media Centre. He sees events during his career around the Pacific, including French-occupied Polynesia, as a “game changer”. Those events include the publication of the book Moruroa Mon Amour in the 1970s by Bengt and Marie-Therese Danielsson, Tahiti-based activists, describing their outrage regarding the use of Moruroa as the testing site, leading up to the recent publication of the book Toxic and its damning revelations about France’s persistent lies over the nuclear tests. He also mentioned his Blood On Their Banner on Pacific independence struggles, first published in Swedish in spite of censorship thanks to the Danielssons’ contacts, and his inspiration from meeting Oscar Temaru which contributed to his commitment to the Mā’ohi Nui cause. David demands compensation for the harm done by the nuclear tests, a formal apology to the Mā’ohi Nui people, and a return of their independence.

Political support to the cause shown by the Greens:

Teanau Tuiono is of Māori and Atiu heritage. He is a member of parliament for the Green Party and a long time indigenous environmental activist. Teanau articulated the story of the abiding relationships interconnecting the peoples of Atiu and Mā’ohi Nui. He spoke powerfully about the visits of Atiu men to Mā’ohi Nui to work in the phosphate industry in years gone by. Teanau affirmed Oceanian solidarity towards the peoples of Mā’ohi Nui in his korero. Further, he acknowledged that Oceania’s peoples are bound together by the twin whakapapa of both genealogy and shared struggle. Teanau narrated the story of how he marched in support of the Mā’ohi Nui people as a student activist in 1995. Moreover, he spoke of being part of the group who hosted Oscar Temaru at Waipapa Marae at the University of Auckland after the march. Tuiono’s oration provided the audience opportunity to understand the solidarity Māori and Pacific Island peoples have extended to Mā’ohi Nui in Aotearoa since the 1990s.

Golriz Ghahraman is of Iranian descent. She is a member of parliament for the Green Party, a lawyer, and a community advocate for migrants and refugees. Speaking as a former refugee to Aotearoa, Golriz extended her solidarity to Oscar and the Mā’ohi Nui people in her speech. She illuminated the connections between Mā’ohi Nui; struggles in the wider Pacific; refugees, and migrants. Golriz spoke of the importance of the Palestinian struggle in her labours. She provided the rally audience with the ability to reflect upon the interconnections between the Mā’ohi Nui struggle — and that of the Palestinian, refugee, and migrant communities within and beyond Oceania.

The emergence of the young generation of activists:

James Hita is a Māori Greenpeace activist and coordinator for Greenpeace Deep Sea Mining. His message was unequivocal: nuclear tests are not isolated threats; they are part of the many perils that are directly impacting our Ocean. Climate change, nuclear tests, and deep-sea mining all negatively impact upon our most important natural food supply, Te Moana-Nui-a-Hiva. His message was a constant call to awareness for all of us that we must stand united and fight together against the many wrongdoings inflicted upon our Moana-Nui-a-Hiva.

Anevili TS is a Samoan activist and media worker who represents Indigenous Pacific Uprising (IPU) and Te Ara Whatu activist organisations. A link for her oral presentation at the conference can be found here. Anevili critiqued French colonialism in Mā’ohi Nui. Further, she reminded her audience that the climate change and nuclear issues cannot be separated in Mā’ohi Nui or in wider Oceania. Anevili extended solidarity to Oscar and the Mā’ohi Nui people and invited the French to get out of the Pacific. Anevili’s powerful address articulated the message that younger people in the Moana in Aotearoa stand in solidarity with Mā’ohi Nui today.

India Logan-Riley is a Māori climate change activist, an Indigenous rights campaigner, and a member of Te Ara Whatu. She talked about the whakapapa (genealogy) that the Mā’ohi Nui people have with their land and how France is trying to steal and destroy the land. She highlighted the difficult position New Zealand occupies at the UN- New Zealand is in alliance with other colonial powers such as France. However, she commended the resilience of the Mā’ohi Nui population after more than a quarter of a century since the last nuclear tests were done. She reiterated her support for justice and reparations for the Mā’ohi Nui people. India’s talk reminded the audience of the immensely strong relationships between indigenous Pacific peoples and their lands.

The panel of speakers included young activists as the organisers wanted to acknowledge the increasingly vital role that young people will play in the future by standing up to all kinds of challenges — while acknowledging the vital role of our activist elders who have come before us.

Emerging young activists will be the ones to hold the New Zealand government to account for their lack of action on environmental issues.

Younger activists will also have to stand up and reprimand other countries when other nations’ actions threaten the people and the planet.

Acknowledgements
The Auckland rally was only one expression of solidarity for the Mā’ohi Nui people beyond Tahiti: Messages of solidarity from Fiji (Claire Slatter), Micronesia, and the wider ‘Sea of Islands’ were presented to the people of Mā’ohi Nui via video message and social media.

On behalf of all the organisers, Reverend Mua Strickson Pua:

• Acknowledged the kinship linkages connecting all of the peoples of Oceania.
• Affirmed the continuing struggles of the indigenous peoples of Aotearoa, Australia, Hawai’i, Kanaky, Mā’ohi Nui, Micronesia, Rapa Nui, West Papua, and others.
• Upheld the work of tangata whenua protectors and supporters in Aotearoa in the struggles at Aotea Island, Ihumātao, Pūtiki, and Shelly Bay.
• Affirmed the interconnections between climate change, nuclear issues, and deep-sea mining as oceanic issues requiring collective responses from all peoples of the “Sea of Islands” together.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Fifteen days after Tahiti Nui’s anti-nuclear protest on July 2, the Tavini Huiraatira party has organised a march Mā’ohi Lives Matter this weekend with support from the Mā’ohi Protestant Church, Association 193 and Moruroa e Tatou.

Former territorial president of Tahiti and pro-independence leader Oscar Temaru has called for an “unprecedented mobilisation” of the population.

It was after the unrest caused by the publication of the book Toxic (Toxique) last March that the anti-nuclear protest was set for July 17.

The event on Saturday (Tahiti time) is also being mirrored in Auckland at AUT University on Sunday in a Mai te Paura Ātōmī i te Tiāmara’a (From Bomb contamination to self determination) rally being organised by Les Tahitiens de NZ.

The date was chosen to mark the controversial French atmospheric nuclear test Centaur on 17 July 1974.

This was a failed test, complicated by a dreadful weather forecast, that would have blown the radioactive cloud across French Polynesia to the main island of Tahiti Nui.

According to estimates given by the journalist authors of the book Toxic, this would have exposed up to 110,000 Polynesians to radioactive fallout.

Famous JFK speech
In the days running up to the protest, it is by the historic words extracted from the famous John Fitzgerald Kennedy speech that Oscar Temaru wanted to attract popular support: “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”

“It is a call for a general mobilisation,” Temaru explained.

“I can’t tell how many we will be. But I can tell you that there will be thousands of people.”

And Temaru, leader of the Tavini, added: “I will be satisfied only if we have 50,000 people.”

The bar is set very high.

Fifteen days after the July 2 march that marked this year’s 55th anniversary of the first nuclear test, and a week before the official visit of President Emmanuel Macron to French Polynesia, the collective called Fait Nucléaire en Polynésie (Nuclear Fact in French Polynesia) wanted to strike hard.

At the beginning of the month, the Moruroa e Tatou association managed to gather between 2000 to 3000 protesters in Pape’ete, thanks largely to the support of the l’Église Protestante Mā’ohi (Mā’ohi Protestant Church), which provided most of the protesters.

If its representatives were not at the press conference given last Tuesday at the Tavini headquarters to promote the protest of July 17, the religious organisation is still part of the organising collective.

Richard Tuheiava tried to explain the absence of the church leaders by asking the press: “You seem to doubt the involvement of the Mā’ohi Protestant Church? Don’t worry…”

Grievances and complaints
Two points of gathering are planned for Saturday morning from 6am in Tahiti. One is the carpark of the former Mamao hospital, for protesters coming from the east coast, and the other, the Tipaerui sports stadium for those coming from the west coast.

The two marches for the protest called Mā’ohi Lives Matter will start walking at 9am toward the main place of Tarahoi which will be the focal point for the event.

There a speech is planned to remind the objective of the protest. At midday after one minute silence in homage to the sick and former Polynesian veterans who died due to the nuclear tests, a section will be dedicated to a statement by victims who survived.

Video recordings made for this occasion will be shown on a big screen to carry the message of the sick Polynesians and international sympathisers who could not physically make it to the protest.

Among them will be Hilda Lini, sister of the late Walter Lini, the father of independence of Vanuatu.

Some diplomats from the Pacific are also on the card, recognised by the United Nations along with representatives of non-government organisations which sit at the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

“Partners from well-known Pacific institutions, partners of the UN and active individuals in the Pacific region who know the fight of the Tavini on the nuclear issues,” added Michel Villar, foreign affairs councillor for the pro-independence party.

Crime against humanity lawsuit
The other main issue for this protest on Saturday –- and not the least –- is tied to the lawsuit alleging a crime against humanity pressed by independent Polynesians before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, an action that has now stalled.

Since last March, anti-nuclear activists have set up a network of recommendations for those recognised as victims and compensated to file a complaint in The Hague over the shortcomings of the the so-called Morin Law and community meetings have since been organised.

These complaints are likely to reinforce the statement made by Oscar Temaru before the ICJ in October 2018, as explained by Michel Villar last March.

“People have been trained to take statements. It’s already running full speed,” said Temaru.

“I am very satisfied with the last meetings that we have had.”

On Saturday, a host of complaints would help the pro-independence and anti-nuclear causes.

At least to boost communication of their story of suffering on the international stage.

• France conducted 193 nuclear tests from 1966 to 1996 at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls in French Polynesia, including 41 atmospheric tests until 1974 that exposed the local population, site workers and French soldiers to high levels of radiation.

Translated for Asia Pacific Report by Ena Manuireva, one of the organisers of the Mai te Paura Ātōmī i te Tiāmara’a (From Bomb contamination to self determination) rally at WF603, Auckland University of Technology at 12noon on Sunday, July 18.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

While a Paris roundtable about the legacy of nuclear tests at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls is eagerly awaited by the French Polynesian government, the nuclear veterans organisations wonder whether the victims are really represented at the talks. Like every year, they will instead mark tomorrow — July 2 — as the day in 1966 when France detonated its first nuclear bomb in the South Pacific. Walter Zweifel reports.

A high-level roundtable on France’s nuclear legacy in French Polynesia is being held in Paris this week, aimed at “turning the page” on the aftermath of the weapons tests.

Between 1966 to 1996, France carried out 193 tests in the South Pacific, yet 25 years later there are still outstanding claims for compensation and the test sites remain no-go zones monitored by France.

The two-day Paris meeting was called by the French president Emmanuel Macron in April shortly after a new study about a 1974 atmospheric weapons test caused another wave of outcry.

Analysing declassified French documents, the study Toxique by the news website Disclose concluded that the fallout affected the entire population and not only the immediate testing zone around Moruroa as the public had been led to believe.

Macron’s initiative to put the recent history on the table has been welcomed by French Polynesia’s president Edouard Fritch, but has been dismissed by the opposition, nuclear veteran groups and the dominant Maohi Protestant Church, which will stay away, saying the delegation from Tahiti lacks credibility and legitimacy.

For Fritch, the problems thrown up by the nuclear test era have been discussed with French politicians for the past 25 years but he says it is Macron who at last wants to deal with this “pebble in the shoe” in the relationship with Tahiti.

This harks back to Macron’s 2017 presidential election campaign when his team promised Tahitians that Paris would assume key responsibility for health care and to pay in full for the medical costs incurred by those suffering from radiation-induced illnesses.

Tests’ impact on health, environment
Fritch told media that the upcoming talks should bring ‘truth and justice’, with an agenda looking at the tests’ impact on health and the environment, and the financial costs.

The Tahitian delegation also wants France to acknowledge its nuclear legacy in the constitution.

Fritch said he would “ask the President of the Republic to give us a precise timetable and above all to send us competent people in the matters that will be discussed”.

Accompanying Fritch is a representative of the Territorial Assembly and the territory’s members of the French legislature, such as Lana Tetuanui, as well as employer and union delegates.

Among the French participants will be the health minister but the defence minister is not certain to attend.

French Polynesia’s former president Gaston Flosse, who for decades defended France’s testing regime, was not invited.

Reflecting the simmering dissonance in Tahiti, the pro-independence Tavini Huiraatira party of Oscar Temaru rejected the invitation to Paris outright, labelling the planned talks a sham.

Temaru said any such talks should not be held in the capital of the colonising power, but rather in New York under the auspices of the United Nations.

While France refuses to acknowledge the 2013 UN decision to reinscribe French Polynesia on the decolonisation list, Temaru insists that “the right of peoples to self-determination is a sacred right, and there is no mixing the sacred and the vile, that is money. Our people are not for sale, Mā’ohi Nui is not for sale.”

The main nuclear test veterans organisation, Moruroa e tatou, decided to boycott the talks.

Its leader Hiro Tefaarere said that after 50 years of people suffering from the test legacy, those going to Paris put money at the forefront of their demands and not ethics.

He said Fritch would not have joined the roundtable had not it been for the release of Toxique which identified the French state’s “secrecy, lies and negligence”.

‘Crime against humanity’
Rejecting the French invitation, the Māohi Protestant Church, which is the main denomination in Tahiti, has in turn invited Macron to attend its synod when he is expected to visit Tahiti in the next few weeks.

The head of the church, Francois Pihaatae, said that by going to Paris, they would have the “wool pulled over their eyes”, but once Macron was in Tahiti the presence of the local people would create a counterweight.

The church has been critical of the French state, saying it proceeded with the tests in full knowledge of the impact of nuclear testing since before 1963.

Both the church and Temaru’s Tavini Huiraatira Party alleged that this amounted to a crime against humanity.

Three years ago, they announced that they had taken their case to the International Criminal Court (ICC), but it is not known if the court has accepted jurisdiction for their complaint.

Paris roundly rejected the claims, condemning what it called the misuse of the court’s international jurisdiction for local political purposes.

The French High Commissioner Rene Bidal said at the time the definition of a crime against humanity centred on the Nuremburg trials after the Second World War and referred to killings, exterminations, and deportations.

Soon after making his charge, Temaru was forced out of office over an election campaign irregularity, which his Tavini Huiraatira party said was orchestrated by France to “politically assassinate” him in retribution for the ICC case.

Until 2009, France claimed that its tests were clean and caused no harm, but in 2010, under the stewardship of Defence Minister Herve Morin, a compensation law was passed.

Over a decade, it proved to be a source of frustration because most claimants, who suffered from any of the 23 recognised types of cancer, failed with their applications.

This prompted a loosening of the eligibility criteria and then again a tightening, leaving it still open for further amendments.

French Polynesia’s social security agency CPS has repeatedly called on the French state to reimburse it for the medical costs caused by its tests.

It said that since 1995 it had paid out US$800 million to treat a total of 10,000 people suffering from cancer as the result of radiation.

Temaru said the money was a debt, pointing out that if a crime was committed it was not up to the victims to have to pay.

Risks around Moruroa
The question of the tests’ lasting intergenerational effects remains unanswered.

In 2018, a study was planned after the former head of child psychiatry in Tahiti, Dr Christian Sueur, reported pervasive developmental disorders in zones close to the Moruroa weapons test site.

The findings — reported in the Le Parisien newspaper — caused an uproar in Tahiti and Fritch accused Dr Sueur of causing panic.

The psychiatrist had reported that a quarter of children he treated for pervasive developmental disorders had intellectual disabilities or deformities which he attributed to genetic mutations.

However, three years on a study by a geneticist is yet to be commissioned.

Calls for a clean-up of the Moruroa test site continue.

Although France stopped its weapons tests in 1996, it has refused to return the excised atoll to French Polynesia and declared it a no-go zone.

The Tavini’s Moetai Brotherson, who is also a member of the French National Assembly, said France might lack either the technology or the financial means to remove radioactive sediments.

He also said the cracks on Moruroa were a concern which might explain why France’s biggest investment in the region is the US$100 million Telsite monitoring system against a possible tsunami.

There are fears the atoll could collapse as result of the more than 140 underground nuclear blasts.

Plans for a memorial to be built in Pape’ete have had lacklustre support from those who keep mistrusting France.

While the roundtable is eagerly awaited by the French Polynesian government, the nuclear veterans organisations wonder whether the victims are really represented at the talks.

Like every year, they will instead mark tomorrow — July 2 — as the day in 1966 when France detonated its first nuclear bomb in the South Pacific.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A Tahitian academic living in Auckland whose family and home island of Mangareva were impacted on by three decades of French nuclear weapons tests says Paris must pay for the full extent of health and other damage caused.

Ena Manuireva is a doctoral candidate at Auckland University of Technology.

He responds to RNZ’s Koroi Hawkins about the recent revelations by the Moruroa Files investigation and a new book, Toxique, that the impact of the the 193 nuclear tests in Polynesia was far worse than previously admitted by French authorities.

Transcript
On a more personal level a Tahitian whose family and home island was impacted by French nuclear weapons tests says Paris must pay for the full extent of the fallout.

Maururu Ena, thanks for joining us on the show. So you were born in Mangareva in 1967 just one year after the French started testing nuclear weapons in French Polynesia?

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz