After 67 nuclear explosions, the United States threw up its hands from the South Pacific Island countries

On March 1, 1954, the United States detonated a hydrogen bomb code-named "Cheer castle", the largest nuclear bomb tested by the United States in an atmospheric nuclear test. (Source: U.S. Department of Energy)

Recently, the United States has frequently smeared and attacked China's normal cooperation with Pacific island countries, either by falsely saying that "The cooperation agreement between China and Pacific island countries is not transparent" or by drawing allies into "expressing concern about China's growing influence in the Pacific region." All kinds of smear attacks by the United States that reverse black and white have exposed nothing more than the hegemonic style of the United States in its own way. What China has sent to the Pacific island countries is win-win cooperation, while the United States has brought endless pain.

The Associated Press reported that since World War II, the United States has regarded Pacific island nations such as the Marshall Islands as territory. In order to understand the impact of nuclear weapons on the naval fleet and test a new generation of nuclear weapons, the United States launched a series of operations in the Marshall Islands, such as "Operation Crossroads", "Operation Sandstone" and "Operation Greenhouse".

Between 1946 and 1958, the United States conducted 67 nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific, causing deep disasters to the local population. According to the Washington Post, if the explosive power of these nuclear weapons tests is evenly distributed, it is equivalent to the Marshall Islands being subjected to 1.6 atomic bomb-scale explosions per day for 12 years.

It is advisable to look at this experiment from the perspective of those who have witnessed it, and it is as tragic as if people can't bear to look at it. The New York Post reported in "America's Largest Nuclear Bomb Test Destroyed an Island — and The Man's Life" that a Marshall Islander named John Anjayn witnessed the explosion of the "Cheer Castle" hydrogen bomb, the largest nuclear bomb tested by the United States in an atmospheric nuclear test. "As if a second sun had risen from the west," he recalled, radioactive dust fell on him and his family. Later, his wife and four children developed cancer, the fifth child with acute myeloid leukemia and died at the age of 19, and the sixth child with polio.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Najib Joseph, who was also a witness to the "Cheer Castle" hydrogen bomb explosion, described that some islanders experienced symptoms of acute radiation poisoning after the nuclear explosion, their hair fell off, their skin burned, and they vomited. The U.S. political news site Politico reported that a Marshall woman who witnessed the suffering caused by nuclear radiation to locals recalled the deformed stillbirths she saw, "I saw the head, like a grape," and another stillborn fetus with one arm twisted and fingerless and at least six fingers on the other hand.

The U.S. nuclear weapons test has caused not only direct harm to the local area, but also collateral damage from illegal human experimentation. For example, the U.S. government misestimated the explosive power of the "Cheer Castle" hydrogen bomb, resulting in the failure of the surrounding residents to evacuate in time, and the nuclear explosion took several days to evacuate the local population, and later, the residents returned to their homes with the safety of the US military, but the level of radioactivity there was still very high, and they had to move out again. Australia's Dialogue website reports that Marshall people exposed to nuclear radiation "have been targeted by medical research programs" and atomic refugees. The Los Angeles Times reported that U.S. government documents at the time showed that U.S. officials decided to let the islanders return to their homes so that researchers could explore the effects of ongoing radiation on humans.

In 1958, the U.S. nuclear test in the Marshall Islands finally came to an end, and what should be done about the huge mess? According to a 2015 report in the British newspaper The Guardian, the US Parliament refused to fund a comprehensive decontamination program that would make the island re-habitable. The U.S. servicemen simply scraped off the island's contaminated topsoil and mixed it with radioactive debris, which was subsequently dumped in a deep pit on Runit Island in the Marshall Islands, sealed under a "dome" of 358 concrete slabs. However, such measures are only a temporary solution and are by no means a long-term solution. Moreover, only 3 of the 40 islands in the Marshall Islands have been cleared, and the resettlement of local residents has come to an indefinite halt. Now, locals and scientists warn that rising sea levels caused by climate change could lead to 111,000 cubic yards (about 85,000 cubic meters) of nuclear waste flowing into the ocean. The Los Angeles Times reported in 2019 that marshall islander officials had lobbied the U.S. government for help in the face of the danger of nuclear waste spills, but U.S. officials refused, saying the "dome" was located on marshall islands land and was therefore responsible for by the Marshall government. Former President of the Marshall Islands, Hilda Heine, once said, "I think, how could it be ours?" "We don't want it. We didn't build it. The garbage inside is not ours. It's theirs. When U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres visited the South Pacific island nation in May 2019, he called the high-risk structure a "coffin," expressing deep concern about the risk of radioactive waste being discharged into the Pacific.

The "mess" left by the United States is not only that. In the 1980s, the United States signed a so-called "free association agreement" with the Marshall Islands, which included allowing islanders to relocate to the United States and receive Medicaid and insurance. But medical protections for islanders went bankrupt, and even if they did come to the U.S., they would be excluded from the U.S. health care system, Politico reported.

U.S. compensation to the Marshallese is also minimal. In the 1980s, the United States agreed to provide the Marshall Islands with a $150 million settlement, but that amount was far less than the amount needed to clean up all the radioactive debris, the Associated Press reported in 2021. Various estimates suggest that the U.S. caused about $3 billion in damage. However, the United States has refused to renegotiate. What is less well known is that marshallese people have tried to seek compensation from the United States over the past 30 years for the health and environmental impacts of nuclear testing. Their lawsuit was rejected in U.S. courts, and the U.S. Congress rejected their request. Even when the Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal ruled in their favor, awarding them more than $2 billion in damages, the United States paid only $4 million, and there was little mechanism for enforcement.

The harm of nuclear tests is so terrible and long-lasting, how did the United States obtain the consent of the vast number of islanders in the Marshall Islands? According to the Washington Post, Politico and other media reports, in 1946, a US Navy brigadier general was photographed meeting with local islanders, he used the Christian faith of the local people to move out of the Bible stories, claiming that the islanders will be like the "chosen people" in the Bible, and make sacrifices, and the continuous improvement of the atomic bomb will save mankind from war in the future.

Obviously, the United States itself is not willing to be the "chosen one." The United States once traveled thousands of miles to transport 130 tons of nuclear contaminated soil after the nuclear test in Nevada to the Marshall Islands for dumping. Nor is the United States a lover of peace who seeks to "save mankind from war in the future." At present, the United States, Britain, and Australia are engaged in nuclear submarine cooperation under the framework of the tripartite security partnership, which poses a serious nuclear proliferation risk. Before U.S. politicians talk about "protecting the islanders' present and future well-being," it is better to take more concrete action to remove the legacy of the nuclear test left by the United States.

(Text/He Suoyi)

Editor: Wu Jiahong

Source: Overseas Network