Scientists mixed on tests...

By Sujatmiko

Jakarta (JP): France's decision to resume its nuclear testing in South Pacific is a symbol of continued French arrogance and disregard on the life of other peoples. France is also neglecting the international community's protest on the nuclear test scheduled to resume next month. Demonstrations staged worldwide suggest that the decision goes against the recently concluded Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The French nuclear testing in Mururoa atoll, French Polynesia, started in 1966. By the end of 1990, it was recorded that France had exploded 167 atomic bombs, 44 atmospheric (including five over Fangataufa) and 123 underground tests conducted between 1975-1990 (including five at Fangataufa).

Due to the opposition of the Pacific Islanders, atmospheric testing ended in 1974 and was replaced with underground testing in 1975 and this continues with no sign of complete and permanent termination.

Three main reasons underlie French military policy.

First, France perceives itself as an independent middle power, therefore, the development of an effective nuclear deterrent is a central element in the French defense policy.

Secondly, French Polynesia is termed by France as an overseas territory and according to French law, overseas territories are treated as part of France and not as colonies or dependencies. That is why the French government always argues that the tests are being undertaken on French soil and should not be the business of other states. Objections to the tests by some countries were seen as interfering in French internal affairs.

For Pacific independent states, however, French Polynesia is seen as a colony, especially after mid-1960 when France started to conduct its nuclear tests. To conduct the tests in a colony, as many islanders argue, means a violation of the important international principle stipulated in the UN Charter: the right of colonized peoples to self-determination. France has also failed to respond to a request by the local Territorial Assembly that tests not be carried out in French Polynesia.

And thirdly, the French government contends that the tests are safe. It claims that the level of radiation released into the ocean or the atmosphere is harmless.

There are certainly other grounds for objecting to the tests. The Pacific Islanders believed that the tests pose a threat to the health and livelihood of the people in the whole South Pacific region. Since the first summit of the South Pacific Forum in 1971, the heads of government were very concerned on the potential hazards that atmospheric tests pose to health and safety and to marine life which is a vital element in the islands' subsistence and economy.

The tests conducted underground from 1975 were in common sense less risky than atmospheric tests conducted previously. The obviousness of radioactive fall-out has been replaced by the far less visible and seemingly more remote risk of radioactive leakage through cracks in the underwater base of the atoll into the surrounding ocean. And if such leaks were to occur, these could contaminate the fish and other animate and inanimate material which would then be dispersed by ocean currents and migration patterns to islands thousand of kilometers away.

France has stated on many occasions that the tests do not endanger the area, although several accidents have, in fact, already happened.

For example, in 1979 two French workers were killed in an explosion in an underground laboratory. Less than three weeks later, part of Mururoa atoll collapsed in the wake of a nuclear test explosion, causing a tidal wave.

In March 1983 a hurricane was reported to have swept nuclear waste stored on Mururoa into the lagoon of the atoll and then out into the Pacific Ocean. France has denied reports in the international press that there has been an increased incidence of cancer in the local population.

French Defense Minister Charles Hernu in July 1984, based on a report by five scientists from New Zealand, Australia and Papua New Guinea who visited the atoll in 1983, claimed that "the main findings of distinguished foreign scientists, who had made a thorough, independent investigation at Mururoa, were that the tests are totally harmless for health of the Polynesians and the other peoples living in the Pacific."

In fact, the only way to determine whether cracks existed in the underwater base of Mururoa atoll would be to send deep-sea divers and scientists to the island, and allow them to inspect the whole contour of the underwater island at considerable depths. But such independent research has always been refuse by France.

There have been some researches conducted by several scientific teams. The first was in 1982 led by Haroun Tazieff, a French volcanologist. His team comprised six people, all French, and concluded that there was little risk of radioactive contamination from the underground tests at Mururoa.

When the team's findings were questioned, one of its members, Prof. Lambert, replied, "I regret that no researches have been undertaken in view of tracing the existence in the ground-water and the subsoil of radioactive".

The second group of scientists to visit the atoll in 1983 were from Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. Again, their finding suggests that radiation levels both in the Mururoa base accommodation area and in the inhabited areas of French Polynesia were lower than the world's average.

Their report, published in 1985 and later known as the Atkinson Report, also found that "cancer statistics for the region did not reveal high rates of types of cancer that might be associated with excessive exposure to radioactive fallout". But, the report stated further that as a result of underground testing the structural integrity of the upper section of the atoll was impaired and although there was no evidence of short term leakage, it could occur within a period of a thousand years.

The results of the above missions have four weaknesses. First, their findings concerning the incidence of fallout-related cancer were based on statistics supplied by the French military.

Second, the team was not allowed to take samples of the sediments from the lagoon itself. Third, no diving was done. And fourth, only surface samples of ocean water were taken.

Dissatisfied with the two findings, a third team led by Jacques Cousteau conducted further research in 1987. Cousteau and his team visited Mururoa for a five-day scientific and cinematographic mission. The team observed a nuclear test and took samples of sediment and plankton from the lagoon.

They made dives with aqualungs and in a small submarine they filmed underwater to a depth of 230 meters around the base of the atoll. Again, the report was severely criticized for not investigating at the depths where the tests occur.

Cousteau stated in his report that there was no evidence at present of dangerous radioactivity in the area. He went on to say, however, that "the atoll had been deeply cracked" and warned that the long-term was difficult to evaluate.

Following this research, various computer models were developed. Two New Zealand scientists, Dr. Mike O'Sullivan and Dr. Manfred Hochstein, have made extensive studies since 1985 to show that radioactive contamination of the environment would take place within ten to one hundred years.

The most recent study was in September 1990. Cousteau's report was further re-evaluated by American scientist Norm Buske, who confirmed that "water in Mururoa is contaminated with Cesium 134 and Cesium 137 leaking from the underground tests".

Challenging the claims that the tests are not harmful, Barak Sope, the former secretary-general of the Vanua' aku Pati (Vanuatu) and the then leader of the Melanesian Progressive Party, said, "I will only believe the French scientists that their bomb testing is safe if they decide to move their test site at Mururoa to Paris". Recently, Fiji's Minister of Education Taufa Vakatale led a demonstration in Fiji's capital, Suva, and one of the banners read "if the test is safe, conduct the test in Chirac's nose".

Nuclear tests have also some connection with French colonialism in the Pacific. France certainly does not want to leave French Polynesia and grant independence to it quickly.

This is, of course, a very complex problem and its solution would need time. A number of questions about French colonialism in French Polynesia and the testing issue in Mururoa will remain unanswered.

A long-term, independent, and thorough examination of the environmental impact of the testing program is needed. The international community should work harder to convince France that the test is seriously dangerous for the people near the sites, not today but in the future.

The writer is a graduate of Australia National University, Canberra. He has conducted research in Tahiti, French Polynesia.