US must fulfil obligations to nuclear test victims: congressman

MAJURO  ( 2008-03-31 12:46:48 ) : 

The United States must fulfil its obligations to victims of its nuclear weapons testing programme in the Marshall Islands, a US congressman said.
Eni Faleomavaega, who represents American Samoa in Congress and chairs the House Subcommittee on Asia, Pacific and the Global Environment, was in the Marshalls capital Majuro last week for hearings on the island nation's nuclear claims.
"The United States has a moral obligation," Faleomavaega said Friday.
"As a member of Congress, I want to ensure we make good (on our obligations). "I will work with my colleagues to make good on our promises made to Marshallese more than 50 years ago when we started nuclear testing."
The US tested 67 nuclear weapons at Bikini and Enewetak atolls, including many large hydrogen bombs, from 1946 to 1958.
"It was like 1.7 Hiroshima bombs going off every day for 12 years," Foreign Minister Tony deBrum told the hearing.
Between 1986 and 2003, the US government provided a 150 million dollar trust fund to compensate all clams past and future.
The State Department in a report to Congress last year said bluntly that the US had no legal obligation to provide more funding.
But the Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal, set up under an agretiated in the early 1980s, "overwhelming evidence" had emerged to dispute the US contention that only four atolls were affected by fallout.
"The original settlement amount (150 million dollars) was pulled out of the air," Graham said.
Since the Marshall Islands filed a petition for additional nuclear test compensation in 2000, it has received no formal response from either the administration of President George W. Bush or Congress.