Exposure of Marshall Islands People

Exposure of Marshall Islands People

In the case of the Bikini test, not only the crew members of the 5th Lucky Dragon boat
and the inhabitants of Rongelap atoll but all the people of Marshall Islands were
exposed simultaneously to radiation from fallout. Although the inhabitants had received
strong exposure from fallout they were left unattended for a while. Moreover, in 1967
inhabitants of Rongelap atoll were brought back by the US army to their atoll because
of “absence of radioactivity”. However due to frequent occurrence of injuries among
inhabitants including those not exposed to fallout, they departed by themselves again
from their atoll in 1985. Recently it was found that the US Atomic Energy Commission
which conducted these nuclear tests had made a thorough observation of radiation from
fallout during these tests but did not open the observed results to the public.
Even now inhabitants of Rongelap atolls are forced to leave and robbed of their own
birthplace for more than half a century. When the Marshall Islands Republic became
independent in 1989, it concluded a Free Alliance Agreement with the US which
includes compensation for the use of Kwajalein atoll, the largest atoll of Marshall
Islands, as a military missile test site plus compensation for the damage from nuclear
tests. In the 2004 revision of this agreement, compensation for nuclear test damage was
discontinued by the US who asserted that there are no effects of residual radiation.