Marshall Islands leader demands apology from UN for allowing nuke tests in the Pacific nation
- Admin
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 18 hours ago
By Jayvee Vallejera
Leaders of the Marshall Islands and Kiribati have pressed world leaders to achieve a nuclear-free Pacific in separate remarks at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.
Marshall Islands President Dr. Hilda Heine also called on the United Nations to apologize for its role in allowing nuclear tests at the Marshall Islands after World War II, despite the opposition of its people.
“We can’t undo the past. But as a United Nations, we owe it to ourselves to make amends through the adoption of a resolution that formally apologizes for the failure to heed the petition of the Marshallese people," she said on Sept. 24 at the 80th session of the UNGA. "By doing so, all of us will begin the process of healing and to reestablish faith and trust in this institution."
Heine said the difficult lessons of the Marshall Islands’ past and its ruinous experience with nuclear testing should help drive international efforts to curb and end nuclear threats.
“Rising global tension has only heightened nuclear risk,” she said.
To emphasize the Marshall Islands’ stance against nuclear weapons and testing, it has signed on to the Rarotonga South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, Heini said.
The treaty creates a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the South Pacific and prohibits the use, testing and possession of nuclear weapons within the area.
Treaty signatories include Australia, the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
As a nuclear-affected state, the Marshall Islands also seeks to work with other affected nations, including in Kiribati, French Polynesia, Australia, Algeria, Kazakhstan, North Korea, in the Xinjiang Province of mainland China, and within the United States, she said.
Heine said the threat of nuclear war that confronted the world in 1961 remains today, but at an even greater scale.
It is just one of a range of deep risks facing humanity—“any one of which does not bode well for the future of this world,” she added.
Kiribati President Taneti Maamau, who spoke before the UNGA that same day, reported that his country fully supports the United Nations’ push for a world free of nuclear weapons.
He said Kiribati is committed to addressing man-made disasters like the dumping of nuclear waste, radioactive water discharges, nuclear-powered submarines entering its waters and testing that poses grave risks to the ocean’s fragile health.
Kiribati supported the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, particularly in helping victims of nuclear weapons use and testing, as well as in fixing the environmental harm caused by such activities.
He said Kiribati is also working with Kazakhstan in implementing a section of the treaty that calls for international cooperation and assistance to affected states.
Maamau said Kiribati’s advocacy for a nuclear-free ocean and world is backed “by our commitment to peace and security.”
With the UN Trusteeship Council set to meet in December, Heini believes it is high time for the United Nations to apologize to the people of the Marshall Islands for the harm they have suffered from nuclear testing.
It has already been 79 years since the first nuclear test was conducted in the Marshall Islands in 1946, she said.
At this point, the UN should already acknowledge and apologize for what took place in its name and under its flag, “and for not hearing the voice of our people when we told this body to stop.”
The council’s December meeting will be a perfect time for the council to make the apology, Heine said.
“Perhaps after 34 years since our admission as a member of this body in 1991, the appropriate UN organs can help to bring healing and closure over decisions which never should have been made,” she added.
Heine said the council, which tasked the United States with administering the Marshall Islands after World War II, failed in its mandate to be the voice for the people of the islands.
She said the council ignored the pleas of Marshall Islands leaders and adopted the UN Trusteeship Resolutions 1082 and 1493, which authorized the United States to conduct nuclear tests.
Both resolutions are the only time in which any UN body has ever explicitly authorized the detonation of nuclear weapons, Heini said.
The United States conducted 67 atmospheric nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958.
“We did not choose this nuclear fate—it was chosen for us,” she said.
The tests have resulted in a legacy of death, illness and contamination, leaving behind deep scars, Heine said.
She noted that many communities are unable to return to their home islands, billions of dollars in adjudicated claims remain unpaid, and a giant burden was planted on the shoulders of the Marshall Islands’ youngest and future generations.
She pointed out that the UN itself has already recognized the ill effects of those nuclear tests, specifically with the UN Human Rights Council resolution 57/26, and as reported on by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Special Rapporteurs on Toxics and Internally Displaced Persons.
Heine concedes that the United States has already made some reparations, but significant disagreements remain, including the “ultimate responsibility” for what remains today.
“Our communities seek justice, a clean environment and a safe return to their homes,” she added, describing it as a human rights issue.
Heine's 19-minute-plus speech also touched on a variety of topics. She expressed grave concern about the extreme violence in Gaza and Israel and Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.
She called on the international community to protect the health and biodiversity of oceans, to make good on their pledges to pump money into efforts to fight climate change and sea-level rise; and to take a cautionary approach to seabed mining, among other subjects.
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