Tahitian parliamentary report: France covered up nuclear test fallout

Released after a six-month investigation, the 478-page report concluded that the French state suppressed “damning proof” that radioactive fallout occurred on Tahiti after each of the 41 atmospheric tests conducted at the Tuamotu atolls of Moruroa and Fangataufa—1,200 kilometers southeast of the capital Papeete. France also conducted 140 underground nuclear explosions at the same sites between 1975 and 1991, and from June 1995 to May 1996.

Led by the Moruroa e Tatou (Moruroa and Us) association, former test-site workers are demanding compensation for serious medical conditions caused by their involvement in the program. In order to appeal to growing anti-French sentiment among indigenous Polynesians, pro-independence President Oscar Temaru promised to make the issue of compensation a priority, as part of his successful 2005 election campaign.

The Assembly unanimously accepted the report, voting in the absence of 21 members of the pro-French opposition party led by former president Gaston Flosse. Flosse, a longtime Gaullist ally of current French President Jacques Chirac, backed the testing program during the 20 years he held office as Polynesian president up to 2004. Flosse lost a legal challenge to the establishment of the inquiry committee and his party’s representatives boycotted all its meetings.

The authorities in Paris did everything possible to frustrate the Tahitian inquiry into the French nuclear testing. Officials refused permission for the committee to visit the nuclear atolls, maintaining a ban on any outside investigations of the sites that has been rigorously enforced since 1966. The French Defence Ministry and military are still in charge of the two atolls.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/mar2006/tahi-m03.shtml