News Desk
ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON: Over 100 arms-control, environmental, and other activist groups have asked the Biden administration to tender a formal apology to the Marshall Islands for the impact of the massive nuclear testing on the sprawling chain of volcanic islands in the 1940s and ’50s and to provide fair compensation.
Compensation promise
In a December 5 letter, the activists led by the Arms Control Association and including Greenpeace, Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Marshallese Education Initiative, asked US President Joe Biden to deliver on promises of nuclear justice in talks with the Marshall Islands on renewing a Compact of Free Association (COFA) that had been the basis of relations with the Pacific territory since the 1980s.
COFA provisions would expire in 2023 for the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia and with Palau in 2024.
The island nations still enjoy relations with Washington, but analysts warn a failure to reach a new agreement for economic compensation could push them to look to China for funding or increased trade.
Marshall Islanders were still plagued by the health and environmental effects of the 67 US nuclear bomb tests there from 1946 to 1958, which included “Castle Bravo” at Bikini Atoll in 1954 – the most significant US bomb ever detonated.
