On March 1, 1954, the U.S. detonated a 15 Megaton thermonuclear weapon on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The Bravo bomb—the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated by the United States—had a destructive yield more than 1,000 times that of the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. The Bravo test caused widespread radioactive fallout throughout the Marshall Islands, resulting in contamination, sickness, and forcible evacuations. March 1 is now Nuclear Victims Remembrance Day in the Marshall Islands, a national holiday that mourns, honors, and remembers those affected by the horrors of nuclear weapons.

The Bravo bomb was just one of 67 nuclear weapons that the United States exploded in the Marshall Islands from 1946 to 1958. The United States selected two inhabited atolls, Bikini and Enewetak as ground zero for the testing program. The peoples of Bikini and Enewetak were forcibly removed “for the good of mankind,” with the promise that the islands would be returned once the testing program concluded. Throughout the islands, Marshallese people were dispossessed of their homelands; exposed to radioactive fallout, resulting in high rates of illness including cancer, thyroid disease, and birth defects; and enrolled in a series of non-consensual medical experiments to study the effects of radiation on the human body.

Today, 63 years after the United States dropped its last bomb in the Marshall Islands, the Marshallese people continue to grapple with long-term health and environmental consequences. Bikini and Rongelap Atolls remain irradiated and their people remain in exile. Enewetak Atoll is home to the Runit Dome, a leaking nuclear waste repository constructed by the U.S. to store the high-level radioactive waste produced during the testing program. Rising sea levels and increasing storms exacerbate this leakage. And despite decades of tireless work by Marshallese advocates, the U.S. has never provided adequate compensation for the harms caused by nuclear testing.

In the face of these challenges, the people of the Marshall Islands have survived and have continued to fight tirelessly for nuclear justice. The theme of Nuclear Victims Remembrance Day this year is “jejjab maake iab” or “we are not alone.” To the Marshallese people, we at AMP say: You are not alone. AMP stands in solidarity with you and your quest for nuclear justice.

Not only today, but every day going forward, we should all listen to survivors, learn about history of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands. And we should all stand in solidarity in the fight for nuclear justice. Below is a video message of support, as well as resources to learn more about the history of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands and Marshallese efforts toward nuclear justice.

Learn More:

• Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, Anointed (2018)

• Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, History Project (2012)

• Darlene Keju, Speech to World Council of Churches, Vancouver (1983)

• Interview of Tony de Brum, “We Are Actually Here to Save the World” (2017)

• Susanne Rust, How the U.S. Betrayed the Marshall Islands Kindling the Next Nuclear Disaster, LA Times (2019)

• Caroline Ferguson, Marshallese Americans Commemorate 73 Years in Exile, Hyphen Magazine (2019)

• MISA 4 the Pacific, My Fish Is Your Fish (2020)

• Natural History Museum of LA County Talks Podcast: Nuclear Contamination and Climate Change (2020)

• Holly Barker, Bravo for the Marshallese: Regaining Control in a Post-Colonial, Post-Nuclear World (2012)

AMP co-directors, Autumn Bordner and Caroline Ferguson write for The Conversation, exploring how climate justice requires reckoning with the ongoing harms of colonialism and committing to self-determination for all peoples and nations.

https://theconversation.com/the-marshall-islands-could-be-wiped-out-by-climate-change-and-their-colonial-history-limits-their-ability-to-save-themselves-145994

AMP Board Member Julian Aguon is profiled in The Guardian. He discusses the ongoing battle against U.S. militarization in Guam, his law firm’s successful efforts to submit a filing to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Rights, and why the fight is so deeply personal.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/08/our-childrens-lives-on-the-line-the-ongoing-battle-for-guam

What price can you place on sovereignty? On the very survival of a nation? Autumn and Caroline share Marshallese perspectives on climate migration & the adaptation process in our new paper.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959378019307058

Check out Autumn’s blog post on how US imperial policies have resulted in disproportionate impacts of COVID-19 on COFA migrants in the United States.

https://legal-planet.org/2020/06/24/the-american-family-in-crisis-colonialism-covid-19-risk-and-climate-vulnerability/

Check out Autumn’s blog post about how U.S. law relegates U.S. territories to a second-class colonial status and how the right to self-determination should be effectuated as a remedy to colonization.

https://legal-planet.org/2020/06/29/dc-and-puerto-rico-are-not-the-same/

AMP Board Member, Julian Aguon writes about how the militarization of Guam is threatening its ecosystem and important cultural and historical sites, and advocates for solutions that replace extraction with reciprocity.

https://progressive.international/wire/2020-06-12-julian-aguon-no-country-for-eight-spot-butterflies/en

This Article will suggest that decolonizing states can leverage colonial histories to protect their self-determination in light of climate change. Taking the Republic of the Marshall Islands—one of the island states most imminently threatened by climate change—as a case study, this Article will first share Marshallese perspectives demonstrating that migration is not an acceptable response to climate change. Next, this Article will advance a novel climate justice theory, connecting colonial conduct to the threat of climate migration to establish that international human rights and decolonization norms vest colonial powers with moral and legal obligations to assist their former colonies with self-determination-preserving adaptation strategies. Finally, this Article will concretize this theory, suggesting specific legal strategies that Marshallese and similarly situated communities might pursue.

Autumn Bordner was a panelist at the Natural History Museum of LA County discussing nuclear and climate justice in the Marshall Islands. NHMLAC and the Los Angeles Times invite you to join journalists, scholars, activists and community leaders in a discussion at the NHM about nuclear contamination and climate change in the Marshall Islands, a Pacific nation spread across more than 800,000 square miles of ocean in the central Pacific. Attendees will also be able to view Godzilla: A Living Atomic Bomb, a small exhibition that focuses on the real-life nuclear tests carried out on Bikini Atoll that inspired the monster, which is on display on the second floor of NHM through April 19, 2020, as well as special collections from the Museum’s Anthropology Department.

It was in the Marshall Islands that the United States detonated 67 nuclear bombs, between 1946 and 1958—resulting in the exile of entire communities from their homelands, widespread radioactive contamination, thousands of sickened people, and the beginnings of a shared history of mistrust and betrayal. Now an independent nation, “freely associated” with the United States, the Republic of the Marshall Islands continues to grapple with that legacy while fighting for the right to survive in a changing climate. Many Marshallese now live in the United States—including nearby Costa Mesa—where they face a number of unique challenges, including lack of access to social welfare programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. 

Despite these challenges, the Marshallese are survivors. Today, they continue to fight—here and back home—for nuclear justice. And they are recognized as global leaders in the push for climate action.

Check out the event here: https://nhm.org/calendar/nuclear-contamination-and-climate-change

https://www.latimes.com/projects/marshall-islands-nuclear-testing-sea-level-rise/

Caroline Ferguson published an article in Hypehn Magazine profiling Neisen Laukon a survivor of the U.S. nuclear testing program in the Marshall Islands.