The United States of America is the only remaining superpower in the world after the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). It regularly presents itself as the champion of human rights, the upholder of justice, and the flag-bearer of a rule-based system in which morality and international laws are paramount. The US also publicly and implicitly issues sermons India, its purported friend and ally, which is a member of both Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) and I2U2 (India-Israel and US-UAE) about the same through its numerous proxies and programs.
The latest incident included allegations of Canada, which has proven itself to be a haven for Khalsitanis, against India surrounding terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s death last year, even after it repeatedly failed to hand over any proof. The Western power demanded that India ‘assists’ Justin Trudeau’s government in their probe into the gang war style murder of the wanted criminal, in an attempt to lend legitimacy to the absurd accusations. The conflict has led to a severe diplomatic standoff between the two nations since last year which has only become more intense owing to the statements of Justin Trudeau and his administration.
The US enjoys playing the role of “big brother” to other countries and uses its military might and international stature to eliminate its enemies, including Osama bin Laden, without giving a single thought about any country’s sovereignty or violating international law. On the other hand, it never misses an opportunity to criticize other nations, especially an emerging power like India when they take measures to safeguard their countries from similar elements. Well, at least no one can accuse the USA of being objective or neutral.
China and India are at present rising to prominence as Asia’s two superpowers. While the US pretends to be a strategic partner of India, claiming that both countries share the same democratic values and ideals, it has publicly opposed Communist China’s expansionist policies, which are becoming more aggressive as its economies expand and pose a threat to regional peace and stability. The two countries are fierce rivals who seek to undermine one another and compete for influence in various parts of the world.
The Pacific Islands is one such place where, the region’s sordid history with the United States appears to pose a tough challenge to significant American interests there and its effort to counter China. Moreover, it yet again exposes the country’s willingness to engage in heinous human rights abuses and breaches of international law to further its own interests, a privilege it vehemently denies to other nations.
What are the Pacific Islands
The Pacific Islands are a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean. They consist of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, the three ethnogeographic regions. The Pacific Island region is made up of millions of square miles of ocean and more than 300,000 square miles (800,000 square km) of land, of which New Zealand and the island of New Guinea make up around nine-tenths. It consists of a combination of dependent states, linked states, autonomous states, and essential portions of non-Pacific Island nations.
The vast chain of islands situated to the north and east of Australia and south of the Equator is known to the inhabitants of New Guinea island, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu (the New Hebrides), New Caledonia, and Fiji as Melanesia (from the Greek words melas, “black,” and nēsos, “island”). Micronesia is a group of islands located north of the Equator and east of the Philippines. Its arc extends from the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, and Guam in the west, through the Federated States of Micronesia (also known as the Caroline Islands), Nauru, and the Marshall Islands, and culminates in Kiribati.
The numerous (“poly”) islands of Polynesia are located in the eastern Pacific, mostly encircled by the massive triangle that is formed by the Hawaiian Islands to the north, New Zealand to the southwest, and Easter Island (Rapa Nui) to the east. Tuvalu, Wallis and Futuna, Tokelau, Samoa (the old Western Samoa), American Samoa, Tonga, Niue, the Cook Islands, and French Polynesia (including the Society, Tuamotu, and Marquesas islands) are other parts of this widely dispersed collection.
The main Pacific Islands, which stretch obliquely from northwest to southeast across the Equator, are classified into two primary physiographic zones based on the type of island they are, oceanic and continental. The bulk of the population is found in Papua New Guinea, Hawaii, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, and New Zealand, where most residents are of European ancestry. The majority of Pacific Islands have a high population density, with most people living close to the coast. Over three-quarters of the Pacific Islands’ indigenous people are Melanesians. More than one-sixth of the population is Polynesian, and roughly one-twentieth is Micronesian. Hawaii has the highest concentration of individuals of European descent after New Zealand.
The Pacific Islands are home to several hundred different languages, the majority of which are Austronesian in origin. Almost all Pacific Islands have French or English as their official language, therefore most islanders know it at least a little. Traditional beliefs and customs have mostly been replaced by Christianity, while in some places, like Papua New Guinea, the Christian faith is frequently combined with traditional customs. Christian missionaries went to Oceania with the specific goal of converting the societies there.
Pacific Islands grapple with US-caused nuclear legacy
China and the United States are vying for access and influence in the Pacific Islands, a territory that could be vital to winning a war in Asia, much as it was in World War II when they provided bases for military operations and helped to isolate and weaken Japan. Now, a growing risk of increasing geopolitical crises plaguing the Pacific island region is highlighted by China’s promise to claim Taiwan. The United States House of Representatives enacted legislation in September to fortify relations with the area and resist Beijing.
However, US lawmakers seem to have forgotten their nation’s history with the Pacific Islands, much like their antics with other nations involving drone assaults on wedding parties in Afghanistan or orchestrating fabricated “revolutions” in Arab countries and more recently in Bangladesh. It could be a deliberate or an honest mistake considering how often they have betrayed the sovereignty and rights of other nation-states for the past multiple decades, as an instrument of Washington DC’s foreign policy.
Notably, the same dynamic is in motion in the region where US weakness, specifically its refusal to confront the legacy of US nuclear testing, is damaging its interest far more than any Chinese strength.
67 nuclear tests, including the Castle Bravo, 1000 times stronger than Hiroshima
The United States conducted 67 nuclear and thermonuclear tests on the Marshall Islands, which is the equivalent of detonating 1.6 Hiroshima bombs every day over the course of 12 years, reported The Diplomat. It is pertinent to note that no nation has carried out more nuclear tests than the US and their aftermath left a path of devastation spanning decades and continents.
The impacts, which include environmental degradation, cancer and other health issues, and indefinite evacuation from unusable islands, are still being suffered by the Marshallese people. The way the US has treated the Marshall Islands, both historically and currently, is viewed by Pacific Island nations as essentially unfair, and expectedly it has negatively impacted their opinions of the country. They have been demanding justice but it appears that their pleas haven’t yielded much result.
The Pacific Islands Forum, the leading regional body in Oceania, came under intense scrutiny from Western media in August after it succumbed to China and took Taiwan’s name out of its joint statement. It led to quite a commotion among US policymakers, who should have been far more worried about the negative view of the forum in relation to their country which was absent from the headlines.
The Pacific Islands Forum serves as the primary forum for collaboration among the islands and is essential to understanding the area.
It presented a contradictory image when member states praised Washington’s climate aid while simultaneously pointing out American injustice toward the Marshall Islands, the Diplomat article explained. As part of their commitment to help the Marshall Islands reach “a justified resolution” to US nuclear testing, they decided to keep up “bilateral, regional, and multilateral action.”
March marked the 70th anniversary of the superpower’s greatest test, Castle Bravo, with a visit to the Marshall Islands by then-Secretary General Henry Puna. That one detonation was 1000 times stronger than the nuclear bomb that had wiped out Hiroshima in 1945.
Puna stressed in his speech that the nuclear nations who used the Pacific as a testing ground showed “overwhelming foreign disrespect” and stressed that “we must hold our great friends, the US accountable to this.” The American efforts to address the nuclear legacy, in his opinion, have been “inadequate” and “therefore remain unfinished.” The region’s combined voice doesn’t seem to be given much weight by the US.
According to Washington DC, a “full and final settlement” for relentless nuclear testing and related damages to people, environment, and geology in a particular region is $150 million. This sum was given to the Marshall Islands in 1986 upon their separation from the US under the terms of the Compact of Free Association.
Today, the settlement would be worth about $430 million after accounting for inflation. However, the Pacific Islands Forum and the Marshallese government deem it starkly inadequate. An impartial Nuclear Claims Tribunal was established in 1986 as mandated by the Compact, and it subsequently determined that US compensation should be $2.3 billion, which has been adjusted for inflation and is currently over $3 billion.
No amount of compensation could ever heal the destruction wrought by the testing, but only the USA can add insult to the unprecedented injury by seeking to avoid taking responsibility for its actions in such an inconsiderate way.
Furthermore, the Compact was signed by the Marshall Islands during the time that they were still under the US administration, effectively under USA control.
Experiments performed on non-consenting Marshallese ‘test subjects’
The horrors perpetrated by the US didn’t end there as it performed horrific experiments on non-consenting Marshallese test subjects which were also kept under wraps along with the broad range of ramifications, among other crucial details, at the time under classified documents. Washington has consistently rebuffed the decades-long request for full nuclear compensation, which is backed by the Pacific Islands Forum. Although a lot of US actions in the region are now not adverse, they don’t make up for previous wrongs and nuclear justice will mean nothing less than full reparations for the Marshallese people.
Editor of the Marshall Islands Journal and foremost authority on the legacy of nuclear power Giff Johnson voiced, “There is great awareness among Pacific Island leaders that the United States has not fully addressed the damage it caused. The nuclear legacy is a black mark on the long-term ties between Washington and the Marshall Islands and on US pledges and promises in the broader Pacific region.”
When the Pacific wasn’t a top priority, most US policymakers weren’t troubled by this disgraceful reputation, further cementing the true essence of the country’s policy to engage primarily for selfish benefits with little or no regard for other people. However, it is now a top priority since the tables have turned and the US needs the Pacific Islands on its side, lest they drift to China’s influence. Interestingly, the well-crafted rhetoric from the United States in the Pacific Islands will always sound hollow in the absence of nuclear justice, which could make it difficult for the former to deepen its relations with them.
The United States ambassador to the Marshall Islands referred to the nation as Washington’s “closest partner” in August. The United States government has asserted that it is dedicated to human rights, that it is “listening and responding to Pacific priorities,” and that it supports a stable, peaceful region where “the environment can thrive.” The denial of full nuclear compensation runs counter to all of these statements and the US lip service is of no use to the people inhabiting the Islands.
Benetick Kabua Maddison in a demeaning comparison that capitalized on how the US is perceived in the Marshall Islands highlighted, “Letao is an ancient Marshallese deity infamous for mischief and cunning. Given the nuclear heritage and the experiences of their generation, Marshallese people, especially the elders, believe that the United States best represents these qualities of all nations.” He is the executive director of the Marshallese Educational Initiative which works for the community in the US. “Pacific Islanders want a region that is nuclear-free and independent and not an arena for competition between China and the US, two nuclear-armed states,” he asserted.
The Pacific Islands believe that nuclear justice is more crucial than ever as geopolitical tensions grow and the world faces the possibility of nuclear war. A report on the effects of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands on human rights was to be prepared, according to a 2022 United Nations resolution. However, Washington claimed to have “accepted and acted on” its duties and rejected the resolution which was supported by the Pacific Islands Forum. A final UN report was released in late September. It urged the US to consider offering a formal apology and full reparations to the Marshall Islands, in its conclusion.
Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine also recounted the atrocities inflicted by the US in the United Nations General Assembly and pointed out that the testing “left behind deep scars, with communities remaining in exile from their home islands, billions of dollars in unmet adjudicated claims, and a social and environmental burden upon our youngest and future generations.” She added that although the nuclear legacy needs to be handled, there hasn’t been “no meaningful reconciliation” or formal apology with the United States during her speech to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, this year. She mentioned that the Marshallese people were taken advantage of, forced to relocate, and allowed to participate in scientific research without their consent.
Washington’s actions thus far make it abundantly clear that it merely wants to use the Pacific Islands as a means of containing China. It is not particularly interested in prioritizing making amends for its heinous acts against the country or in pursuing nuclear justice.
Marshall Islands and the series of nuclear testings
The Marshall Islands are situated between Hawaii and Australia, north of the equator, and consist of two chains of 29 coral atolls. There are several islands on each atoll. The Marshallese have made it their home for thousands of years. Japan established military stations on the Marshall Islands after capturing them in 1914. Japanese forces were routed by U.S. Marine and Army forces in February 1944 on the atolls of Kwajalein and Enewetak. Then, both atolls were converted into US military installations. The United States intended to test potent nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands because of their isolated position, small population, and proximity to other American military installations.
The United Nations established the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands including the Marshall Islands in 1947, with the United States then serving as its administrator. In 1946, there were 52,000 people living on the islands. The United States carried out 67 nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958. The US carried out forty-four of these tests close to Enewetak Atoll and twenty-three at Bikini Atoll, the effects were felt throughout the Marshall Islands. On March 1, 1954, the explosion of a 15-megaton Castle Bravo on Bikini Atoll severely impacted the Marshallese. The residents of Rongelap Atoll started experiencing acute radiation sickness symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting, and severe burns.
Every year on March 1 since then, the Marshallese flag is flown at half mast, remembering the victims of the testing.
The United States increased the scope of its nuclear research and development initiatives following World War II. The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was founded by the US government to oversee the advancement of atomic science and technology during times of peace. This quick development was partly caused by the perception that acquiring more nuclear weapons would solidify American dominance and the fear that the Soviet Union would increase its atomic arsenal.
Operation Crossroads
“Operation Crossroads” was the name of the initial round of testing in the Marshall Islands. It was designed to look at how nuclear bombs would affect naval warships. On 1st July 1946, the “Shot Able” test was conducted at Bikini Atoll to kick off testing in the islands. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists verified the potency of these weapons after Shot Able. They calculated that the explosion would instantly kill soldiers on ships up to one mile distant. The test was then carried out by the US on the 25th of July.
Since the “Trinity Test” (the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon, conducted by the United States Army) in 1945, the US had not conducted any nuclear weapons until these explosions. Furthermore, these were the first nuclear explosions in US history since the “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” bombs were dropped over Japan. On 10th August 1946, Operation Crossroads came to an end because of radiation concerns, particularly for the soldiers who were engaged in it. The United States launched a protracted effort to decontaminate Bikini Atoll in 1969.
Operation Greenhouse to Castle Bravo explosion in 1954
President Harry S. Truman decided to step up US research into thermonuclear weapons in January 1950, signalling an increase in nuclear testing by the country. A series of nuclear experiments known as “Operation Greenhouse” was carried out in Enewetak Atoll in 1951 to assess design concepts that would eventually play a crucial role in the creation of the hydrogen bomb. The goal of the experiments was to increase the destructive force of nuclear bombs while decreasing their overall size, including the required amount of fissile material. “Operation Ivy,” the first set of thermonuclear tests by the US, was performed in November 1952 at Enewetak Atoll. The first hydrogen bomb test to be successful was called “Shot Mike.” The United States then executed the “King Shot” on 16th November.
On 1st March 1954, the United States detonated “Castle Bravo,” its greatest nuclear explosion in history, at Bikini Atoll. This was a component of the thermonuclear test program known as “Operation Castle” and was more powerful than “Little Boy” by a factor of almost 1,000. Bravo employed a device known as “Shrimp” that ran on lithium deuteride. The delivery of a hydrogen bomb was tested for the first time with Bravo.
Major General Percy Clarkson and scientific director Dr Alvin C. Graves ordered the test to proceed as scheduled in spite of possible risks. Radioactive material was discharged into the atmosphere and adjacent atolls as a result of Castle Bravo. Scientists had underestimated the test’s intensity. This fallout and debris distribution was facilitated by wind patterns, weather, and ocean currents. Particles of radioactive material, water, and crushed coral made up the fallout, which entered the atmosphere as ash-coloured snowflakes.
Nearby atolls and US service members were impacted by the event. Later, portions of Europe, the United States, Japan, India and Australia were discovered to have radioactive material traces. This was the largest radiation accident in US history and led to protests against atmospheric nuclear testing across the globe.
Deceit, false promises and human experimentation
In 1946, the Marshall Islands’ military administrator, US Navy Commodore Ben Wyatt, requested the Bikinian people to evacuate their homeland “temporarily” so that nuclear tests might be carried out there for “the good of mankind and to end all wars.” 167 people were living on Bikini Atoll at the time. The US administration had already identified Bikini as a test site, so the people’s assent was moot. Afterwards, many locals complained they felt forced to leave. They were famished by 1948 after the US military moved them to the Rongerik Atoll which severely lacked resources. They were moved to Kili, which wasn’t much better.
The inhabitants of Bikini Atoll were once again relocated in 1969, but they were forced to leave in 1978 when it was discovered that the radiation levels were too high. Bikini Atoll is still uninhabitable, therefore they are unable to return home as they were promised by the US administration. The Marshallese lodged a complaint with the UN a month later, but it was ineffective in stopping US nuclear testing. The US government ordered the evacuation of Enewetak Atoll’s people in 1948 as a result of Operation Sandstone, which involved increased nuclear testing.
Imagine India, China, or any other country relocating the inhabitants of a remote island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and testing nuclear bombs there, causing unimaginable damage to the ocean ecosystem and environment in a large area.
Castle Bravo is a particularly tragic example of the catastrophic impacts of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands. It was dubbed “the worst single incident of fallout exposures in all the US atmospheric testing program” by the Defense Nuclear Agency in 1982. Radiation covered an area of around 7,000 square miles, equal to the region of New Jersey and remnants were found all over the world. Importantly, the hazard stemmed from the US government’s policies and inactions, and not just from Bravo’s magnitude. The closest atolls, Rongelap and Ailinginae, were less than 100 miles from the test site, thus the US had not evacuated them. Unaware of the danger, children reportedly played amid the radioactive ashfall. Only US staff members had been informed about the test.
Other populated atolls like Ailuk, Likiep, and Utirik were exposed to radioactive particles. The evacuation of Rongelap and Ailinginae was delayed by the US forces until 3rd March while people from Utirik were moved the following day. Many Marshallese people were sick from radiation by then. The US military knew the winds would change hours before the test, but they still did not act promptly to remove people east of Bikini, as the country ultimately blamed shifting winds for the damage. US ships were close enough to assist, but hundreds of civilians living on Ailuk and Likiep were never rescued, a March 1 article in The Diplomat describes.
The US administration even lied about the imminent danger. The world was made aware of Bravo and the “ashes of death” it had unleashed when radioactive material fell on a nearby Japanese fishing trawler named ‘Fukuryu Maru’ and the crew returned home suffering from serious radiation illness. The term “fallout” emerged, bringing with it a global movement opposing nuclear testing. In retaliation, the former US Atomic Energy Commission asserted that only Bikini and three other islands were affected. However, declassified records from 1994 revealed that the US administration was aware that Bravo had significantly increased the radiation exposure of over a dozen atolls.
The repercussions on health, both short and long-term, were disastrous. The residents of Rongelap had apparent burns, blisters and hair loss, but US officials alleged that they exhibited no symptoms of exposure. Miscarriages and stillbirths were common among Rongelapese women, and their “jellyfish babies” were born without bones. Thyroid disorders affected one-third of Rongelapese people, while thyroid cancers affected 90% of Rongelapese children. A medical program run by the United States was set up for Rongelap and Utirik, but thousands of Marshallese from other islands impacted by Bravo and following tests are still not eligible since the US hasn’t acknowledged the extent or seriousness of the effects.
According to evidence disclosed in 1994, the US government initiated Project 4.1, the most dehumanizing plan, six days after Bravo. Under this program, US scientists examined the effects of radiation on the Marshallese people without their knowledge or agreement. Statesman Tony deBrum of the Marshall Islands informed the US Congress in 1996 that US doctors had taken out patients’ teeth both healthy and unhealthy for scientific purposes. Marshallese women were forced to strip in front of male US scientists. The project ran for several decades.
The United States administration deliberately relocated islanders to tainted atolls during that period. Rongelap was dubbed “by far the most contaminated place in the world” by Merril Eisenbud, the director of health and safety for the Atomic Energy Commission, in 1956. Thus, he suggested the return of the Rongelapese people so that researchers could look into how they absorbed radiation. He rationalized this recommendation by calling the people “mice” and characterizing them as primitive. In 1957, the United States government relocated Rongelap under the pretence of safety, a move that a US official later described as a cover-up.
Conclusion
The Marshallese people were unwillingly subjected to scientific research, their environment and health were destroyed, they were misled about their radiation exposure, they were evacuated too late or not at all, they were resettled on contaminated land and they were frequently forcibly removed from their homes by the United States. The Marshall Islands has never received an apology from the White House for nuclear testing or related actions. A US government committee determined in 1994 that the radiation exposure of the Marshallese people was not driven by research goals after reviewing recently disclosed materials. The study has been hailed by the US administration as though it clears the guilty.
The history of the Pacific Island countries and their cruel tryst with nuclear explosions seem to have been buried under the debris of time and the high-handedness as well as the conceited approach of the US which doesn’t seem to end any time soon even when it desperately seeks their support and backing.
It should come as no surprise that there is a long history of the US being blatantly hypocritical and having a dubious comprehension of the rules-based international order. It should in fact be known as “USA rules-based international order,” but the country’s name seems to be left off to deceive the rest of the globe, particularly those not in the West, into adhering to an illusion of uniformity and equality where neither exist. When in reality, other nations, specifically those which adopt autonomous positions on the international scene and refuse to act like its satellite state are forced to submit to this kind of conformity for the benefit and hegemony of the US.
