Hardships and Consequential Damages from Radioactive Contamination, Denied Use, Exile, and Human Subject Experimentation Experienced by the People of Rongelap, Rongerik, and Ailinginae Atolls

Prepared at the request of:
Bill Graham, Public Advocate
Nuclear Claims Tribunal
P.O. Box 702
Majuro, Republic of the Marshall Islands 96960

Submitted by:

Barbara Rose Johnston, Ph.D.
Senior Research Fellow
Center for Political Ecology
P.O. Box 8467
Santa Cruz, California 95061
And
Holly M. Barker, Ph.D.
Senior Advisor to the Ambassador
Republic of the Marshall Islands
Washington DC, 20008

September 17, 2001

											      page
TABLE OF CONTENTS									2
											         
PART ONE:  INTRODUCTION	
1.	Introduction										3
2.	Summary of Relevant Findings							4
3.	Research Concerns									7
4.	Research Methods									8
5.	Report Framework									11

PART TWO:  CHAIN OF EVENTS AND CRITICAL ISSUES OF CONCERN 
1.	Introduction 										12
2.	Evacuation from Rongelap to Lae in 1946						12
3.	Damage and Continued Loss of Access to Rongerik					14
4.	The Bravo Event										15
5.	Relocation from Rongelap to Kwajalein in 1954					20
6.	Project 4.1 Research on Kwajalein							22
7.	Relocation from Kwajalein to Ejit							25
8.	Long-term Human Subject Research Plans, Priorities, and Policies		26
9.	Difficulties of Life in A Contaminated Setting					32
10.	Degenerative Health and Healthcare Issues on Rongelap				41
11.	Human Subject Research Experiences						55
12.	Evacuation of Rongelap in 1985 							60
13.	Current Conditions 									61

PART THREE:  LOSS OF A HEALTHY, SUSTAINABLE WAY OF LIFE
1.	Introduction										79
2.	Valuing Land from a Marshallese Perspective					79
3.	Land and Sea Tenure									80
4.	Rules Governing Access and Use Rights						82
5.	Cultural Land and Seascapes								87
6.	Spiritual Values of Land and Seascape						89
7.	Environmental Knowledge and Sustainable Resource Use				92
8.	Flexible Patterns of Resource Use  							99
9.	Taboos and Resource Management						           101
10.	Concluding Discussion								           102

PART FOUR:  SUMMARY OF DAMAGES, NEEDS, COMPENSATION CONCERNS
1.	Claims by the People of Rongelap for Hardship and Related Consequential       
Damage and Injuries of the Nuclear Weapons Testing Program		           105
2.	Consequences of these Events and Injuries					           108
3.	Compensation Concerns							            113
4.	Research Needs									           	118
5.	Ideas for Remedial Action							           120

PART FIVE:  CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
1.	Violations of Trustee Relationships 							124
2.	Statements of Culpability								125
3.	Reparations 										127
4.	Relevant Case Precedents								128
5.	Recommendations for Categories of Concern in this Claim			137
6.	Concluding Remarks								           145

PART ONE:
INTRODUCTION
1.	Introduction
2.	Summary of Relevant Findings
3.	Research Concerns
4.	Research Methods
5.	Report Framework

1.  Introduction 
The United States Nuclear Testing Program was conducted in the Marshall Islands from 1946 through 1958.  The United States Government detonated atomic and thermonuclear weapons with the aim of achieving world peace through a deterrence policy.  The Marshallese subsidized this nuclear detente with their lands, health, lives, and future.  The United States Nuclear Testing Program inflicted nuclear war conditions on a fragile atoll ecosystem and vulnerable population.  The Marshallese, despite appeals to the United Nations, were powerless to stop the testing and unprepared to address the proliferation of problems resulting from the testing.  

This report presents findings from a collaborative, participatory environmental anthropology research project exploring the human environmental impacts of nuclear testing, contamination, and exile as experienced by the people of Rongelap, Ailinginae, and Rongerik Atolls.  Data from ethnographic research and a review of the scientific literature supports findings that nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands resulted in contamination, short and long-term exposure to radioactive substances, and alienation from land and other critical resources.  Nuclear testing destroyed the physical means to sustain and reproduce a self-sufficient way of life for the people of Rongelap.  Radioactive contamination and involuntary relocation radically altered health, subsistence strategies, sociopolitical organization, and community integrity.  A lifetime of service as human subjects in a wide range of biomedical experiments further harmed the health and psychosocial well being of the people of Rongelap.  This report argues that the full extent of damage and injury and the consequences of this damage and injury must be considered when attempting to shape compensatory and remediative responses.  Compensatory actions must reflect individual injuries and experiences, including pain, suffering, and hardship.  Compensatory actions must also reflect the corporate experience of the people of Rongelap whose health, vitality and way of life have been fundamentally altered by the United States Nuclear Weapons Testing Program.  

Evidence presented in this report support claims for compensation for:
(1)	Social, cultural, economic, and political hardships and injuries experienced by the population of Rongelap as a result of the loss -- through (a) involuntary relocation and through (b) extensive contamination of terrestrial and marine resources -- of the material basis to sustain a healthy, self-sufficient way of life;
(2)	Psychosocial stigmatization, pain and suffering experienced by the people of Rongelap as a result of their acute and long-term exposures to United States Nuclear Weapons fallout;
(3)	The pain and suffering endured by members of the Rongelap community as a result of (a) their involvement in long term studies on the effects of radiation, and (b) their use as human subjects in a range of isolated experiments that had nothing to do with their individual health and treatment needs;
(4)	Natural resource damages and socioeconomic stigmatization experienced by the people of Rongelap, and the broader nation, as a result of contamination produced by the United States Nuclear Weapons Program.

2.  Summary of Relevant Findings
•	The people of Rongelap experienced involuntary displacement from Rongelap and Ailinginae Atolls when physically removed from their atolls (March – May 1946; 1954-1957).  When people returned to their atolls they lost access to a viable healthy ecosystem (thus, displaced from their ability and rights to safely live in their environment in the years between 1957-1985).  They became exiles (1985-present) when finally informed of the life-threatening contamination levels in their homeland.

•	Families were deprived of their right to live and use lands on Rongerik Atoll.   Rongerik Atoll was taken for United States Naval use following World War II and used as a weather and fallout tracking station during the Nuclear Testing Program (1946-1958).  The United States Navy, without permission or compensation, used Rongerik as a resettlement site for the Bikinians (1946-1948).  And, in 1957 when the Rongelap community was resettled on Rongelap and Ailinginae, all access and subsistence use of Rongerik Atoll was prohibited by the United States due to severe contamination from nuclear weapons fallout.  

•	Exposure concerns involve much more than the exposure to radiation and fallout from a singular testing event in 1954.  Exposure concerns involve the persistent presence of contamination from 67 atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands.  This contamination includes radioactive elements released through nuclear explosions, as well as tracer chemicals, such as arsenic, used to “fingerprint” the fallout from each weapon.  The people of Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae were not only exposed to external radiation and other toxic substances from fallout, but more significantly, from internal ingestion -- breathing dust and smoke from household and garden fires, drinking water, consuming terrestrial and marine food sources, living in houses and using the material culture fashioned from contaminated materials.  

•	“Exposed” people of Rongelap include those living on Rongelap and Ailinginae in 1954 who were exposed to Bravo and other test fallout; those who were resettled in 1957; those who were born on the contaminated atoll; those who were exposed to materials and food originating from Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae atolls; and, the descendents of people exposed to radioactive contaminants.  Given the synergistic, cumulative and genetic effects of long-term exposure to radioactive isotopes and other environmental contamination from military testing, exposure is of concern to this and future generations.

•	The people of Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae, with other Marshallese, served as unwitting subjects in a series of experiments designed to take advantage of the research opportunities accompanying exposure of a distinct human population to radiation.  Human subject research involving the Marshallese was initially funded by the AEC in 1951 in an effort to document “spontaneous mutation rates” to better estimate the genetic effects of radiation produced through the Nuclear Weapons Testing Program.  Research on the human effects of radiation was intensively conducted beginning in March 1954, with efforts to document the physiological symptoms of American servicemen and Marshallese natives exposed to fallout from Bravo test.  Initial findings from this and other biological research projects helped shape the goals and approach to an integrated long-term study on the human and environmental effects of nuclear weapons fallout that began in 1954 and was continued by Brookhaven National Laboratory until 1998.  

•	The people of Rongelap believe, and the documentary record confirms, that the United States was aware of the extraordinary levels of fallout of Bravo and subsequent tests and continuing levels of radioactivity, was aware of contamination in the marine as well as terrestrial ecosystem, was aware of the bioaccumulative nature of contamination, noted radiation-induced changes in vegetative and marine life that islanders relied upon for food, monitored the increased radiation burdens of the resettled people returned to Rongelap in 1957, and documented the human health consequences of this systematic and cumulative exposure.  Medical exams, especially in the 1950s to early 1970s, were surveys meant to document bioaccumulation processes and the physiological symptoms related to radiation exposure, rather than clinical efforts to treat the various health conditions of the people of Rongelap.  Periodic “Medical Surveys” also subjected the people of Rongelap to procedures that produced biological samples in support of a wide range of experiments, many of which had little or no connection to the individual health and treatment needs of the people of Rongelap.  Various human subject experimentation also occurred during medical treatment trips to research laboratories based in the United States.  Ethnographic and documentary evidence demonstrates that these human subject experiences were painful, abusive, and traumatic.

•	In addition to biophysical injuries, exposure to the environmental hazards generated by the United States Nuclear Testing Program (and related biomedical research) resulted in stigmatization and other psychosocial injuries that adversely affected individuals, the community, and the nation.  Nuclear testing introduced new taboos where certain lands and certain foods were off limits, where marriage to certain people involved new social stigmas, where birthing presented new fears and health risks, and where family life often involved the psychological, social and economic burden of caring for the chronically ill and disabled.  The failure of the United States Government to provide the Rongelap people with accurate information concerning environmental hazards and risks, coupled with contradictory pronouncements on what is and is not safe, created taboos that were incomprehensible, yet dominated living conditions after the onset of testing in the Marshall Islands.  This transformation in the loci of control over “taboos” from a Marshallese cultural realm to a United States scientific realm undermined rules and the customary power structures that shaped, interpreted, and reproduced strategies for living in the Marshall Islands.  The fear of nuclear contamination and the personal health and intergenerational effects from exposure, color all aspects of social, cultural, economic, and psychological well-being.  This imposed stigmatization adversely affects the economy, society, family, and individual health and well being of the people of Rongelap, Ailinginae, and Rongerik, and to varying degrees, the entire nation.  

•	After leaving Rongelap and Ailinginae Atolls in 1985, the Rongelap community faced severe hardships as they struggled to rebuild some semblance of community in Mejatto, Majuro, Ebeye, and other locations.  Involuntary resettlement placed hundreds of people on small bits of rented land, creating extremely dense, unsanitary, and impoverished communities.  The Rongelap community represents some 8% of the total Marshall Islands population, and while an estimated 48% of the nation is able to support household needs through agricultural production, the Rongelap community is alienated from land and the traditional resources needed to survive.  This loss of access affects diet, health, and household economy.  Extremely dense residential patterns created by communities of exiles living on rented land has created or exacerbated terrestrial and marine pollution.  The impoverished condition of the Rongelap community has intensified local resource use, and the ecosystemic viability of host island environs has been degraded.  Restricted access to critical resources inhibits the ability to teach younger generations the means to sustain a self-sufficient way of life.  Loss of access to customary lands further inhibits efforts to transmit key information across the generations, knowledge that is essential to the survival of the community if they are ever to return to customary lands.  These social, cultural, economic, and environmental problems of urbanization are linked to the contamination and loss of lands and are consequential damages from nuclear testing.  

•	Nuclear testing destroyed the means to sustain a self-sufficient way of life for the people of Rongelap.  Customary uses of Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae atolls encompassed a rich range of social, cultural, economic activities, values, and meanings that allowed a vibrant, marine-based, self-sufficient and sustainable way of life.  Current and customary laws, traditions, and subsistence production patterns involve an inherited system of rights to both terrestrial and marine resources.  The consequential damages of contamination from the Nuclear Weapons Test Program affects both terrestrial and marine ecosystems, including the natural and cultural resources that sustain life.  Thus, damage assessments and compensatory actions need to include consideration of lagoon, reef heads, clam beds, reef fisheries, turtle and bird nesting grounds.  Damage assessments and compensatory actions also need to address the loss of those resources important for sustaining the social and cultural aspects of life including family cemeteries, burial sites of past iroij, sacred sites and sanctuaries, and morjinkot land.  Because sustainable subsistence production requires access to multiple locations to survive without overusing the resource base, clean up and resettlement of the main island of Rongelap Atoll is not sustainable without restoration of all of Rongelap's islands and Rongerik and Ailinginae atolls.  Compensatory actions should reflect a commitment to replace, restore, or create new means to sustain a self-sufficient way of life.  

•	Nuclear testing created environmental hazards, health problems, hardships and other consequential damages that will persist for decades to come.  Compensatory actions should incorporate principles of nuclear stewardship and provide sufficient funds, facilities, expertise, and training to allow the people of the Marshall Islands the means and ability to conduct their own intergenerational epidemiological surveys, environmental risk assessments, develop culturally appropriate environmental risk management strategies (including monitoring contamination levels and remediating terrestrial and marine ecosystems), and provide intergenerational medical care.  
3.   Research Concerns
This research project was initiated at the request of Bill Graham, Public Advocate for the Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal who sought anthropological input on culturally-appropriate strategies for assessing the value of land in a non-market environment for the purposes of awarding just compensation for damages incurred on Rongelap, Rongerik, and Ailinginae atolls as a result of the United States Nuclear Weapons Testing Program; and, the consequential damages and losses experienced by the people of Rongelap as a result of the United States Nuclear Weapons Testing Program.  Research was conducted by Environmental Anthropologist Barbara Rose Johnston (Principal Investigator and Senior Research Fellow, Center for Political Ecology, Santa Cruz, California) and Applied Anthropologist Holly Barker (Ethnographer and Senior Advisor to the Ambassador, Embassy of the Republic of the Marshall Islands).

This project was initiated in November 1998, when the Public Advocate contacted Barbara Rose Johnston and Holly M. Barker Johnston and with an invitation to provide assistance in valuing the damages and loss experienced by the people of Rongelap, Rongerik, and Ailinginae atolls as a result of the United States Nuclear Weapons testing program.  We began with a review of appraisal documents prepared for the Bikini and Enewetak land claims to consider the difference between appraisal definition of land value and Marshallese interpretations of the value, meaning, and significance of land, and we identified strategies for broadening the assessment and valuation process in ways that reflect a Marshallese way of life.  Because previous research suggested that the people of Rongelap suffered damages when they were physically removed from their lands, when certain areas or atolls were declared off limits, and when they were removed from the safe use of their lands and resources due to contamination from fallout (Barker 1997; Johnston 1994), we identified the time frame for this research as extending from pre-testing up through the present.   
 
Our initial review found that in the Marshall Islands rights to use critical resources are socially constructed, typically determined according to maternal relationships, legitimized according to communal relationships, and fluid rather than fixed.  Existing appraisal documents considered one aspect of land valuation: the economic value of rights to use (lease) land.  To consider damage and loss from a Marshallese perspective we identified a number of key questions: What does land mean to the Marshallese?  Can you assign a value to land?  Does a valuation that assumes “property” is terrestrial space-- the dirt underfoot-- adequately incorporate all that a weto -- parcels of land extending from ocean side to and into the lagoon -- represents?  How do you value damage to the ecosystem and loss of the wide variety of natural resources (marine, terrestrial, arboreal)?  How do you value the loss of access and use of atoll resources and the meaningful interaction of people and their environment?  How do you value the loss of a self-sufficient way of life?  What sort of valuation strategies might be used to articulate the broader range of damages and loss suggested by a human environmental impact analysis of nuclear weapons testing in Rongelap, Rongerik, and Ailinginae Atolls?  These questions and considerations provided a starting point for developing an approach to assessing the value of land from a Marshallese perspective and suggesting some of the damages incurred by the Rongelap community as a result of nuclear weapons testing.  

Research concerns were also shaped with reference to the Rongelapese experience as human subjects in ecological and medical research.  For decades, the people of Rongelap have complained about medical and scientific researchers who document radiation-induced decay in their bodies and ecosystems, yet ignore or fail to treat the broader health needs of the people (see for example, Conard 1958).   The Rongelapese also complain that research conducted by outsiders does not involve them, and typically fails to consider the knowledge that the Rongelapese have based on their experiences with radiation.  The Rongelapese serve as study subjects, but rarely receive the results of research, or recognize any direct benefit from research.  Thus, we developed a research approach that was purposefully transparent: involving participatory work with the people from Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae in shaping research questions, suggesting knowledgeable informants to interview, conducting research, analyzing findings, and refining recommendations.  An earlier report on the value of land to the Rongelapese (including all direct quotes) was reviewed by the Marshallese Land Value Advisory Committee and a number of Marshallese informants to insure that translations and ethnographic interpretations accurately reflected Marshallese perceptions and experiences.  A draft of this document was reviewed by the Senator and Mayor of Rongelap, key informants, and by other experts to ensure that the contents of the report accurately reflect the consequential damages and injuries suffered by the Rongelapese as a result of the testing program.  The research questions, strategies, and data collection efforts were supported by the collaborative involvement of the Nuclear Claims Tribunal Public Advocate Bill Graham, Associate Public Advocate Tieta Thomas, and Marshallese sociologist Tina Stege.  Access to supportive data was enhanced by the contributions of a peer review network of anthropologists, economists, sociologists, health physicists, lawyers, and other environmental scientists.

4.  Research Methods   
Ethnographic sampling procedures used in this research included saturation sampling and interviewing to sufficient redundancy, and snowball sampling.  Data gathering techniques included spatial mapping, focus group interviews, and rapid ethnographic assessment techniques.  Rapid ethnographic assessments included narrow problem-oriented definition; participatory, rapid sampling of representative sectors; small sample sizes; focus on cultural patterning and differences across sectors of populations (rather than intercultural complexity or range of variation); a systems perspective (with an emphasis on collecting information from all relevant sectors in the community); cognitive techniques used to identify and assess cultural domains; and relatively minimal use of quantitative sampling or survey techniques.  

In March 1999, Holly Barker, Barbara Johnston, and Stuart Kirsch met in Majuro and worked with a Marshallese “land value advisory committee” to help shape fieldwork questions, plan research strategies, identify knowledgeable informants, and generate public interest and support for the project.  The land value advisory committee was organized by the Office of the Public Advocate and included members knowledgeable in customary and current Marshallese resource relations  (i.e., fishing; cultivation; production of baskets, maps and other material goods, medicinal ethnobotany; spiritual and other cultural uses and meanings of the landscape), and men and women who lived on Rongelap and Ailinginae during the Bravo event and in the years following the 1957 resettlement.  The land value advisory committee included Iroij Mike Kabua, Senator Wilfred Kendall, Councilwoman Lijon Eknilang, Councilman George Anjain, and Mary Lanwi.  The advisory committee helped shape strategies to work with the Rongelapese to:  
•	Establish the key variables that sustained their previously self-sufficient way of life by documenting traditional patterns of resource value, access, use and control; 
•	Identify key events and conditions that adversely impact these resource relations, and thus altered or destroyed their ability to be self-sufficient, and;  
•	Document their perceptions of the broader social and cultural damages associated with these damages and losses, and assess some of the socioeconomic consequences of these changes.  

In addition to a formal advisory committee, this research profited by the contributions from key members of the Rongelap community, representatives of the Rongelap local government, and representatives of the RMI national government (including educators, environmental and health professionals, as well as elected officials and staff in the various ministries) who met with project consultants and provided background information and supporting documentation.  Broad-based input was provided by the Majuro-based Rongelap community during and following a public meetings in March 1999.  This meeting introduced project goals and activities, and resulted in comments and support, testimonials, and further involvement by Rongelap community members.  A public meeting held in July 1999 provided community members the opportunity to review and discuss preliminary findings.   

Testimony from informants was compiled by interviews with Dr. Holly M. Barker, often occurring with the assistance of Marshallese sociologist Tina Stege and Assistant Public Advocate Tieta Thomas. Testimony.  Testimony from 1994 research on the health consequences of nuclear testing (for the RMI Government in support of a “Changed Circumstances” petition) was used to develop the chain of events and describe some of the Rongelapese experiences.  Interviews with the Rongelap community on Majuro, Ebeye, and Mejatto took place in March-April 1999.  Follow-up interviews took place on Majuro in July 1999 and April 2001, and on Hawaii in July 2001.  Interviews with the Rongelap community were also conducted by Holly Barker and Tina Stege on Rongelap Island in 1999, during the first community visit to Rongelap since the 1986 evacuation (see photo #1, Return to Roneglap, Attachment A).  All interviews, other than advisory committee meetings, were conducted in Marshallese and later translated by Holly Barker with assistance from Tina Stege.  Dr. Holly Barker speaks fluent Marshallese, has over a decade of experience and relationships in the Marshallese community, and has previously worked with many of the informants to record their individual health problems associated with nuclear testing.  Use of the native language ensured that interviewees could express themselves effectively, and also provided linguistic evidence of people’s perceptions and experiences.  

Access to Rongelapese informants was significantly enhanced by the efforts of Senator Abacca Anjain-Maddison and Mayor James Matayoshi of Rongelap, who provided introductions and encouraged the testimony of many members of Rongelapese community.  In June 2001, the Senator helped arrange group interviews with members of the community who were in Hawaii for a meeting with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).  The Senator was present during most of the group discussions and assisted with the translation of traditional, older words and encouraged people to share their experiences.  Over 70 Rongelapese participated as informants in the formal interview phases of research.
Preliminary research findings on the value of land and damages associated with the loss of a way of life were initially drafted in July 1999, and submitted to the advisory committee who met in Majuro to refine ethnographic interpretations and help develop research findings and implications.  This meeting produced significant insights on compensatory concerns and recommendations.  A revised report was submitted to the Public Advocate in October 1999.  

Between 1999 and 2001, Barbara Rose Johnston conducted research on reparations and the right to remedy -- identifying valuation procedures and precedent-setting court cases and settlements providing compensation for damages and hardships associated with involuntary resettlement, loss of a way of life, and human subject experiments.  In March 2001, Barbara Rose Johnston reviewed the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission files at the National Academy of Science archives in Washington DC, identifying documents establishing the use of the Marshallese population as human subjects in research on the genetic effects of radiation beginning in 1951.  In April 2001, Holly Barker and Barbara Rose Johnston were asked by Public Advocate Bill Graham to rework the October 1999 draft report to add consideration of the hardships endured and consequential damages experienced by the people of Rongelap, and to outline appropriate remedies.  The declassified literature was re-examined by Dr. Johnston to identify key documents demonstrating use of the Rongelap population in range of human subject experiments and these findings were coupled with earlier research by Dr. Barker on the declassified documents.  Additional testimony was collected from Rongelap informants by Dr. Barker in Majuro (April 2001) and in Hawaii (June 2001) concerning the hardships associated with involuntary resettlement, and the pain and suffering experienced while enduring human subject experiments.  Interviews with members of the Rongelap community living in Hawaii added an important element to this research, highlighting the difficulties of managing radiation-related illness and gaining access to medical care as required by the 177 Agreement of the Compact of Free Association.  

Throughout the history of Nuclear Weapons Testing Program and related research on the human environmental effects of nuclear weapons use in the Marshall Islands, information has been closely controlled by the United States Government.  Some of the secrecy has involved levels and content of fallout, fallout patterns, and the long-term bioaccumulative effects of fallout.  The human effect of radiation, especially information relating to the wide range of studies and experiments involving the Marshallese people, has been the other major category of classified information.  The Clinton Administration’s declassification order in 1994 has resulted in the disclosure over the past seven years of documents demonstrating the use of Marshallese subjects in a wide range of experiments, including purposeful intent to involve the population of Rongelap in long-term human environmental studies on the hazards of fallout.  Declassification and disclosure has not been exhaustive, however, and some of the material released includes significant deletions.  The review of documents and declassification of material still continues.  Because the declassification order only relates to those experiments involving the use of radioactive materials on human subjects, other experiments may still be classified.  Thus, this report reflects complaints and requests compensation for abuses currently known and documented.  We fully expect new information about further abuses to continue to come to light.

5.  Report Framework
The following report presents the findings from ethnographic and documentary research in ways that link anecdotal experience to the documentary record: fifty years of human and environmental monitoring has produced substantive documentation of radioactive contamination, exposure, bioaccumulative hazards, and biodegenerative conditions.  This documentary record is used to illustrate, substantiate or punctuate Rongelapese testimony.   

Testimony from the people of Rongelap was obtained through a series of interviews. Interviews were conducted with the understanding that comments and concerns would be recorded and used in this report, and that this report would be submitted to the Republic of the Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal and entered into the public record.  Direct quotes from Rongelapese informants are included in this report as testimony, and thus their names, dates, and interview locations are also provided.  (Note, names used in this report reflect spelling at the time of the interview.  As Marshallese is a fluid language with an evolving written tradition, many variations on spelling exist). 

Citations for documents, publications, and other sources are mentioned in text with full references listed in the endnotes for each section.  United States Government documents are referenced in three ways: those materials filed at the National Academy of Science Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission archives are referenced by file box title and number, document date and title; those declassified materials posted on DOE website archives for human radiation experiments and the Marshall Islands are referenced by web site address; and those materials presented to the Government of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) by the U.S. Department of Energy are referenced by file access numbers, date and document title.  Some of these files contain more than one document.  Documents presented by the U.D. Department of Energy to the RMI are on file at the RMI Embassy in Washington DC.  In September 1999 the RMI Nuclear Claims Tribunal issued a contract to archive and store these documents in digital form where they will be accessible according to author, title and date.  These documents were classified and not available to the Marshallese government or general public during negotiations for the Compact of Free Association between the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the United States.  The majority of these documents were declassified in the mid- and later 1990s as part of the Clinton Administration inquiry into the use of human subjects in radiation experiments.

This report presents in Part 2 an annotated outline of the chain of events and related concerns associated with the United States Nuclear Weapons Testing Program and its’ human subject research program.  Key events include the contamination of an entire population and their homelands; removal of people from the safe use of their surroundings; injuries that produced the need for life-long and intergenerational medical treatment; and, the use of people as human subjects in scientific research programs.  Informant testimonies concerning these events have been included to further contextualize experiences and suggest some of the psychosocial, cultural, economic, and political hardships and injuries experienced by the population of Rongelap as a result of exposure to fallout, medical research, extensive contamination of terrestrial and marine resources, and involuntary relocation.  As will be discussed in this report, the consequences of these events include economic, political, social, cultural and psychological injuries and hardships experienced by individuals, households, kin networks, the broader corporate group, and the nation as a whole.  

To fully identify and understand the consequential damages of the United States Nuclear Weapons Testing Program it is important to consider the pre-existing context, as well as the meaning and value of atoll resources from a Marshallese point of view.  Thus, Part 3 presents the physical ingredients, actions, and culturally constructed mechanisms that allowed the people of Rongelap, Rongerik, and Ailinginae to experience a self-sufficient, sustainable way of life.  This summary of the key elements of the traditional subsistence system includes tangible resources as well as the knowledge and social structures that allow effective, viable use of terrestrial and marine resources.  In demonstrating the key elements of a viable system, this summary suggests that contamination and involuntary relocation fundamentally altered, and in many instances destroyed, the material basis to sustain a healthy, self-sufficient way of life.  Thus, consequential damages include damage and loss of natural and cultural resources, and the means to produce and reproduce a sustainable way of life. 

Part 4 presents a summary of damages from these events as experienced by the people of Rongelap and the broader nation.  This section includes the pressing questions, comments and remedial suggestions offered by Rongelap informants, and those emerging from an anthropological analysis of events and experiences.

Part 5 addresses the question of meaningful remedy from a broader, legal perspective by identifying and defending major categories of damage and loss, reviewing significant statements of culpability, and citing relevant valuation tools, compensatory actions, court findings and settlement precedents in similar cases in the United States and internationally.

Attachments to this report include photos, maps, figures and examples of declassified documents that support major elements of this claim (Attachment A).

________________
Endnotes for Part one appear at the end of Part Two.
PART TWO:
CHAIN OF EVENTS AND CRITICAL ISSUES OF CONCERN 
1.	 Introduction 
2.	 Evacuation from Rongelap to Lae in 1946
3.	 Damage and Continued Loss of Access to Rongerik
4.	 The Bravo Event
5.	 Relocation from Rongelap to Kwajalein in 1954
6.	 Project 4.1 Research on Kwajalein
7.	 Relocation from Kwajalein to Ejit
8.	 Establishing Long-term Human Subject Research Plans, Priorities, and Policies
9.	 Difficulties of Life in A Contaminated Setting
10.	 Degenerative Health and Healthcare Issues on Rongelap
11.	 Human Subject Research Experiences
12.	 Evacuation of Rongelap in 1985 
13.	 Current Conditions 

1.   Introduction 
The United States Nuclear Testing Program in the Pacific permanently altered the lives and future of the people of Rongelap, Rongerik, and Ailinginae atolls.  The Rongelap people experienced personal health injuries and involuntary displacement when fallout from the largest thermonuclear weapon ever tested by the United States (Bravo test) forced their physical evacuation from 1954-1957.  They lost access to a viable healthy ecosystem and lost their ability and rights to safely live in their environment when they were resettled on Rongelap (1957-1985).  And, they became exiles (1985-present) when they were finally provided evidence of hazardous levels of radioactive contamination throughout their homelands.  These events and critical issues of concerns are identified and briefly contextualized with testimony from Rongelap informants.  Evidence that substantiates informant accounts and consequential damages is found in the declassified documents cited in this section and other portions of this report.

2.	Evacuation from Rongelap to Lae in 1946
As a precautionary step, the U.S. Navy evacuated the Rongelapese from their home islands in May to August of 1946 for the Able and Baker weapons tests on Bikini Atoll.  It was felt at the time that the Rongelapese were so close to the testing area that it was best to remove them for the test as a precaution.  In May of 1946, 108 Rongelapese and the people from Wotho were temporarily taken to Lae on L.S.T. 1108 (Anjain 1946:118).  The United States Government contemplated the permanent resettling of downwind populations to Lae (DOE #458, p.2590.2), but the Rongelapese were returned to Rongelap shortly after their stay on Lae.
Almira Matayoshi:  We were sad when we left Rongelap because we had no idea what we were going to face when we got to Lae.  We ran out of food on Lae.  There was rice, but nothing to go with it.  We relied on the people of Lae to give us what little they could with so many people on their island… 
When we returned from Lae to Rongelap, we had to start from the beginning in terms of food production, and getting our households back in order.  For example, we missed arrowroot season so we didn’t have time to prepare the foods that would store for long periods of time and get us through the more difficult times.  We came back between the food seasons so we had very little to eat.  There were also more of us in our group because we had children on Lae and some of us married.  Our houses needed to be redone.  Some of the roofs were gone.  The Navy didn’t stay and help us (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

Isao Eknilang:  I clearly remember the time.  I knew there was testing of some sort going on, but I didn’t really understand it.  It was difficult because we lived in tents for several months.  We had no privacy, and many aspects of Marshallese custom were broken, particularly those relating to adults changing their clothes or trying to leave to go to the bathroom in front of children of the opposite sex…
Another custom that people began to violate for the first time I remember was not sharing food with people.  The Navy gave some food to us Rongelapese, but it was not adequate.  I remember a fist-fight that broke out over whether or not to share our food resources.  Some people thought we had to share our food with the people of Lae and Wotho, and others thought we shouldn’t because the resources were inadequate for everyone.  I remember being stunned that adults would fight over this.  In addition to food, there was not enough water for everyone, and the Navy didn’t bring in water supplies when we asked. 
 We tried to fish on Lae to supplement our diets, but the fish were much smaller and it was hard to catch enough fish to feed so many people.  On Rongelap, people had three entire atolls to cultivate food.  On Lae, an island a fraction the size of Rongelap, there were not enough resources to feed three atoll populations (Rongelap, Wotho and Lae) despite the food the Navy did supply…
While on Lae, we worried about our homes, and what would happen to our animals and plants when we weren’t there to tend to them.  We children attended school while on Lae, but the school was extremely overcrowded with the addition of the children from Rongelap and Wotho.  Also, we didn’t earn money while on Lae because we didn’t own the coconut trees so we couldn’t produce copra.  By the same token, we lost the opportunity to make copra on our own land during that time…
When we returned to Rongelap from Lae…  It was clear that the U.S. had used our land and houses.  Some of our sailing canoes were found on distant islands, and others disappeared and were never returned.  We even had a large sailing canoe that could hold 20 people.  The canoe was gone when we returned... The canoe is very essential to gather food, housing materials, to produce copra and it takes at least 6 months to build a walap.
Also, the turkeys that we used to care for and keep on Rongerik were all gone when we returned.  Similarly, the pumpkin that was on Ailinginae was gone.  Also, our houses were a mess.  The thatch roofs were falling apart and water leaked into many of the houses… The bushes were all overgrown and we had no local food ready to use.  We were not able to get local food for some time.  The U.S. Navy left two U.S. boats filled with packaged food.  We ate the food, but later on we were concerned because we heard that the boats had been at Bikini for the tests and were probably contaminated  (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

Summary of Consequential Damages
Conditions of life during the involuntary resettlement on Lae were harsh, with food and water in short supply.  Traditional customs were violated as people were forced to compete for increasingly scarce resources.  The people of Rongelap experienced fears and anxiety about their exile and concern for their homes.  Upon return to Rongelap, the people confronted extensive damage to home and property, inadequate food supplies, and were fearful that provisions left on U.S. Navy boats used to support operations at Bikini for the tests were contaminated.  Furthermore, they had lost the opportunity to generate an income by cultivating their resources.

3.   Damage and Continued Loss of Access to Rongerik
Rongerik Atoll is morjinkot land, given by the iroij alone to commoners to show appreciation for a warrior’s battle skills (Tobin 1958:29).  Rights to the land extend to the family of the warrior as “maternal relatives and paternal relatives both used the land.  Maternal relatives have a usufruct right to the land.  Paternal relatives could utilize the resources of the land but did not have usufruct rights in the land” (ibid:31).  Rongerik was given to Lejkonikik Antoren, an ancestor of Rongerik’s current iroij, Anjua Loeak, for heroics in a battle between Kili and Jaluit.  For this reason, the property on Rongerik is accorded great respect and great value in the Marshallese culture (see Map 1, Attachment A, Anjain Map of Rongerik).

Population movement between atolls was restricted by the Japanese military during World War II.  In 1943, the Japanese moved all of the people residing on Ailinginae and Rongerik to Rongelap.  Rongelap’s Magistrate, John Anjain, recorded this event, noting the names of the 9 people moved off of Rongerik on January 12, 1943 and the 12 people later moved off of Rongerik on July 3, 1943 (Anjain 1943:119).  When the United States liberated the Rongelapese from Japanese control on April 4,1944, the Rongelapese declared this date their liberation day (ibid:9).  The United States Navy continued the ban on access and use of Rongerik Atoll, using Rongerik as a military site for monitoring weather and tracking fallout.  

In 1946 the United States Government relocated 181 Bikinians to Rongerik Atoll when Bikini Atoll was selected as a ground-zero location for the testing program.  Rongerik was too small to support the Bikini populations, and the Bikinians ravished the islands and the food sources in an effort to survive.  By 1948, the Bikinians were in an extreme state of impoverishment due to exhaustion of local food resources, and were evacuated from Rongerik and moved to Kili.  

During the entire time the Bikinians lived on Rongerik, the United States Government failed to ask Rongelapese landholders for permission to relocate the Bikinians.  When the United States Government relocated the Bikinians from Rongerik to Kili, the United States Government retained Rongerik Atoll for military use.  Rongerik received extensive fallout during the Bravo Event and additional fallout from other weapons tests.  No cleanup has ever occurred on Rongerik.  The atoll is contaminated and remains off limits for Marshallese use.

John Anjain:  In 1946, the Navy stopped the field trip ship service between Rongerik and Rongelap and the Bikinians didn’t have supplies.  Ninety-nine percent of the land on Rongerik was ruined by the Bikinians.  Three quarters of the land was burned in 1946 by an accidental fire from cigarettes.  The people even ate the tiny pandanus and coconut seedlings because the Bikinians were moved from their own homeland and left alone… This made me very sad because this was the land of my grandfather and it is difficult to return and start Rongerik to the way it was before  (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

As Magistrate of Rongelap, John Anjain kept a meticulous record book of events, resources, and actions that influenced the land and lives of the Rongelap people.  This record book includes documentation of each breadfruit, coconut, and pandanus plants for each weto on Rongerik damaged by the Bikinians, notations that suggest the importance of these resources on the land to the people.  There is also a sworn statement in John Anjain’s record book stating that the landowner did not give permission to the U.S. to make Rongerik available for the Bikinians to use:
Epr. 22 – 1949.  Na Ekinilan W.  ij likit ao (cut off) Ijin bwe iar jab katlok bwe dri Bikini ro Ren komakot jabrewot ion ailin eo ao Rongerik ejelok juon iar jiron kin (cut off).  Na Ekinilan. W.  Dri kamol John Anjain. (Anjain 1949:78).

Apr. 22 –1949.  I, Ekinilan W.  I am stating (cut off) here because I did not give permission for the Bikinians to move anything on my island of Rongerik and no one ever asked me (cut off).  Signed by Ekinilan W.  Written (and witnessed) by John Anjain.  (Anjain 1949: 78, translated by Holly M. Barker, Tina Stege, and Tieta Thomas, April 1999).

Summary of Consequential Damages
The United States Navy seized, without permission or compensation from the landowners, morjinkot land owned by the people of Rongelap.  The United States Navy placed, without compensation or permission, the people of Bikini on Rongerik Atoll.  Subsequent damage to Rongerik Atoll by the people of Bikini was never compensated or otherwise remediated.  Beyond damage inflicted by the Bikinians, Rongerik Atoll was severely contaminated as a result of the Bravo event and other weapons test fallout.  The people of Rongelap have been involuntarily displaced from access and safe use of their customary lands and resources on Rongerik Atoll.

4.    The Bravo Event
The Bravo event of March 1, 1954 exposed the people and islands of Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae to dangerous amounts of radiation and other toxic contaminants such as the chemicals used in each of the weapons tests to indicate the amount of fallout from each individual test.  In addition to exposing downwind communities to radiation, “the radioactive debris [from the Castle series] dispersed quickly throughout the world and all but a few stations experienced measurable fallout at sometime during the series” (DOE#44:7).  Prior to the Castle series, the United States military indicated that if communities become contaminated by radiation, the military had the capability to evacuate the communities in four hours (DOE#473:3545).  Weeks before the test a Navy Commander “tried to explain something to them about a test, and bombs” but despite the efforts of an interpreter, the people did not understand what he was talking about (DOE #1023:81).  

Although the United States Government had removed the Rongelapese from their homeland for much smaller tests in 1946, the United States Government made a purposeful decision to exclude Rongelap from the danger area for the Bravo test, despite the fact that the Bravo test was the largest device ever tested by the U.S. Government.  Shortly before the Bravo test, the United States Department of Interior changed the official “danger zone” and placed Rongelap, Rongerik, and Ailinginae immediately outside of the area that would necessitate evacuation.  This change was influenced in part by a February 25, 1953 letter to Mr. James P. Davis, Director of the Office of Territories at the US Department of Interior from Elbert D. Thomas, High Commissioner of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI).  Thomas requests that the “Danger Area” exclude Ailinginae, arguing:  
This atoll (Ailinginae), although not ‘inhabited’ in the sense that people are permanently domiciled there, is regularly used and harvested by the people of Rongelap and contributes a substantial part of their living.  It is owned by the Iroij of the area and, while it is geographically a separate atoll, it is politically, socially, and economically an integral part of Rongelap.  These northern atolls of the Marshall Islands are poor.  They offer only the most meager living for the inhabitants.  The removal of Ailinginae, or even part of it, from the economic orbit of Rongelap could be expected to result in critically lowered living standards and it might force migration of part of the population to other area(s) to maintain the subsistence balance of the atolls.  There is also no question that such an incursion on their lands will result in serious social repercussions in these islands that might readily extend throughout the Marshalls…
While it is impossible to predict the exact nature of the reactions, experience has shown that the most probable result would be first, a lowering of morale with a consequent reluctance to fend for themselves, followed by the expectation that the Government would provide their food in return for the land that had been taken… To them  land, and the lagoons that they fish in, are the only assets which they recognize that they can depend up on to feed them…In fact, land and their fishing grounds are the only assets that can assure these islanders freedom from fear and want.

While the people of Rongelap were removed from the mapped “Danger Zone” this action did not remove them from danger.  Rongerik Atoll was approximately 135 nautical miles from zero point, Rongelap was 105 nautical miles, and Ailinginae 83 nautical miles.  “For several days prior to March 1, 1954, the Air Force weather station on Rongerik noted the upper winds coming from the west and there was talk about the possibility of part of the radioactive cloud being blown directly over the islands” (DOD #20).  On the eve of the Bravo test, weather reports indicated that atmospheric conditions were getting less favorable.  At midnight, just six hours before the shot, the weather reports noted that there were “less than favorable winds at 10,000 to 25,000 foot levels.”  Winds at 20,000 feet were “headed for Rongelap to the east” (Defense Nuclear Agency, March 1, 1954).  Despite the awareness produced by weather reports that the Bravo event would send fallout blasting towards the inhabited atolls of Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae, the test continued as planned.     
The Rongelapese residing on Rongelap and Ailinginae were exposed to what was then estimated to be 200 roentgens of radiation (recognized then as a potentially lethal dose) with substantially higher doses to children and the thyroid glands of the Rongelapese.  More recently this exposure was recalculated to a significantly higher level by Dr. Hans Behling
(outlined in Table 1 and contextualized with reference to current known health effects):

Table 1:  Adult exposure doses for the people of Rongelap from the Bravo Event 

Whole Body Doses:  			300-375 R
 	Thyroid:  				10,000-20,000 rads
Internal Doses (other than thyroid):  	60-300 rem

Current known health effects of ionizing radiation
5 to 25 rem:				can cause genetic damage
50 rem:				can alter white blood cells
75 to 125 rem:				can produce radiation sickness
400 rem:				can kill 50% of exposed people
500 to 600 or more rem: 		will kill almost all exposed people

Sources: Reassessment of Acute Radiation Doses Associated with BRAVO Fallout, Report to the RMI Nuclear Claims Tribunal, Hans Behling, May 2000; and, “Health Effects of Ionizing Radiation” CARD homepage http://www.unm.edu/~rekp/card.html.

Accidental exposures in previous tests in the Marshall Islands and the United States led to the development of safety precautions for minimizing exposure to fallout that were referenced in Operation Castle planning documents.  Military personnel were given radiation safety information and installations on Rongerik and elsewhere were built to minimize exposure.  The United States weathermen were ordered not to eat or drink anything after the test, to wear long sleeve shirts and pants, and to remain inside their military-built shelters to reduce exposure (DOD #23).  

The people of Rongelap were not given the same level of information or access to protective shelters, had no idea that the United States Government would test the Bravo weapon on that day, and were unable to take any protective measures. One explanation for this failing was that there were too many populated atolls to use film badges. (DOE #167: 88, Appendix C). The Final Report for JTF-7 Radiological Safety, Operation Castle (Spring 1954) notes:
The significant fall-out area from large yield shots was a zone on the order of 100 miles wide and 300 miles long…  Native populations were not briefed in advance on the general aspects of the operation, to include approximate starting date of the operation, gross phenomena, which would be manifested, possibilities of hazardous conditions requiring evacuation and general native preparations to centralize and anticipate evacuation.  

U.S. military personnel monitoring weather and fallout on Rongerik were evacuated on 2 March 1954.  Marshallese inhabitants were evacuated on 4 March 1954.   Evacuation events are described in memorandums for the record, communications records, and Operation Castle reports.  Communications, daily logs, and diary entries from weathermen on Rongerik first reported fallout “over 100” at 1543, 1 March 1954.  At 0030 on 2 March 1954 weathermen on Rongerik were instructed to cease all operations immediately and remain inside their metal lined concrete bunkers.  They were evacuated beginning 2 March at 1250 with the final detachment departing at 1800.  The memorandum for the record shows no reference to the presence of Marshallese inhabitants until the final message sent by USAF Captain Louis Chrestensen on 2 March 1954 after landing in Kwajalein at 1900: 
…the final message I sent was an urgent recommendation that Rongelap be surveyed as soon as possible with the expectation that any inhabitants would very likely be subjected to the same degree of fallout that had occurred at Rongerik.  This recommendation met approval by CTG 7.4.

The Rongelapese continued to eat food and drink water tainted from radioactive fallout for the days between the Bravo test and their evacuation to Kwajalein.  Both the food and water supplies were obviously contaminated with radioactive fallout, but the Rongelapese had no other food and water options available.  After the evacuation of the Rongelapese, the United States Government verified the contamination levels of the food and water the Rongelapese consumed before their removal.  Four days after the Bravo test, the water on Rongelap was analyzed by the United States Government and found contaminated at a rate of two to twenty-five times above AEC operational tolerances (DOD #33). 

The Rongelapese suffered near-lethal levels of radiation exposure (see Table 1).  Fallout particles stuck to the coconut oil that people used in their hair, and stung their eyes.  Children played with the fallout ash, and the entire community ate food and drank water contaminated by radioactive fallout.  Several hours after the Bravo test, the people began to feel nauseated, and many vomited, and exhibited what felt like severe flu symptoms.  By the evening, people’s skin began to blister from contact with the fallout ash.  After the people were evacuated, radiation lingered in the air and continued to deposit on the atolls.
Nerja Joseph:  When the fallout came... I used the well water that was soap-like because of the fallout dust on top of the water.  I soaped my head.  I put the fallout on my head.  My hair fell out.  I am the girl in the Brookhaven picture whose hair fell out (March 8, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Majuro).  (See Photo #2, Attachment A).

Aruko Bobo:  Nearly all the people on Rongelap became violently ill (after Bravo).  Most had excruciating headaches and extreme nausea and diarrhea.  By the time of our evacuation to Kwajalein, all the parts of my body that had been exposed that morning blistered and my hair began to fall out in large clumps.  I just had to run my fingers through it and would come away with a fist full  (August 27,1994, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Jerkan Jenwor:  Our bodies hurt, we were nauseous.  I was sick from the first day.  I was really sick after the bomb.  I had to stay in the house because I was so sick (March 17, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).   

Aruko Bobo, Events on Rongelap:  I was living with my grandparents on Rongelap...  On that March morning, my grandfather woke me while it was still pitch dark to help other girls in the cookhouse.  After awhile we saw flashing lights, then a loud sound of explosion, then strong wind hit.  Chickens, and roofing tins flying all over made us frightened.  I ran to my grandfather and others.  Grandmother immediately came out to see what was causing the children to be that frightened… There were four of us (kids who went outside on the reef)…  three girls and one boy.  The clouds were suddenly all around us…  the sky had the most unusual color, very scary…  The color went from bright white to deep red and then a mixture of both with some yellow.  We jumped behind big rocks on the reef… The boy decided we should hurry (to the house)…  It was the boy who finally pushed us to run…the air around us was split open by an awful noise.  I cannot describe what it was like.  It felt like thunder but the force from the noise was so strong that we could actually feel it.  It was like the air was alive… Everything was crazy.  There was a man standing outside the first hut staring at the burning sky. 
… I found my hair was covered with a white powder-like substance.  It had no smell and no taste when I tried tasting it… (August 27,1994, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).   

Kajim Abija, Events on Ailinginae:  I was in my late 20’s at the time of Bravo.  I was on Ailinginae with my husband, Jenwor Anjain, who has since died.  All of the older people, like my husband, have died… 
We used all the small islands on Ailinginae.  I went to Ailinginae three times, the third time is when the bomb dropped…  When it dropped, we saw a light.  It (the light) was to help find submarines my husband said (laughs).  The ‘powder’ (fallout) was on the lagoon side.  We were looking for birds when the powder fell.  The old man was ready to take his boat to go and get birds.  He told the children not to play there (on the lagoon side).  I was supposed to take care of the kids, but we all passed out on the lagoon side… 
When they came to take us away from the island later, our clothes had powder on them.  We saw the powder and we said it was something to reduce the poison from the bomb, the old man said.  We were happy because we said we wouldn’t get as much poison because that thing was a bomb (laughs). 
We prepared the underground oven.  We were going to split up the birds.  I stayed with the kids.  We saw the boats coming and we wondered why the huge boat came.  We had no idea what was happening.  We only thought about playing around and finishing our cooking of the birds… 
On Ailinginae, they didn’t stop us from eating and drinking after the powder fell.  We blew the powder off of our food and ate it.  We couldn’t take care of each other, even the kids, because we were all sick.  We ate sprouted coconut because we were really nauseous, and when we ate, we got even more nauseous… 
On the boat, we took showers and put on trousers and sailors’ underwear (March 18, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye). 

Summary of Consequential Damages
The Bravo event of March 1, 1954 exposed the people and islands of Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae to dangerous amounts of radiation and other toxic contaminants such as the chemicals used in each of the weapons tests to indicate the amount of fallout from each individual test.  This exposure was not unanticipated.  Once fallout over populated atolls was confirmed, the United States Government delayed evacuation of native inhabitants.  Native inhabitants received greater levels of exposure to fallout than American service personnel because they were not provided with the same level of information, protective shelter, and risk reduction advice, and because they were evacuated two days later than American service personnel on Rongerik.  By the time of their evacuation, the Rongelapese were exhibiting severe flu-like symptoms, radiation burns, and epilation.

5.    Relocation from Rongelap to Kwajalein in 1954
The 64 residents of Rongelap and 18 residents of Ailinginae were evacuated to Kwajalein on March 4, 1954.  People were forced to leave their homes, personal documents and belongings such as drekeinin, animals, crops, sources of income, and boats.  According to the Rongelapese, they were not given time to collect any possessions at all (Almira Matayoshi, June 13, 2001).  The evacuation narrative report by G.W. Albin, commanding officer of the USS Philip, confirms rapid departure with possessions limited to “a small handbag” and notes that the people had been sick. Given the severity of illness the Rongelapese experienced immediately after Bravo, there was an urgent need to evacuate them from Rongelap, decontaminate them, and provide them with medical care.  The Rongelapese had serious medical consequences from their exposure that required immediate attention as indicated in the notes of Dr. Thomas Shipman, one of the attending physicians, who observed that people’s “blistered and fissured feet” made it painful for people to walk.
Dorothy Amos:  The boat was fast and we arrived in Kwajalein in just one day.  We got off on the dock.  The bus took us-- we didn’t know to where.  Four pregnant women and two older people who couldn’t move well arrived by airplane.  They put a fence around the place where we were on Kwajalein.  It was forbidden for others to enter.  Only police and doctors could enter.  Everyday they had us all go down to the lagoon to wash off.  The people on Kwajalein, the Americans, helped us with clothes.  On Kwajalein, we ate three times a day.  We were treated well… (March 18, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Kajim Abija:  The children’s hair fell out.  Also, the skin of the men who were fishing itched badly.  Our fingernails turned black (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Dorothy Amos:  My hair fell out.  It was really funny.  I could pull out my hair easily from the burns.  Baldness.  We were really cooked like they set our heads on fire... I had burns on my arms, throat, legs.  It’s like I was cooked here (points to throat and arms) (March 18, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Almira Matayoshi:  I really cried when we were on Kwajalein.  When it was time to decontaminate us, they gave us the men’s underwear that the Navy men wore.  The underwear was too small to cover us, and it was completely see-through when we got wet from the hose they sprayed us with.  The water from the hose was so strong, too!  Billiet Edmond was translating and assisting the Navy, and saw us all standing there naked.  We had tears pouring down our faces because we couldn’t believe that our custom was being violated so badly.  Billiet was related to so many of the women, and it was like our culture was being ripped apart (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

Lijon Eknilang:  When the U.S. Government evacuated people on March 3, 1954, the ship first evacuated the people from Rongelap Atoll.  After everyone from Rongelap was on board the ship went to Ailinginae to evacuate the residents.  The American personnel on the ship told all the people from Ailinginae to take all their clothes off.  Men and women – fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, and relatives that it was extremely taboo to disrobe in front of – were forced to stand naked together while the ship’s personnel hosed the people down with water.  The evacuees from Rongelap had been through the same process and had already dressed by the time the people from Ailinginae were told to disrobe… Still today some people find it inappropriate for women to show their thighs, especially near their male relatives, but in the 1950s it was extremely taboo for women to show their thighs, let alone their entire naked bodies.  Both men and women were trying to cover themselves with a small towel given to each person and with their hands, but they could not hide their nakedness from one another.  We didn’t understand at the time why we had to do this…
There were two Rongelapese who translated for U.S. Government representatives following the emergency evacuation of the Rongelapese, Billiet Edmond and Janwod Anjain.  Billiet and Janwod were closely related (Janwod is deceased); Billiet’s father is the younger brother of Janwod’s father.  After the Rongelapese were evacuated to Kwajalein, U.S. Government doctors required the Rongelapese to bathe in the lagoon three times a day in an effort to reduce their exposure to radiation.  These daily baths went on for three months.  Each day when the Rongelapese women rode in a bus from the camp where the Rongelapese were staying to the lagoon where they bathed.  The women were instructed to wear just their underwear and a t-shirt on the bus ride to and from the lagoon.  The Navy clothes didn’t fit the women properly and they couldn’t conceal their bodies properly.  Billiet and Janwod accompanied them in order to translate.  When the bus arrived at the lagoon, the women were told to stand at the water’s edge and take their clothes off.  Billiet and Janwod translated.  Billiet and Janwod were related to most of the women there.  In the Marshallese culture there are strict guidelines directing behavior between male and female relatives.  Men and women who are related are not able to discuss anything even remotely sexual -- even as a nuance -- men should not know when their female relatives urinate for fear that they would think about their relatives’ body parts, and under no circumstances should they view one another’s bodies in anything but full clothing.
In front of Billiet and Janwod, three times a day for three months, the Rongelapese women were told to undress and stand naked at the lagoon’s edge.  The women would cry from embarrassment and try to cover their genitals with their hands.  U.S. Government officials, all men, ran Geiger counters up and down the bodies of the naked women both before and after they bathed in the lagoon.  Frequently, the Geiger counters would start clicking wildly when taking readings from the hair on the women’s heads and from their pubic hair.  The U.S. Government workers would tell the women to soap their pubic hair again, in front of everyone, before a second reading.  Billiet and Janwod tried to advert their eyes whenever possible but their presence by their naked mothers and sisters was mortifying (March 28, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Majuro).

Almira Matayoshi:  The two hardest things for us to talk about are the divisions in our families caused by the bomb, and what happened to our bodies.  The Rongelapese who weren’t exposed wouldn’t admit they were Rongelapese.  This was awful because we are family, and this is the worst kind of damage to have splits in the family (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

Isao Eknilang:  We were very isolated on Kwajalein.  Our relatives on Ebeye were afraid of their own family members, they were afraid to visit us for fear they would get radiation from us.  Even the Rongelapese who were not on Rongelap during Bravo became embarrassed to be Rongelapese.  They wouldn’t want to admit they were Rongelapese.  They were embarrassed because we were like monkeys.  Our arrival on Kwajalein caused family divisions because family did not want to help us for fear of being exposed themselves (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

Summary of Consequential Damages
The Marshallese experienced cultural violations and indignities during evacuation and decontamination efforts on the ship and on Kwajalein.  When Marshallese on Kwajalein saw that the Rongelapese were sick from radiation exposure, they became afraid to go near them or help them for fear they would contract the same illnesses.  These reactions created lasting impressions on family members, and started the first serious divisions within families.

6.    Project 4.1 Research on Kwajalein 
Throughout the 1940s and 50s, accidental exposures at research facilities and test sites provided scientists with radiation-effects research opportunities.  By the time of the Bravo event in 1954, U.S. researchers were well positioned to take advantage of the scientific opportunities  created by human exposure to radiation.  Many different research projects were underway in 1954, including human effects of radiation projects originally outlined for  the Ad Hoc Committee for Biologic Tests in June 1949, which met to define the research agenda for “future proof tests of atomic weapons at Eniwetok” (Operation Greenhouse Plan, Medical Tests). 

Following recommendations outlined in a 1953 review of research programs and needs by the Advisory Committee to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, the Bravo event exposure of American service personnel and Marshallese natives resulted in immediate efforts to collect data to support ongoing biomedical research on the effects of radiation on a human population, including research on “the carcinogenic action of ingested or inhaled radioactive materials.”  After evacuating the people of Rongelap, scientists returned to the atolls to take samples of water, vegetation, and to capture exposed animals.  Sixty-six animals were brought back (chickens, pigs, cat, ducks) for study, since “if anything does show up it will be more likely to show up sooner in the animals, and would give us some idea of the prognosis for the humans over a longer period of time” (Cohn, July 1954:59).  In addition to changes in white cell and platelet levels, radio-autographs of chicken and pig tibia showed abnormal bone morphology.  Samples from two pigs indicated “two separate and distinct exposures to fallout material”…“most likely strontium and barium” (ibid:60-61).  This evidence indicates that the Bravo event was not the first weapons test to produce fallout on Rongelap.

On March 3, 1954 the Rongelapese began their service as biological samples in a variety of studies exploring the effects of radiation exposure on human beings.  Over the three months following their evacuation, 64 residents of Rongelap, 18 residents of Ailinginae, 157 residents of Utrik, and 28 Americans from Rongerik—together with “control” groups of 117 Marshallese living in Majuro and 105 American service personnel, had their conditions monitored and emerging symptoms documented in support of “Project 4.1” (See Photo 3, Attachment A, Rongelap girl with Project 4.1 sign).  

Project 4.1 activities on Kwajalein are described in report documents as including efforts to (1) document and treat immediate affects from acute radiation exposure; (2) document the population and control groups in ways that set a “baseline” for further studies on the long term effects of radiation; (3) obtain samples, measurements and biological responses that suggest exposure levels, and (4) provide information to ongoing studies on absorption rates, elimination processes, and other questions of interest to the national security and military defense of the United States.  A report was produced from data collected in March – May 1954, submitted to the Atomic Energy Commission Division of Biology and Medicine for discussion at their July 12-13, 1954 Conference on Long Term Surveys and Studies of the Marshall Islands, and formally released in October 1954 (Cronkite et al, October 1954). 
This final report summarized findings from “secret restricted data” developed from “a joint AEC-DOD [study] established to study the physiological symptoms of evacuated natives” (as described in DOE #30:14).  Project 4.1-- the “Study of Response of Human Beings Exposed to Significant Beta and Gamma Radiation Due to Fallout from High Yield Weapons”… “represented the first observations by Americans on human beings exposed to excessive doses of radiation from fallout” (DOE #354:71).  Conveniently, “the dosage spread of the different groups nicely cover(ed) the range of estimated operational tolerance accepted by the Department of Defense” (DOE #107:149).  Project 4.1 was thought to be a valid research study for the following reasons: “the groups of exposed individuals were sufficiently large to provide good statistics... the exposures involved far exceed the normal permissible dosage... The internal dosage was due mostly to ingested material rather than inhaled material... [and because] beta activity in the urine of these exposed human beings indicated significant internal contamination” (DOE #133: 71-72).   

Loss of hair, depressed blood cell and leukocyte counts, flu like symptoms, fingernail discoloration, nausea and radioisotope activity in the urine were all observed in the Rongelapese following their acute external exposure (DOE #11, DOE #133, DOE #167).  The skin burns experienced by the Rongelapese were of great interest as well.  From examining the exposed Rongelapese, the researchers determined that beta from fallout “can penetrate well into the body with a large portion being absorbed by the critical living layers of skin.”  Researchers found that it is possible to equate the observed degree of skin damage suffered by the Marshallese natives during Operation CASTLE to known dose effect data.  “The Marshallese incident has pointed up the fact that beta burns will occur at sub-lethal gamma levels only when particles come into contact with bare skin” like the Rongelapese who wore no protective clothing (DOE #348:86-88).   
William Allen (Accompanied US representatives on surveys of the islands):  On one of these trips I met a Marshallese male named Hiroshi who had been severely affected by fallout.  He had first degree burns covering 90% of his body and had suffered complete loss of hair.  The extent to which his body was burned was such that the bones in his feet were exposed and visible to the naked eye.  Tragically enough, Hiroshi died less than a year after our conversation. (August 22, 1994, Holly M. Barker, Majuro). (Note: Hiroshi accompanied Aruko Bobo across the reef in the earlier testimony.  Hiroshi is the boy pictured in photo #4, Attachment A).      

Researchers noted that the severity of skin burns experienced by the Rongelapese may have been exacerbated by chemical irritants present in the fallout.  A United States Government document notes that irritating chemicals applied to the skin during or shortly after irradiation enhance the effects of radiation, and that the chemical nature of the fallout may have enhanced the effects of the radiation on the Rongelapese (DOE #429, part II:615).

During their enrollment in Project 4.1, U.S. researchers failed to obtain informed consent for exams, procedures, and sampling, nor to explain the procedures to the Rongelapese.  Approval for research was sought and secured through U.S. military and scientific advisory committees.  The Territorial administration was notified and approved requests to collect urine samples in support of an existing study of plutonium secretion following exposure by scientists at Los Alamos.  The people of Rongelap, however, were not involved in these discussions.
Chyoko Tamayose:  We never knew what was going on.  There was a time where they took my blood, mixed it with something, and then shot it back into me.  They never asked me if they could do this, they just did it.  I didn’t understand what they were doing, and I still don’t (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

Summary of Consequential Damages
Without their consent or knowledge, on March 3, 1954 the Rongelapese were enrolled in a secret U.S. military project to study the effects of radiation exposure on human beings.  The United States Government used Marshallese blood, urine, bone marrow, thyroid glands, and bodies to calculate how much radiation had been ingested from their environment following the Bravo event, to determine immediate effects of radiation exposure and to predict long-term effects.  Forced and unexplained medical procedures, pain and suffering from injuries and procedures, humiliation from examination and decontamination processes, humiliation from having photographs taken while naked, and the experience of social stigmatization between “exposed” and non-exposed relatives were some of the many consequences of involvement in initial Project 4.1 exams and experiments. 
7.    Relocation from Kwajalein to Ejit
At the conclusion of three months of the short term-studies for Project 4.1 exams and experiments, the Rongelapese were moved from Kwajalein to Ejit, where they were told they would stay for one year until their islands were safe to return to.  They stayed on Ejit from June 1954 until May 1957.  The move to Ejit was documented by military films and journalists to placate global concerns, following the Marshallese filing of a petition with the United Nations requesting assistance in ending nuclear weapons tests.  United States Government reports of the relocation of the Rongelapese from Kwajalein to Ejit Island on Majuro describe the relocation as “a modern version of the American covered wagons” as “natives” were transferred on covered ships loaded with their personal possessions, children, and household items (DOE #429, part II, p.435).  Declassified documents describe this move as allowing the continued scientific study of the exposed population, and recognized that Rongelap, Rongerik, and Ailinginae remained too dangerous to allow human resettlement.  Resettlement was consciously designed to meet bare minimal needs of the Rongelapese, as “it is the policy of TERPACIS … to discourage too rapid acquisition of wealth by small groups of natives… thus, the subsidy of natives is to be held to the essential minimum” (Letter from Byars 1954:5).  

The people of Rongelap lived on Ejit until their return to Rongelap in May 1957.  During this time they encountered hardships associated with adjusting to new surroundings, inadequate access to critical resources, and anxieties over their medical and living conditions and their future.  They were especially anxious over radiological conditions on Rongelap, fearing that the fallout that forced their initial evacuation might cause them to suffer the same fate as the dislocated Bikinians.
Almira Matayoshi:  We were on Ejit...  All that time, we didn’t have school.  We didn’t have knowledge from school, and we didn’t learn from our parents and grandparents about how to weave and make things the way we did on Rongelap (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

Norio Kebenli:  When the community was on Kwajalein after Bravo, they were fed very well and didn’t have to cook… Suddenly they were moved to Ejit with no cooking utensils or appliance… They used the cardboard boxes from the c-rations and k-rations to build (mon tutu) a separate place especially for the women, and to paper the walls of their shelters to prevent rain from seeping through.  Houses were studio type and it was very hard.
On Ejit there was not enough water.  The groundwater was bad for drinking.  We went all over the island digging holes and trying to find good water, but there was none… It was while on Ejit that life started to get hard.  There wasn’t enough food; there was no breadfruit and no place to fish…
We also began to get some bad habits on Ejit, like learning to smoke from the Navy guys.  We would also throw away our litter on the beach because we were used to throwing our food garbage on the ground.  On Ejit, kids didn’t know to be careful about garbage.  I remember that several kids cut themselves on the sharp lids from the food the US gave us in cans.  These cuts were really deep…
We also tried sweet foods for the first time.  We were given C-rations and K-rations.  We liked the K-rations better because they had sweet foods in them.  We used to eat the sweet stuff and throw out the rest (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu). 

Summary of Consequential Damages
The people of Rongelap endured hardships from food and water shortages on Ejit, as well as anxiety about not knowing when they could return home.  Social and cultural assaults included loss of opportunity to practice subsistence-oriented production, the loss of three years of formal schooling opportunities, and exposure to American consumer lifestyle and foods.  

8.   Establishing Long-Term Human Subject Research Plans, Priorities, and Policies
The first known experiment involving the use of Marshallese human subjects was funded by the United States Atomic Energy Commission in 1951.  A series of three research contracts were issued to geneticist James V. Neel to work with a Marshall Islands population examining “natural occurring mutations in a human population.”  This research was expected to “yield data of considerable value in our thinking about the genetic effects of irradiation in man” (Monthly Status and Progress Report for February 1951 of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the AEC).  Dr. Neel’s expectation with this research was “that the spontaneous rate of mutation in human genes is going to be relatively high, a fact which of course would make their apparent sensitivity to irradiation of less relative importance in the overall picture of man's decline” (February 20, 1951 letter from Neel to Dr. Max Zelle).   

Experimental procedures, exams, and samples collected in March-May 1954 in support of Project 4.1 represents the next known use of Marshallese human subjects by Atomic Energy Commission scientists, and it is clear from study documents that findings from the initial human radiation study were merely the first reports in a long series of anticipated studies.  The initial Project 4.1 report concluded: “It is not possible at this time to give an estimate of the long term effects of internal contamination... It is expected that additional data will be available in the near future that will make possible reasonable estimates of the long term effects of internal radiation on these individuals” (DOE #429, part I:263).  Concerning the health and future of the people of Rongelap, Project 4.1 recommendations included the warning that the people “should be exposed to no further radiation, external or internal with the exception of essential diagnostic and therapeutic x-rays for at least 12 years.  If allowance is made for unknown effects of surface dose and internal deposition there probably should be no exposure for [the] rest of [their] natural lives” (Cronkite, 4/21/54).  

Data and findings from Project 4.1 were discussed by the AEC Division of Biology and Medicine in a July 1954 “Conference on Long Term Surveys and Studies of Marshall Islands” and used to shape the third major human subject research event – the formation of an integrated long-term human environmental research program to document the bioaccumulation of fallout and the human effects of this exposure.  From the start, it was assumed that the people of Rongelap would be returned to a contaminated setting and that the recommendation for no further exposure for at least 12 years would be ignored.  Thus, AEC Division of Biology and Medicine Advisory Committee discussion included the research needs and logistics of studying the uptake of fission products in the food chain before and after returning the people of Rongelap to their atoll:
Mr. Harris:  These people will introduce animals when they get back there.  There may be a concentration of certain isotopes, such as strontium 90, for instance, in these animals or in the meat parts of these animals, which would subsequently be eaten by the natives.  If you put animals back, immediately you would get an idea at measurable levels of what this translocation rate might be.  Remembering that people are going to eat these animals later on (ibid:220).
Dr. Bugher:  In this consideration, how do you feel about simply taking specimens at intervals as the islands are visited from their pigs, from their chickens and dogs, and from the people as they die too, if you can possibly get the material… wild animals might have been mentioned here… the shell fish and crabs….  In the surveys, specimen material of these various indigenous fauna would be desired to these various groups concerned with these analyses (ibid:223-224).

To allow long-term monitoring of the degenerative effects of radiation regular interval examinations were proposed, consisting of 
1)	physical examinations and interval history; 
2)	hematological studies such as hematocrit, white blood cell count, differential count, platelet enumeration and bone marrow studies; 
3)	full body skin exams documented in color and black and white photographs, with skin biopsies if indicated; 
4)	opthamological studies of the lens, including a photographic record of the anterior portion of the lens; 
5)	growth studies of children including the development of dentition; 
6)	the progress of pregnancies and status of newborn infants (“I don’t think much comment is required except that essentially it will be a documentation of nothing happening in all likelihood”  Bugher, ibid:146);
7)	quantitative studies of internally deposited radioisotopes by means of urinary excretion measurements, external radiological measurement and localization, and such radiography as may be useful;
8)	environmental surveys of the affected islands and atolls and appropriate examination of the animals left on contaminated islands. 

In addition to identifying the focus of long-term research, the Advisory Committee identified those areas that they were not interested in pursuing.  With reference to questions of fertility, while “abnormal menses were observed in two women in the Rongelap group” and fertility studies on animals brought back from Rongelap suggested a 50 percent fertility rate (ibid:54), scientists balked at the prospect of research that looks at human reproductive and intergenerational effects of radiation:
Cdr. Cronkite:  My feeling toward it is very simple.  We should not attempt to do any studies for fertility for obvious psychological reasons for natives themselves. It becomes a fairly personal thing for getting specimens of semen and prying into these things.  It is difficult enough to get a specimen of urine, and feces, let alone inducing masturbation on a large scale of Marshallese.
Dr: Dunham:  If properly induced.  You don’t know who the fathers are.  You are dealing with a group where there is no control.  You would have to use the Uterikans as control…  Furthermore, the data in Japan suggests that as far as live births are concerned, there are pretty good data on that.  A lot of it where large numbers of people studied both control and irradiated population, and there is apparently no difference (ibid:106-107).

Agreements emerging from this conference include recognition that the “type of study which was made in the acute phase will need to be continued for an indefinite time, but with a changing emphasis from what might be called acute problems to the long term effects which are particularly likely to manifest themselves in such things as shortening of life, the occurrence of tumors, both superficial and deep, and in bone changes, which may be minor in nature” (Bugher, ibid:242).  United States researchers, therefore, monitored the Rongelapese with the expectation of seeing the people contract these conditions.

Interval examinations were also recognized as opportunities to collect samples of interest to a wide range of ongoing studies:
Dr. Bugher:  Now, our feeling was, too, that various groups of people have special interests and would like to have sample material of various kinds.  As far as possible, the groups concerned with the interval study should attempt to provide those samples (ibid:147). 
 
Some of the special interests mentioned included a request for a selection of extracted teeth to support ongoing studies on the radiation effects on growing teeth (ibid:109) and extraction of teeth during autopsies, including those done on people who die from other causes (ibid:111); bone marrow aspirations to support hematological studies and the use of radioisotopes in tagging procedures to measure red blood cell formation rates (ibid:174-175); interval x-rays of long bones to track roentogenographic changes and study radio element deposition (ibid:183-184); and the harvesting of various samples in post-mortem autopsies (ibid:189-190).

The sampling of human subject material that continued after death violated Marshallese traditions, as noted in the May 21, 1956 letter from the District Administrator of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands to Dr. Robert Conard, Brookhaven National Laboratory:  
Jabwe, the health aide on Ejit came over to Uliga early in the evening to announce that one man had suddenly died after a very short illness of about one hour duration.  Since this was the first death among the original Rongelapese that were brought here, we were faced with the problem of an autopsy.  Not to interfere with local customs of Marshallese death rituals we agreed to let the family have the body for the night.  Mr. Bender and Mr. Jack Tobin (anthropologists working with the TTPI) had asked the family permission for an autopsy but the family refused.  The family were reluctant with a fear that we shall mutilate the body, remove pieces and organs which according to their native belief is a very bad thing to the future afterlife of the deceased.   

Because long-term research plans involved an integrated study focusing on the absorption and affects of radioisotopes in ecological and human systems, medical research plans paralleled ecological survey efforts.  Rongelap was resurveyed beginning in 1954, with soil and food samples taken from Rongelap Atoll by biologists, geologists and other scientists to learn about the movements of isotopes in the environment (DOE#167:53).  In 1954 United States researchers identified Cesium-137 (Cs-137) as “one of the principal radio nuclides found at Rongelap” (DOE #341:164).  Cesium-137 was detected in edible portions of plants prior to the resettlement of the Rongelapese and the average counts in soils for Cs-137 appeared higher at Rongelap than at Bikini or Enewetak (DOE #298).  A 1955 survey conducted by the University of Washington on Rongelap and Ailinginae indicated that: “Edible plants other than coconuts, such as pandanus, papaya, and squash, have been found to contain levels of Sr 90 which are above the tolerance level as defined in the Radiological Health handbook” (DOE #342:32).  In general, plants in the north had higher levels of radiation than the islands in the south with the exception of arrowroot, a staple of the Rongelapese.  Arrowroot on Rongelap Island was found to have almost three times greater radiation levels than other sample areas on Rongelap and Ailinginae in 1955 (DOE #342:31).  The increased radiation levels of arrowroot on Rongelap Island were attributed to the fact that the arrowroot at Rongelap was probably collected in radiation “hot spots.”  Unfortunately for the Rongelapese, these hot spot “readings were highest in soil depressions and in pits such as those used by the natives for growing crops” (DOE #342:31).  

Researchers also found that the coconut crab feeds on land plants high in Sr-90 and Cs-137 levels (DOE #342:48).  In a 1955 survey of Rongelap and Ailinginae, radiation ecology studies indicated that “the highest Cs 137 levels were found in the land plants and the coconut crab” accounting for 26% to 100% of the radioactivity in the specimens that year (DOE #342:58).  Researchers also noted that Stronium-90 (Sr-90) taken up by plants was deposited in the bones of humans via air, water, plants and animal products (DOE #348).  Because researchers understood that coconut crabs bioaccumulate radiation, one year before the Rongelapese returned home, a recommendation was made to resettle the people provided they do not eat coconut crab (DOE #240, DOE #458:2453).  This recommendation was not implemented until several years after the people returned, and the resulting exposure allowed scientists to measure the amount of radionuclides present in human beings and confirm the levels of fallout produced by the weapons since “the deposition in the human body seems roughly to parallel the levels of fallout” (DOE#361:6).

In 1957, the United States Government announced to the Rongelapese that it was safe to return to Rongelap.  This assurance was based on assumptions that initial high levels of radioactivity had subsided, and that current levels detected from airplane readings at 200 feet in 1957 reflected on the ground conditions (DOE#356:6/13/57 memo, DOE #356:10/1/57 memo, DOE#357: 2/13/58 memo).  

The decision to repatriate the people of Rongelap to a still contaminated setting ignored medical recommendations to avoid future exposures.  This decision also supported the United States scientific research and military defense agendas.  In 1957, the United States Government was battling an effort at the United Nations to produce a test ban treaty.  Given global concern over the plight of the Rongelapese, the United States Government worried that any future evacuation to protect the population would generate negative publicity highlighting the fallout dangers of nuclear weapons tests.  Injuries from the Bravo Event had been highly publicized, and United States officials worried that further injury might produce a resolution from the United Nations banning future weapons tests.  These concerns are reflected in the discussion of the committee charged with responsibility for making the repatriation decision-- the AEC Advisory Committee on Biology and Medicine (ACBM): 
The current low morale of the natives was pointed out and the advantages of returning them to their homes presented as a factor which should be balanced against the possible radiation hazard in their return… It was agreed that because of the already high relative exposure to which the natives had already been subjected, limiting their exposure in terms from now on was unrealistic; but on the other hand, the psychological effect of permitting them to receive more radiation than our own people, could be subject to criticism.  

Further discussion resulted in adoption of a formal statement expressing the Committee’s opinion:  
It is moved that the ACBM approve the Division of Biology and Medicine’s proposal to return the Rongelapese to their native atoll.  However, it is the opinion of the ACBM that if it should become necessary to re-evacuate because of further tests there would result world opinion unfavorable to the continuation of weapons testing. (ACBM 1957:9-10). (See excerpt from ACBM minutes in Attachment A).

The ACBM statement in effect produced a non-evacuation policy where the Rongelapese were returned to Rongelap with the understanding that they would remain there regardless of the potential for hazardous exposure in future tests.  As a result, the resettled Rongelapese -– exposed and “nonexposed” -- endured the ill effects from cumulative exposure to multiple weapons tests. 

In July 1957 a LCU (landing craft unit) transported the Rongelapese from Ejit to Rongelap Island where some effort had been made to construct pre-fabricated housing and related improvements (see Homes and Narver 1957).  Use of Rongelap Atoll, however, was restricted to just Rongelap Island by United States Naval edict.  Similarly, Ailinginae Atoll was off limits.  The Rongelapese were not allowed to return to Rongerik because the environment still had not recovered from the time the Bikinians’ depletion of the resource base, and because it remained contaminated from the tests.  As a result, the resettled Rongelapese stopped using Rongerik Atoll. 

Shortly after their return, scientists returned to Rongelap to collect foodstuff samples and analyze them for radiological contamination.  The United States military wanted to conduct nuclear weapons pre-test surveys of Rongelap to determine the residual amounts of radioactivity before conducting the next series of nuclear tests.  This July 1957 survey of food, soil, water and plankton indicated that radiation levels were “appreciably above background” (DOE #376:57).

The non-evacuation policy meant that the people of Rongelap had to contend with contamination from the Bravo Event, pre-1954 tests, tests that occurred during their absence such as the 1956 Redwing Series and, because of the policy of no re-evacuation, contamination from later military operations.  For example: 
•	The 1958 Operation Hardtack series generated additional fallout on Rongelap, producing elevated levels of plutonium noted in subsequent medical and environmental surveys (see Attachment A, Donaldson letter to Seymour, January 11, 1957; and Conard letter to Dunham, June 5 1958). 
•	The testing of nuclear devices in 1961-1962 resulted in increased concentrations of radioactive iron (Fe-55) in goatfish liver documented by University of Washington scientists, and subsequent increases in average Rongelapese body-burdens of Fe-55 documented by medical Survey scientists (See Beasley, Held and Conard 1970).  
•	Reports published in 1999 indicate that, in the summer of 1968, the Deseret Test Center conducted a series of tests known as DTC 68-50 from the USS Granville S. Hall, anchored off Eniwetok Atoll.  This test series involved the atmospheric dissemination of “PG” -- staphylococcal enterotoxin B-- a toxin that causes incapacitating food poisoning that causes flu-like symptoms that can be fatal to the very young, the elderly, and people weakened by long term illness.  Staphylococcal enterotoxin B was disseminated over a 40-50 km downwind grid, and according to the Final Report, a single weapon was calculated to have covered 2400 square km, an area equal to 926.5 square miles.  The Medical Survey for 1967, 1968, and 1969 reports in the summary of health conditions, that “A rather serious outbreak of Hong Kong influenza occurred among the Rongelap people in 1968 and may have been responsible for the deaths of a 58-year old exposed woman and of an unexposed boy who died of meningitis complicating the influenza.”

Summary of Consequential Damages 
Research plans and priorities established in 1954 by the United States Government emphasized monitoring and human subject research rather than the treatment of the Rongelap people.  These plans shaped the nature of medical attention in subsequent years for the Rongelapese.  Medical recommendations to avoid future exposures were offset by scientific research priorities.  Human subject research included a long-term experiment involving the purposeful exposure of an entire population to hazards contained in a contaminated setting.  Decisions to repatriate the people of Rongelap were made with full knowledge that environmental hazards were present and would pose some threat to an already exposed population, and with full intent to exploit the research opportunities associated with continued exposures.  The people of Rongelap were returned to a contaminated setting where they remained under a policy of no re-evacuation, and were thus subject to further radioactive and toxic assaults from future weapons tests.  The consequential damages of these policies and priorities include decades of medical focus on research questions rather than individual health care needs.  These actions constitute systematic and long-term abuse of the Rongelapese – abuse that continues to generate hardships for individuals, families, the broader communities of Rongelapese, and the nation.  

9.    Difficulties of Life in A Contaminated Setting 
Dorothy Amos:  Then we went back to Rongelap.  They (the United States Government) said they had cleaned the island.  (March 18, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).
When the people returned to Rongelap they found missing numerous possessions that they could not gather or bring with them during their evacuation:
Almira Matayoshi:  When they came to evacuate us after the [Bravo] bomb, they told us not to take anything at all – none of our possessions.  So, I left everything behind.  I left the “peba in kallimur” (papers with promises) signed by my grandparents that showed I had land.  When we returned after a few years, everything in our houses was gone.  Now I can’t go to court and prove I had land because the papers are gone.  They told us not to bring anything. 
 When we returned,  the papers, and everything was gone.  Everything was burned – papers, clothes, pictures.  Our boats were gone.  Our tools for working, including the drekeinin that is passed down from our mothers.  We don’t know how to make those tools, or how to make the boats that could sail 10 people at once.  We had about five of those large sailing boats, but they were all gone when we returned (June 14, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

The consequences of these losses were profound.  In the case of Almira Matayoshi, who did not have time to collect her landowner papers, Almira and her offspring lost their claim to their land because they do not have the documents necessary to prove ownership.  

In addition to the difficulties of adjusting to the losses of personal, household, and family property, the Rongelapese confronted significant difficulties in adjusting to their contaminated atoll.  Upon their return they found an altered landscape, with “atypical plants, including trees with three to five crowns” (Davis, 1963).  Rongelap trees and plants were described by University of Washington scientists in July 1957 as “mutants” because of their extra flowers and limbs and their stem abnormalities – atrophied, or “thickened, swollen” stems covered with cancerous warts (DOE #340:43).

From the onset the people of Rongelap began to experience a wider variety of health problems than previously known.  Jorulej Jitiam, the health assistant posted on Rongelap in 1957 expressed his concern in a letter to the District Director of Public Health in Majuro, asking for treatment advice for: 
impetigo that doesn’t heal… and wounds that won’t heal for up to 3 months and get worse…  Such things didn’t occur to these people while they were in Ejit, but now many of them have gotten these diseases…  What I think is that there is still radioactivity in the island because even if a person got a small laceration on his leg, etc., it will become infected and got bigger.   Frequent abdominal pain is being noticed among the people… I want a doctor to come here before the AEC’s visit so he can have a fairly good idea of what cause these things to be happened.  Please come as soon as possible.

Although radionuclides and their bioaccumulation in foodstuffs were an invisible threat to the Rongelapese, the people suspected that their problems stemmed from the high levels of radiation in their food.  The Rongelapese got blisters in their mouths and food poisoning from eating certain foods.  The foods that made them ill after resettlement never made them sick before the Bravo test.  Because of the blisters in their mouths from the food, and because they could see the effects of radiation in the trees and plants they ate from, the Rongelapese attribute their health problems to the presence of radiation in their environment:
John Anjain:  We had no problem with our food before the testing.  Afterwards, arrowroot and the plants gave us blisters in our mouths.  I also think the problems with our throats (thyroids) are from the poison.  After we went back, new fish gave us fish poisoning, such as paan (red snapper).  Rongelap’s lagoon was affected.  I got fish poisoning twice after returning...  As for the crabs, DOE told us not to eat them.  It’s forbidden to eat them.  Before the bomb, we used to eat them a lot.  DOE were the ones that said it was forbidden to eat them.  I asked why.  They told me to ask God (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye). 

Chiyoko Tamayose:  We ate foods that made our throats swell and close up, and even made us shake like we had epilepsy.  I remember this after eating crab, I don’t know if it became poisonous like some species of fish, or what (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

The people got mouth blisters from eating arrowroot, fish, clams, and coconuts... We had no choice but to go back to Rongelap [in 1957]…  It is impossible to limit people’s consumption once they are on their land (March 2, 1999, Advisory Committee discussion).

Nerja Joseph:  Some coconuts had two or three heads.  The arrowroot had no contents... it was empty inside (March 8, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Majuro).

Dorothy Amos:  After returning, many things were different.  The food we ate...  there was a food we didn’t eat, coconut crab.  The fish - our mouths were hot...  we got burns.  Arrowroot also gave us blisters.  We saw that many things were different.  We sucked on pandanus and that was all right but the other foods were bad.  We saw some coconut trees that had two heads, some three.  We saw they weren’t good for us to eat.  We understood there were differences because we grew up there and we knew.  They gave us other food to help us for awhile on Rongelap.  Then we ate leaves and animals (March 18, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Lijon Eknilang:  The throats/thyroids of the birds became abnormally large and swollen in the years after the bombs.  When we opened them up, they had hard, white rocks in their throats that we had never seen before (March 2, 1999, Advisory Committee discussion, Majuro).
 
The resettled Rongelapese ate vegetables, fruit, and tubers grown in heavily contaminated soil.  They ate coconut crabs, chickens, and pigs that had in turn consumed radioactive foods and had thus accumulated higher concentrations of radioisotopes.  Radiation also affected the marine sources of food, such as the fish that consume radioactive algae and plankton.  As a result, the exposure of the Rongelapese was compounded by the fact that they consumed foods that accumulated and thus intensified radiation from the environment.  Ethnographic interviews suggest that fish poisoning, while not unknown prior to the nuclear tests, became an immediate and serious problem with some species and locales that were previously “safe” causing poisoning:
People got fish poisoning from types of fish that never caused poisoning in the past, such as iol (mullet), and malok.  Before the tests, only the jujukop (barracuda) fish caused fish poisoning (Advisory Committee discussion, March 2, 1999).

Responsibility for the long-term monitoring of the Rongelapese was given to a United States Government weapons facility, Brookhaven National Laboratory (1954-1997), with Dr. Robert Conard appointed Director in 1956.  Brookhaven National Laboratory scientists embraced their duties and research opportunities noting that on Rongelap Island “the levels of activity are higher than those found in any other inhabited location in the world.  The habitation of those people on the island will afford most valuable ecological radiation data on human beings” (DOE #366:22).

While plant observations provided clear indications that radioisotopes were present in the food chain, samples for the coconut crab – a main source of food for the people of Rongelap -- were not analyzed and reported until February 1958, and it was not until June1958 that the Rongelap people were informed by the Medical Survey team that eating coconut crabs presented a health risk from high levels of Sr-90.  (See letters and memos from Dunning 1957, 1958 and Conard 1958 in Attachment A).  As the ethnographic data indicates, the June 1958 ban on coconut crab angered and confused the Rongelapese and many people did not adhere to the restriction:
Nerja Joseph:  First they said we could eat crabs, and then they said to stop. What’s the point when we already ate them?  (March 8, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Majuro).

Ken Kedi:  Culturally, you can’t tell people not to eat food, like crab, they see.  Even if we were hungry, they said not to eat the crabs, but we ate them anyway.  (March 1, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Barbara Rose Johnston, and Stuart Kirsch, Majuro).  

Jimako Kobnij:  Even though it was bad, I ate them.  I didn’t think about it.  The food we ate gave us blisters in our mouths.  (March 18, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Jerkan Jenwor:  Rongelap was an atoll with so much food-- coconut, pandanus, and breadfruit.  Now there is none.  Because of the poison, it disappeared.  When we returned, we ate the arrowroot.  It gave us blisters in our mouths, but we had to eat it especially during times of hunger.  The local doctor eventually stopped us from eating it.  We also ate crabs even though we weren’t supposed to (March 17, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Although people on Rongelap were eventually told not to eat the coconut crab, they were not told to avoid eating other terrestrial or marine food sources known to have high levels of radiation, such as arrowroot.  Also, United States scientists knew that despite the extremely high levels of radiation in coconut crabs, they were considered only “intermediate in their general level of radioactivity” compared to the giant clam (DOE #342:18).  The United States Navy confirmed that clams concentrate high levels of Co-60 (DOE #290:19), yet the Rongelapese were never told to avoid eating clams.  Researchers also reported high levels of contamination in pandanus, a Rongelapese staple food: “pandanus fruit and coconut crabs were the two food items of major concern with respect to Sr 90 content at the time of the return of the Rongelapese” (DOE #358:8/7/59 memo), yet this staple food was not restricted from their diet.

The radiation that worked its way through the plant and animal food chain that the Rongelapese depended on for survival provided scientists with the research opportunity to significantly expand their understanding about bioaccumulation and environmental sources of exposure to human beings.  Thus, in “the long range radiation ecology study at Rongelap major emphasis was placed on studies of the soil-plant relationship, aquatic bird populations, and mineral transport, as well as evaluations of the uptake of specific isotopes by plants and animals used as food by the natives (DOE #378, p.58).       

While it as assumed that radioactivity would decrease over time, ecological surveys by the University of Washington found persistent radiation in the soil, terrestrial and marine organisms on Ailinginae, Rongerik and Rongelap.  The 1977 study documented and measured the presence of six fallout radionuclides from soil samples taken from Ailinginae: Co-60, Cs-137, Eu-155, Am-241, Pu-240, and Sr-90 and found that Cs-137 and Sr-90 were the most abundant radio nuclides (DOE #262, 1977:9-10).  On Rongerik, seven fallout radionuclides were commonly found in the surface soil samples, and “pandanus and coconut samples contained fallout radio nuclides Cs-137 and Sr-90.  The edible fruit of the Pandanus had the highest Cs-137 values” (DOE #262, 1977:10-11).  On Rongelap, five gamma-emitting radionuclides were easily measured in samples, and radionuclides were found in the fish, plants and soil samples, including “significant fallout radionuclides” detected in the clams (DOE #262, 1977:12).  This study concluded that: 
Sr-90 and Cs-137 are dominant in the terrestrial environment and in addition, Am-241 and 239, Pu-240 are also important in the soil from Rongelap atoll, Cobalt 60 and 55 Fe are predominant in the marine environment” (DOE #262, 1977: 27). 

Bioaccummulation of radioisotopes not only occurred in terrestrial realms, but in marine ecosystems as well.  Surveys of the plants, animals, soil and water in 1955 indicated that some of the “highest concentrations of internally deposited activity were found in marine specimens taken from the northern Rongelap lagoon” (DOE #335:11).  Based on oceanographic surveys and water sampling after the Castle series “one conclusion evident from these [surveys] is that total doses of 250r or more could have been accumulated throughout an area of about 5,000 square miles” (DOE #161:53).  The movement of fish and marine foods throughout the atoll and a 5,000 square mile area of marine exposure meant that the Rongelapese consumed radiation from their marine environment. 

United States researchers monitored open sea marine plankton and its role in transporting fallout in the marine food chain (DOE #34:17).  Researchers observed that plankton was “the most sensitive indicator of radioactivity in the sea” (DOE #332:55).  Radiation readings in plankton were considered” representative of that available to marine food chains” (DOE#348:64).  In a 3,300 mile survey area in the Pacific Ocean,” radioactive materials were found in the plankton samples from every station” (DOE #332:9). 

By 1958, university researchers discovered that fish may be concentrating radioactivity by as much as “a thousand fold” because of the radioactive plankton they consume (DOE #348:59) similarly to the way that radiation bioaccumulates in the coconut crabs.  Researchers also observed that “the lagoon would tend to hold radiation within its system of circulation” (DOE #380:85) and that radiation would concentrate in the lower levels of the lagoon where fish, such as the sturgeon fish -- a species routinely consumed by the Rongelapese -- would concentrate high levels of cesium (DOE #380:118).   

According to a 1960 report by the University of Washington, “the most important sources of exposure to people living on Rongelap... are from internal deposition of radioisotopes from certain elements in the human diet, and from long term occupancy of islands having external radiation dose rates higher than natural background” (DOE #361, p.2).  As plants uptake radiation from the environment and animals consume plants and small animals, radiation concentrates and moves through the food chain.  University of Washington researchers involved in the radiation ecology studies at Rongelap determined that the highest concentrations of radiation were found in the herbivore and omnivore species of fish, such as the parrotfish (DOE #340, p.l45), a fish frequently consumed by the Rongelapese. 
 
Fish is one of the most critical food sources and the main source of protein.  As late as 1962, “the highest levels of gross beta radioactivity were found in samples of algae, fish liver and muscles, and sea cucumber muscle” at Rongerik (DOE #299:11).  Increases in gross beta radioactivity in fish were measured on Rongelap between 1954 and March 1958 (DOE #292, DOE #312).  A 1982 study found that with the exception of coconut, fish was the primary food consumed by the Rongelapese because it is categorized as an atoll area with excellent fishing (LLNL, 1982). 

From radiation levels monitored in the bird populations, United States Government researchers concluded that the fishing area in southern Rongelap where the people were resettled had higher radiation concentrations than fish in the restricted northern islands.  Researchers also found high concentrations of radiation in birds, a terrestrial food source consumed by the Rongelapese.  The birds from southern Rongelap had higher levels of radiation than birds from the north of Rongelap (DOE #342).  According to researchers, this “unexpected” finding of “higher levels of radioactivity in the tissues of the southern birds suggest the availability of a supply of food fish with a higher average radioactive content in the southern area compared with that of northern Rongelap” (DOE #342:43).  Unfortunately, fish and birds were staples of the Rongelapese people.  In the mid-1990’s the RMI Nationwide Radiological Survey tested thousands of soil, plant, and occasionally marine samples collected throughout the nation and confirmed the existence of unsafe levels of radiation at dozens of islands. 
 
The Rongelapese observed that many species of fish that did not cause fish poisoning before the nuclear tests became poisonous afterwards, and some species were poisonous in some locations, but not others.  Some scientists have suggested a relationship between fish poisoning and nuclear testing with damaged reefs supporting abnormally high numbers of the plankton Gambierdiscus toxicus, a dinoflagellate that produces ciguatera toxin.  Fish feeding on the reefs absorb this plankton, ciguatera toxins accumulate in the fish, which in turn are eaten by larger fish that concentrate the ciguatera toxin in their flesh.  Humans who eat these fish suffer from vomiting, diarrhea, loss of balance, and rarely, death.  The Marshall Islands and French Polynesia (the area where the French test nuclear weapons) have the highest incidence of fish poisoning in the Pacific (Ruff, cited in May 1989: 249). 

Reports of increased incidence of fish poisoning among the Rongelapese were dismissed by United States researchers who argued that fish poisoning had been known to occur before the nuclear tests.  Despite their knowledge of high levels of radioactivity in locally caught fish, United States Government scientists consistently dismissed the possibility of a link between rising incidents of fish poisoning and radioisotopes in the marine food chain (See Robert Conard Medical Survey narrative report for March 1959; and 17 April 1961 letter from Robert Conard to Courts Oulahan, Attachment A).

Similarly, Marshallese reports that they experienced blisters in their mouth when they ate arrowroot were dismissed by Medical Survey scientists, who explained that it is because the people did not know how to prepare arrowroot correctly that the blistered mouths occurred (DOE #400: March 1961 memo; see also the 17 April 1961 letter from Robert Conard, Attachment A).  Other complaints of illness from eating food reported by the Rongelapese were blamed on the fact that the Rongelapese eat non-refrigerated foods (DOE #429, part I: 231.  Yet, the Marshallese people had been preparing and eating unrefrigerated local foods for centuries without experiencing blisters or sickness. 
Ezra Riklon (Medical Officer for the TTPI):  I know that during these times (after resettlement) the common complaint – because I was the one who translate – after they eat arrowroot, they always developed burning sensation of the throat, and constriction of the throat which caused them to have difficulty in breathing… and then some of them develop rash, and nausea and vomiting…
After eating them (arrowroot) they complain to Dr. Conard (from Brookhaven).  And he said: “Oh, this is not unusual.”  Even – because at that time, all over the Marshall Islands there was fish poisoning – every atoll mostly.  And these are the symptoms: nausea, vomiting, (inaudible) – this is normal.  So, it was, I believe it was Dr. Conard that said this may be due to fish poisoning.  But these people say: “I never eat fish, I eat arrowroot.  And after that, I develop this.  And every time I eat arrowroot, we always get sick.”  And he (Dr. Conard) said: “Every people who eat arrowroot, they will all get sick.”  Because he said: “Oh, maybe this is allergic to food or whatever you eat.” We said, “Well, if it was allergy, why every people who eat arrowroot always get sick?  If it was around the same thing, why don’t some people – others eat – do something, but not all people.  Not all people are allergic to some kind of food, but not every people.”  But we – every time these people eat arrowroot, they always get sick I noticed (August 18, 1994, Holly M. Barker, Majuro).

As carefully documented by government scientists, the people of Rongelap were consuming contaminated foods, and ethnographic evidence suggests that men, women, children and the elderly were exposed differently because they eat more or less of certain local foods.  For example, babies and the elderly tend to eat softer foods such as boiled pandanus.  Also, women tend to suck on the bones and eat the organs of fish while men eat more of the flesh.  Surveys of radiation levels in fish found high levels of radioactivity in the liver and viscera of fish (DOE #340:8) -- the parts of the fish that are often consumed by women.  This could lead to a greater consumption of organ and bone seeking radionuclides in women.

Exposure to contaminated foods was widespread, as food from Rongelap was distributed throughout the Marshalls.  The Marshallese depend on their neighbors and families to exchange food.  Implicit in this notion of exchange is the need for people to work together to prepare food.  Most frequently, people trade the types of foods they do have for the types that other people prepare.  Because food preparation in the Marshall Islands is labor intensive, people benefit from an economy of time by exchanging food sources.  The presence of food resources in Marshallese communities expresses the well being of the communities.  For this reason, the sharing of food is an important component of group health and in keeping the community together (Pollock, 1992).  There is an obligation for workers to share their food with their leaders at least once a year, usually at breadfruit harvesting time.  Because food resources on Rongelap Island alone were not adequate to provide for the people residing on the island or for customary distribution, the Rongelapese used the small islands in the north to collect and distribute food (Advisory Committee Discussion, March 3, 1999).  The northern islands of Rongelap are approximately 10 times as contaminated as the southern islands, and Cs-137 rates in coconut, pandanus and breadfruit from the northern islands can increase exposure by a factor of 8 to 32 (NRC 1994:83).  Thus, exchange of food resources from Rongelap led to the exposure of family members and iroij on distant islands: 
Mike Kabua:  Contaminated foods from Rongelap were shared with (people on) Ebeye and Majuro.  You can’t ignore your relatives in the urban areas because we have to share all food…
Iroij visits to Rongelap after 1957 were difficult.  The people were required to give food to their iroij even when the food was contaminated, such as coconut crabs, because of the cultural importance.  People didn’t want to give contaminated food to the iroij, but they had to.  By the same token, the iroij didn’t want to accept the contaminated food, but had to.  The iroij was scared of eating coconut crab, but it is so important to give coconut crab to the iroij that the iroij could kick people off the land for not giving it to him.  The people were also afraid the iroij would reject the food  (March 2, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).   

DOE studies also documented a clear presence of radiation in the well and cistern water sources the Rongelapese depended on daily for survival.  In 1957, the year the United States Government resettled the Rongelapese, researchers determined that the contamination level found in Rongelap’s water was higher than reported in earlier surveys (DOE #356).  In 1960, a report by the University of Washington found the highest levels of Sr-90 in the cistern algae (DOE #361:2) taken from the water sources the Rongelapese depended on for survival. 

In addition to the consumption of radiation through food and water sources, inhalation is another major pathway for radiation exposure (NRC 1994:68).  The Rongelapese inhaled radioactive fallout from the Bravo test in 1954.  After resettlement, the Rongelapese were vulnerable to the inhalation of radioactive dust resuspended in the air from ground moving activities with different activities among men and women contributing towards different levels of exposure.  For example, women often use coconut husks to fuel cooking fires, while men burn palm fronds and other vegetation in cultivation areas.  In April 1999, the Rongelap community revisited their home island to find a very dusty, dry island.  Walking around Rongelap Island in conjunction with this project, researchers and informants were literally covered with black dust.  People pulled their shirts over their mouths for fear of breathing contaminated soil.  People also noted extreme changes in the vegetation and expressed concern that observed changes were the long-term consequence of radioactive contamination.  They were surprised and dismayed to see yellow, dry, and barren plants and trees-- few fruits were found on the coconuts, pandanus and other food-producing trees.  

Radiation deposited in the soil from the weapons tests leads to both internal and external exposure in human beings: “soil contamination provided the basis for human exposure in two ways.  Radiation that emanated from the ground or standing vegetation led to external dose.  Radiation that emanated from food and water into the human body were responsible for internal dose” (DOE #50:20).  In addition to the internal and external pathways of human exposure to radiation in the soil, “intake through the skin can be either through the intact skin or through wounds.  Of particular interest in the Marshall Islands resettlement is the potential for uptake from contaminated soil” (NRC 1994:65).  Radiation scientists were especially concerned about children and exposure to radiation from soil: “One of the key exposure pathways for plutonium may well be infants eating contaminated soil.  All over the world, infants crawl on the ground and eat dirt.  Since the plutonium on Rongelap does not seem to be equally distributed, an infant could ingest a small amount of soil with one bite containing what one could call a “hot spot.”  Another exposure pathway could be direct uptake of plutonium into the bloodstream with wounds” (Franke 1989:9).  (See Figure 1, Attachment A, Levels of Transuranics on Rongelap Island as Compared to the Northern Hemisphere). 

Human ecological studies became an important component of the United States Government research on radiation effects in Rongelap, and scientists recognized that  “protracted exposure of Marshallese occurred after people returned to the contaminated areas” (DOE #430).  Researchers noted with concern the short transfer of radionuclides in the soil, plant and animal cycle (DOE #348:101) that the Rongelapese depended on for survival.  Clear linkages were established between the levels of radiation found in plants and the levels of radiation found in animals that consume the plants.  For example, the extraordinarily high levels of found in the organs of rats on Bikini and Enewetak “were roughly in proportion to the Cesium levels in the plants on the various islands [as] Cesium-137 is apparently concentrated in the muscle, livers, kidney, gut, skin, and bone”(DOE #349:45).  Concern was expressed by researchers about “the bone seeking elements likely to be the major cause of hazard for long-term internal effects” (DOE #349:97).  This short transfer caused researchers to worry about their own health and safety on Rongelap, an atoll considered “dangerous to field research work” particularly because of the increased risk of future miscarriages (DOE#429, part I:372).  

In the plants exposed to radiation, at a certain point, “cell division ceased and the cells enlarged and took on an abnormally mature appearance” (DOE #340, Appendix 9).  Interestingly, this corresponds with the hydatiform molar pregnancies experienced by Marshallese women after the testing.  These pregnancies called “grape babies” by the Marshallese, result when cells stop dividing and swell to the size of grapes (Alcalay, ACHRE).  The enlarged cells attach themselves to the uterus of the women and are often miscarried several months later, giving the impression of a birth to grapes: 
Almira Matayoshi:  I was pregnant when they dropped the bomb (Bravo).  I was flown off of Rongelap with the other pregnant women and the elderly people.  The rest of the people left on the boat.  I gave birth to Robert on Ejit, and he was normal.  The child I had after Robert, when we had returned to Rongelap, I gave birth to something that was like grapes.  I felt like I was going to die from the loss of blood.  My vision was gone and I was fading in and out of consciousness.  They emergency evacuated me to Kwajalein and I was sure I was going to die.  After the grapes, I had a third child.  It wasn’t like a child at all.  It had no bones, and was all skin.  When I gave birth they said: “ak ta men en?” (what is that thing?).  Mama said “uror” (a term denoting exacerbation).  It was the first strange looking child that people had seen.  I was the first.  That time was the worst time in my life.  The two times I gave birth to those things was the worst suffering of my life.  I feel both angry and embarrassed.  Many of the children born on Rongelap died.  Now we think our children need medical attention, but they won’t take care of them (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

While the United States government continued to assure the Rongelapese that living on their atoll presented no threat to their health, they were evidently concerned about the ill effects of short-term exposures to their own workers, as indicated in the June 27, 1977 examination and analysis body burdens of a Peace Corps worker who spent eight months on Rongelap teaching elementary school (1975-1976), three months on Majuro, and then an additional nine months on Rongelap (1976-1977):
She mentioned that she did swim in the lagoons “a bit” although this practice was generally forbidden to women.  She lived in a plywood dwelling and ate rice, flour, fish, coconut meat and coconut crabs.  She is 25 years old, does not smoke (“maybe occasionally”) and has never had nuclear medical procedure involving the administration of any radionuclide. (Cohen letter to Conard, 1977).
Urine samples and measurements from the whole body counter found the presence of Cesium-137 in the Peace Corps worker (measured body burden of 45.2 nci).

In addition to information from Rongelap, researchers were also aware that human populations were ingesting large amounts of radiation from the environments of other areas in the Marshall Islands, most notably Bikini.  In a1976 letter to James Livermen, Assistant for Environmental and Safety at the Energy Research and Development Administration, Dr. Robert Conard noted:
As you know, by copy of Ed Hardy’s letter to me of 7-6-76, the repeated plutonium analyses on the urine samples of people living in Bikini obtained last April again showed the same levels previously reported in his letter of March 26, 1976.  Disturbing also was the finding of similar low levels of plutonium in the urines of residents of Rongelap Atoll.  One wonders if perhaps people living in other areas of the Marshalls, not directly involved in the fallout, might also show increased levels because of proximity to the proving grounds.  We intend to check this. 
Despite Conard’s intentions, a nation-wide survey has never been accomplished, though documents disclosed in the1990s clearly indicate nation-wide exposure to significant fallout. 

Throughout their stay on the contaminated atoll the Rongelapese expressed concern that they had been returned to a contaminated setting and that they were suffering from repeated incidents of fallout from additional weapons tests.  In 1959, Rongelap Magistrate John Anjain formally voiced his suspicions that people were allowed to consume foods contaminated by radiation, and recorded his concerns at that time in his Magistrate’s record book.  On the occasion of a 1959 visit of the United Nations Mission to Rongelap, Anjain asked:
What is the difference between coconut crabs (which became restricted in 1958) and other kinds of foods?  Why are crabs bad, but not other foods?  Like the crabs, pigs also eat things from the ground, so people must eat poisonous pigs!  (Anjain, 1959:12, see also Conard notes on this question on page 2 of his February-March 1959 survey report, Attachment A). 

Comments from an oral history interview with James Robertson, a doctor who examined the Rongelapese after their initial exposure to Bravo, in subsequent medical surveys, and used Rongelapese subjects in procedures and experiments at Brookhaven National Laboratory provides an after-the-fact answer to Anjain’s questions: 
…we couldn’t really measure the radiation exposure because the external gamma rays don’t leave any residual radioactivity.  So that had to be determined by more indirect methods.  But what we could measure was the radioactivity that had gotten into the body from their ingesting contaminated food.  We had a gamma ray spectometer that could distinguish between the peaks, and we could tell what [peaks were signatures of what elements] and we made records of this (interview by Michael Yuffee and Prita Pillai, 1995).

Summary of Consequential Damages
Living in a contaminated setting meant cumulative exposures to individuals as radiation moved from the soil, to the plants and animals, and through the food chain.  The United States Government monitored the movement of radionuclides concentrated in the marine and terrestrial foods as it moved through the ecosystem and the bodies of the Rongelapese, and purposefully failed to warn them of the presence of radiation in the food, soil, water, fish and local environs, or restrict their consumption of local foods.  As a result, the Rongelapese suffered continual discomforts of consuming contaminated food, and their health continues to be affected from the cumulative effects of these exposures.

10.    Degenerative Health and Healthcare Issues on Rongelap
From 1957 when the Rongelapese were resettled on their homeland to 1972, AEC and the AEC’s successor, the Department of Energy (DOE), conducted annual medical exams of the Rongelapese.  After the September 1972 discovery of leukemia in Lekoj Anjain, the DOE initiated twice yearly exams for the population.  Medical survey visits involved documentation of conditions, harvesting of samples for various biomedical research studies, and -- after thyroid problems were identified in the 1960s --treatment for specific radiation-related ailments.  As noted in the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE) review: “Primary case, however, remained inadequate.  There were serious epidemics of poliomyelitis, influenza, chicken pox, and pertussis, all of which, according to Dr. Conard, were imported into the Marshalls by the U.S. medical teams” (ACHRE 1995:593). 

In some cases the serious epidemics were predicted and, if requests for vaccines had been met, preventable.  For example Dr. James P. Nolan writes in a June 18, 2001 letter published in the New York Times:
In the mid-1950’s, as a medical officer in the Navy, I participated with a team from the Brookhaven National Laboratory in examining inhabitants of an atoll who were irradiated by fallout from a poorly planned nuclear test that left their island uninhabitable.  Less well known is the occurrence of a severe outbreak of polio in the islands in the late 1950’s.  This outbreak occurred several years after the mass vaccination of our own population.  Despite being a United Nations trust territory under United States control, the Marshall Islands natives never received the polio vaccine.  And despite my inquiries to the Department of Interior at that time, no explanation for this inexcusable health oversight was given.

Review of DOE archives finds that in January 1958 several cases of polio were reported in the Marshall Islands and an order was issued for all military personnel participating in the 1958 Operation Hardtack to be vaccinated for polio.  The failure to provide vaccines for the Marshallese meant that by 1963 the Medical Survey team found in Rongelap a serious epidemic of poliomyletis Type I producing 22 paralytic cases in children, and 3 cases in adults, with one death.

The Rongelapese complained bitterly about the medical survey exams and procedures from the beginning, saying that they felt like guinea pigs for the United States to pry and prod rather than patients with healthcare concerns.  Marshallese complaints that their health care needs were not being treated was acknowledged in a 1958 letter by Robert Conard, who suggested the use of placebos:  
I found that there was a certain feeling among the Rongelap people that we were doing too many examinations, blood tests, etc. which they do not feel necessary, particularly since we did not treat (emphasis in original) many of them.  Dr. Hicking and I got the people together and explained that we had to carry out all the examinations to be certain they were healthy and only treated those we found something wrong with.  I told them they should be so happy so little treatment was necessary since so few needed it…etc., etc.  Perhaps next trip we should consider giving more treatment or even placebos.  (ACHRE 1995:593).

The callous treatment by U.S. doctors and the sense of being passed around from one doctor to another for examination was captured by the Rongelapese in a song:
Rube im kalikar ialin jen Robert non LoRauut
Bunrokean ko ion tol ien wot Lomejenma
Bun-Nineaan ko ion tol lanin im raan dron
Jen na ubon im ban ke kim jo ro-koean non Laukukot
Oh Lotalim ej jutak wot
Jekron bwe Labija ej watch raan im bon

Show the way from Dr. Robert (Conard’s) examination room to “LaRaut” (Mr. Urine Collector)
Over the hill to the right is “Lomejenma” (Mr. he’s so close when he examines ears, eyes, nose, throat that he can almost kiss his patients)
Over the hill to the left is Laninimrandron (Mr. call the numbers or names of people and escort patients to see doctors in the examination rooms)
From the chest to the back is examined by Laukukwot (Mr. put the patients on rotating equipment)
Oh Lotalim (Dr. touching and examining both internal and external parts) is at ease while LaPija (Mr. X-ray specialist) is processing film day and night.

By 1972, the Rongelapese were so angry about the experimental nature of the medical program that they refused to host a DOE medical survey visit scheduled for the spring of 1972 (J. Anjain, p. 97).   Their complaints did not go unnoticed by the international community, and when exams were continued in September 1972, they included four medical observers who reported back to the Congress of Micronesia.  It was during this survey that, after 18 years of intensive medical research, some effort was made by Medical Survey staff to talk to the Marshallese about exam procedures and to advise territorial health staff about patient health needs: 
In the interest of trying to promote a better communication between examining doctors and the Marshallese examined, an attempt was made at the completion of each examination to explain to the person through an interpreter the general results of the examination and possible treatment recommended.  At each island clinical conferences were held by the physicians, including the medical observers, Dr. Riklon and the health aide, to evaluate all cases examined and to recommend treatment and disposition. In some cases, the health aide was advised as to further treatment. 

It was also during the September 1972 survey that Lekoj Anjain, the son of Rongelap's Magistrate, John Anjain, was recognized as exhibiting the symptoms of leukemia.  Shortly thereafter Lekoj, along with other Marshallese patients who had thyroid nodule diagnoses, was sent to Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York for further study and treatment.  Acute myleogenous leukemia was diagnosed.  Other Marshallese patients received treatment and were sent home.  Lekoj Anjain remained in the United States to undergo chemotherapy, transfusions, and related procedures.  He died on November 15, 1972 at the National Institute of Health at Bethesda, Maryland.

A January 1995 oral history interview with Dr. James Robertson provides possible insights on the experimental nature of leukemia treatment at that time.  In this interview excerpt, Robertson refers to his work with Dr. Cronkite, one of the Brookhaven National Laboratory researchers responsible for the monitoring, study, and treatment of Marshallese patients:
Robertson:  Dr. Cronkite is a hematologist.  I did work with Cronkite.  A thing that he got me involved with was effects of radiation on the survival of red blood cells.  You asked if we treated leukemia at Brookhaven, and I'd forgotten about this.  A possible way of treating leukemia was by what they call extracorporeal irradiation of the blood.  So what you tried to do was, you send the blood through this machine that had a radiation source in it.  I designed the radiation source for his extracorporeal irradiation machine.  The idea was to irradiate the blood so that you'd kill the white cells, which are very susceptible, but then you'd also damage the red cells.  So to a certain extent, a study that I got involved in was a dose and effects [study] on the red cells in connection extracorporeal irradiation.   I don't think extracorporeal irradiation ever developed outside of the research laboratory into a treatment for leukemia, but it was an idea. 
Yuffee:  Was it tested on humans? 
Robertson:  Oh, yes. 
Yuffee:  Without much success? 
Robertson:  Well, there was success of a sort, in that it would decrease the lymphocyte 105 population without too much red cell damage.  But the thing is, the red cells then are being regenerated at such a rapid rate that it didn't have any permanent effect.   

A Newsweek reporter who shared a room with Lekoj prior to his death observed that:  
Lekoj spends a good deal of his time curled up in a ball on his bed, wrapped in a blanket, only his curly black hair and his brown skin showing above the blanket.  He speaks very little English, but he grins broadly, showing strong white teeth, when anybody smiles at him… ‘How are you feeling?’ I asked Lekoj this morning, as I do most mornings.  ‘No good.  Deezy,’ said Lekoj.  The powerful chemicals he is taking cause an acute nausea… Lekoj gets blood transfusions… 
… (W)hy should this charming young man (age 19), who should be chasing fish or possibly girls in some sparkling Pacific lagoon, suffer this lonely and outrageous fate, and by man’s doing, not by God’s? (Stewart Alsop, Newsweek, October 30, 1972). 

A February 1974 report presented to the Fifth Congress of Micronesia by the Special Joint Committee Concerning Rongelap and Utirik Atolls summarizes some of these events and concerns, and reports the findings from a study examining the psychological effects of the 1954 incident noting that: 
people do worry quite a lot as a result of their experience, not only for themselves, but also for their children… What is perhaps the most interesting fact is that the exposed and unexposed alike are still afraid to eat local food or live on their islands.  It is as though the fear of illness from contamination persists in their minds like the residual radiation which still exists in the food chains and ecology of their islands (Compensation for the People of Rongelap and Utirik, 1974:32).

The Congress of Micronesia report recommended compensation for a variety of illness caused by radiation, citing as justification: 
concerning the giving of radioactive materials to patients… the prudent assumption is that all ionizing radiation to the patient is harmful.  Consequently, the Committee position that whether or not ‘damage’ can be proven is irrelevant, since it is a fact that exposure occurred, and that since exposure to radiation is harmful, then it is highly probable that damage did indeed occur” (ibid:29).  

This report, and subsequent communications between the Congress of Micronesia and the United States Government prompted a number of actions by Medical Survey staff meant to diminish public attention and concern.  Thus, later in 1974 Robert Conard attended a formal meeting on Rongelap Island meant to address questions raised by the Rongelap Fallout Survivors Association:
I would like to say a few words about the little bit of radiation that is left on Rongelap Island.  Some of the people have been worried about radiation in the food.  Some will not eat arrowroot flour because they believe that it contains “radiation poison.”  I would like to say that with the exception of coconut crabs from the northern islands of the Rongelap Atoll, all foods can be eaten…
… (In response to request to provide food at the time of examinations): We had not been aware that so much time was involved in gathering food for the families…  in the future, in view of this request, we shall attempt to serve prepared food to the members of the families on the day they come in for examinations…
… (In response to questions concerning the need for thyroid operations on Shiko, a member of the “nonexposed” group):  We do not believe the unexposed Rongelap people will get any radiation sickness from living on Rongelap since there is practically no radiation left on the island.
… (In response to questions of how much longer does the BNL team plan to continue their experiments on Rongelap):  These examinations should not be called experiments.  In no way have we carried out experiments on the people  (Meeting with Rongelap People April 1974, report by Robert Conard).

Despite these efforts to placate fears, the Rongelap community continued to express anger and concern over their experiences as human subjects in AEC research.  The sentiments of the community were captured in an April 9, 1975 letter to Dr. Robert Conard by Nelson Anjain who was Magistrate at the time:
I am writing to you to clarify some of my feelings regarding your continued use of us as research subjects.
I realize now that your entire career is based on our illness.  We are far more valuable to you that you are to us.  You have never really cared about us as people -- only as a group of guinea pigs for your government's bomb research effort.  For me and for other people on Rongelap, it is life which matters most.  For you it is facts and figures.  There is no question about your technical competence, but we often wonder about your humanity.  We don't need you and your technological machinery.  We want our life and our health.  We want to be free.
In all the years you've come to our island, you've never really treated us as people. You've never sat down among us and really helped us honestly with our problems.  You have told people that the "worst is over", then Lekoj died. I don't know yet how many new cases you'll find during your current trip, but I am worried that we will suffer again and again.
I'll never forget how you told a newspaper reporter that it was our fault that Lekoj died because we wouldn't let you examine us in early 1972. You seem to forget that it is your country and the people you worked for who murdered.
…I've made some decisions that I want you to know about.  The main decision is that we do not want to see you again.  We want medical care from doctors who care about us, not about collecting information for the U.S. government's war makers.
We want a doctor to live on our island permanently.  We don't need medical care when it is convenient for you to visit.  We want to be able to see a doctor when we want to.  America has been trying to Americanize us by flying flags and using cast-off textbooks.  It's about time America gave us the kind of medical care it gives it's own citizens. 
We've never really trusted you.  So we're going to invite doctors from hospitals in Hiroshima to examine us in a caring way.
We no longer want to be under American control.  As a representative of the United States, you've convinced us that Americans are out to dominate others, not help them.  From now on, we will maintain our neutrality and independence from American power.
There will be some changes made.  Next time you try to visit be prepared.  Ever since 1972 when we first stood up to you, we've been aware of your motives.  Now that we know that there are other people in this world willing to help us, we no longer want you to come to Rongelap.

While angry about their mistreatment in the medical survey program, the Rongelapese also realized that they had no choice but to accept continued exams, as they needed access to medication, such as the thyroid replacement medication used to keep their bodies regulated: 
Rokko Langinbelik:  One of the worst things for me is that they told me to take my medication for my thyroid every day and not to forget a day because it will shorten my life.  This really upsets me because sometimes I forget and I don’t want to shorten my life (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

The Medical Survey continued to monitor biophysical change in the Rongelapese community, and began to treat some of the emerging ailments that they identified as radiation-related. Beginning with samples taken immediately after exposure to fallout from the Bravo test, the United States Government monitored cesium-137 and other isotope body burdens present in the Rongelapese – burdens that were increasing over time.  The United States Government scientists did not report the increased burden to the Rongelapese (Anjain, 1989).  Their data indicates that following resettlement in 1957 “the average adult male Rongelap body-burden rose 56% for adult men and 82% for female children” (DOE #277:4).  In the case of strontium-90, United States researchers determined that the human body absorbed roughly “70 percent of the concentration in the topsoil on which people live”(DOE #361:8).  The first measurements of plutonium in the urine of the Marshallese were identified in 1973.  Because the readings were extremely high, researchers could not conclude "whether measured plutonium concentrations were excreted from the bodies or simply from some grains of the island's sand in the sample" (Franke 1989:7).  Whether the plutonium was already ingested, or whether it was still detectable in the environment, plutonium exposure was still a recorded threat to the Rongelapese.  By 1982, United States Government contracted scientists submitted a paper to the Journal of Health Physics that "the body burden of Rongelap people exceeded allowable levels" (cited in Franke 1989:7).  As late as 1989, scientists reported that the "soil on Rongelap Island contains about 430 times more transuranics (plutonium and americium) than the average transuranic levels for the Northern Hemisphere (Franke 1989:3)" (See Figure 1, Attachment A).  Furthermore, on average, "one gram of soil from Rongelap Island contains more plutonium than a North US citizen carries in his body from worldwide fallout" (Franke 1989:6).  

In 1994, the National Academy of Science reported that the presence of five isotopes that are of concern to people residing on Rongelap Island: strontium-90, cesium-137, plutonium-239, plutonium-240, and americium-241.  "Of these, cesium-137 account for more than 90% of the estimated [human] dose, strontium-90 provides the second most significant contribution at 2-5%" (NRC 1994:1).  Since these isotopes are of concern in 1994, it is apparent that the presence of these isotopes would have been of even greater concern in 1957 before nearly 40 years of depletion.

The exposure to environmental sources of radiation in the group resettled in 1957 has affected their health.  One physician found a 63.6% male and 76.8% female percent of 1957 resettled Rongelap adults with medical problems (Bertell 1989:1).  The higher incidence of female illness in the environmentally exposed is noteworthy given the startling lack of difference between incidence of medical problems in the men and women exposed to external radiation in 1954.  The Nuclear Claims Tribunal currently recognizes 35 medical conditions presumed to be the result of the Nuclear Testing Program (including leukemia; multiple myeloma; lymphomas; tumors of the salivary gland, parathyroid gland, brain; cancers of the thyroid, breast, pharynz, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, pancreas, bile ducts, gallbladder, liver, colon, urinary tract, ovary, central nervous system, kidney, rectum, cecum, bone; non-malignant thyroid disease; hypothyroidism; growth retardation due to thyroid damage; unexplained hyperparathyroidism; unexplained bone marrow failure; meningioma; radiation sickness; beta burns; non-melanoma skin cancer in individuals diagnosed as having suffered beta burns).

Not surprisingly, the Rongelapese were aware of the human health consequences of their internal and external radiation exposure.  Many of their illnesses were outside the narrow parameters of United States Government research, however, which tended to focus on the thyroid, and the measurement of body burdens:
Catherine Jibas:  I was away from Rongelap in 1954.  I returned to Rongelap...  in 1957 and I saw friends and relatives who were afflicted with illnesses unknown to us.  Their eyesight deteriorated, their bodies were covered with burn-like blisters, and their hair fell out by the handful (August 23, 1994, Holly M. Barker, Majuro).

Aruko Bobo:  [P]rior to his (Hiroshi’s) death, he became insane and would wander around the island frightening everyone he met.  At times he would ram his head continuously against anything near at hand and thrash around exhibiting signs of great pain.  I think he finally died of the pain he felt in his head. [Note: Hiroshi was the boy who was walking across the reef with Aruko in her earlier testimony about the events of March 1, 1954].

Nerja Joseph:  People died of radiation but we had no doctors or charts to prove that it was radiation....  I have scars on my hands now.  No medicine will take them away, Marshallese or American.  They itch and they are bothersome.  My thyroid is gone.  I have to take medication every day.  When I take too much medication I have too much energy - I can't sleep.  I walk around and around, but I can't tire myself out to rest.  When I don't take enough, I gain weight and get lethargic (March 8, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Majuro).

Jimako Kobnij:  They found something behind my stomach.  They told that to the doctor.  I was operated on and they showed it to me.  It was kind of shiny.  They removed a black, hard, shiny object from just under my stomach.  Maybe it came from the poison.  After my surgery, my health was bad (March 18, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Dorothy Amos:  It's really sad.  Now we go to doctors.  Many have thyroid problems.  Some don't.  Some have had operations twice [on their throats].  Some three times.  We take medicine to help our thyroids.  One pill every day.  Don't forget one day-- keep taking it, keep taking it.  Sometimes I forget, but I'm not supposed to miss a single day... Sometimes my throat really hurts, all the way down the esophagus.  There are times when my head goes numb, my leg, my hand (March 18, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Because children have smaller bodies than adults, a dose of radiation causes a larger body burden in children than in adults.  For this reason, as well as the fact that children's bodies are in the process of developing and growing, born and unborn children are at great risk from radiation exposure.  Both the United States Government and the Rongelapese maintained concerns about Rongelapese children exposed to radiation from Bravo and children who were born and raised on Rongelap Island (DOD #26).    

United States Government reports demonstrate concern about "several forms of cancer and genetic disorders in offsprings" (DOE #187:179).  United States Government researchers also determined that genetics are affected by cumulative exposure to radiation such as exposure to fallout from multiple weapons and exposure through the air, soil, water and food on Rongelap: "It appears that the effects of radiation in the area of genetics are cumulative, that as an individual has more and more exposure you can expect greater and greater probability of these changes-- double the dose should double the probabilities" (DOD #26:4).  

A year after the Rongelapese were returned to Rongelap Island, United States Government researchers studied how "radiation to the gonads will produce invitations in germinal cells"... it was calculated that if... "a dose of 100r is delivered to the gonad of each member of the population due to fallout radiation... for 100r there will be one lethal invitation in 5 conceptions" (DOE #348: 90-91).

Despite these expressed concerns over intergenerational effects, formal response from AEC and BNL scientists to Marshallese complaints that their rate of miscarriage and abnormal births were linked to radiation exposure was met with denials, typically citing the work of James Neel.  For example, an October 1976 letter to Congressman Balos from Dr. James Livermore concerning genetically-inherited radiation effects in children born of exposed Marshallese parents cites Neel: “…there is no evidence that genetic change was induced in children born of the exposed Marshallese children any more than there is unequivocal evidence of damage in the children born of the exposed Japanese.”

While exposure to ionizing radiation has long been suspected to increase mutation load in humans, scientific findings from research by James V. Neel and others on atomic bomb victims seems not to have yielded significant genetic defects.  However, new research emerging from post-Chernobyl studies shows that small doses of radiation do produce genetic effects on human populations.  In a study published in May 2001, children born to clean-up teams for the1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant accident in the former Soviet Union were discovered to have an unexpectedly high genetic mutation rate when compared with siblings born before the accident.  Children born to clean-up team families now living either in the Ukraine or Israel and conceived after parental exposure to radiation were screened for the appearance of new fragments using multi-site DNA fingerprinting.  Siblings conceived before exposure served as internal controls.  External controls (non-exposed families) were also included in the study.  A sevenfold increase in the number of new bands in children born after their parents Chernobyl exposure compared with the level seen in controls was recorded.  A strong tendency for the number of new bands to decrease with elapsed time between exposure and offspring conception was established for the Ukrainian families.  These results indicate that low doses of radiation can induce multiple changes in human germline DNA. 

Regardless of the scientific arguments over statistically reliable indications of radiation-induced intergenerational effect, the Rongelapese have certainly experienced significant problems with pregnancy and abnormal births:
Almira Matayoshi:  There are so many kids who weren’t properly formed when they were born.  Many of the kids were tiny – very short.  Kids like Mike, Julie, Carol, Kimo and Harry.  Some of these kids just lie there.  They don’t know how to move, like Kimo and Carol.  There was another kid who would bite trees, crawl and touch fires.  He didn’t know the difference.  All the kids who were retarded died.  These kids weren’t alive for the bomb, but they had so many problems.  We want DOE to take care of our kids, but they won’t even though they have so many problems from the radiation (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

Dorothy Amos:  Some of the children who were born were deformed.  Their arms and legs are short.  Nothing covering their brains.  Still others were like “grapes.”  But some were not the (offpring of) poisoned people but they were the ones who went back in 1957 and after some years they also gave birth to those kinds.  Doctor Conard said: “Sometimes there will be different things in your stomachs because you were exposed.”  There were lots of words like these words…  Some kids go right into the fire or slam into you – they’re missing something.  One kid they tied him up but he died because he crawled in to the ocean and drowned.  He just died on Mejatto.  He was older, around ten years old. He looked O.K., but something was wrong with his brain.  His parents aren’t the bomb people but they lived on Rongelap after 1957…  Some kids live for a week or so.  You see their brains.  Their faces are O.K, but their brains are scary.  Their hands and feet come out of their torsos.  They know how to breast-feed.  They appear to be people, but they are different.  We believed what DOE said that some of our kids would be born differently.  Many children were this way (repeats may times).  We came together to bury them because we knew and expected these kinds of kids.  They gave birth on Ejit.  It was like what, like grapes.  What kind of children were those that appeared?   One kid born on Rongelap his feet were flipped up so the soles faced up.  His head was big and soft.  A different kind of child.  My eldest daughter might have a heart problem.  Another child has a bone problem – the bone sticks out of his back.  One extra finger was also removed (March 18, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

One physician found a connection to reproductive problems and past exposure that "adult Rongelap women, 16 to 34 years old in 1988, are more likely to have reproductive problems such as spontaneous abortions, still births or infant deaths if their parents were in the DOE 1954 exposed or comparison groups (post 1957 exposed)" than young women whose parents were not (Bertell 1989:3).

Medical studies of the Rongelapese found “about twice as many abnormally terminated pregnancies” in the Rongelapese in the first six years after resettlement (DOE #50).  United States scientists projected that if radiation exposure is repeated in more than one generation, as for the Rongelapese community that lived on contaminated islands for almost 30 years, radiation exposure will create a genetic effect in the population (DOE #348:92).  Medical survey scientists told the Rongelapese that unsuccessful pregnancies should be expected in this generation (interviews with Jimako Kobnij and Dorothy Amos, March 18, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye). These reports and projections were confirmed by experience of the community:
Catherine Jibas:  I returned to Rongelap… in 1957… It was around this time that I had my first pregnancy.  My baby had a very high fever when he was delivered, and the attending health assistant conveyed his doubts as to whether my son would survived the night.  He was so dehydrated from the fever that his skin actually peeled as I clasped him to me to nurse.  The only thing we knew to do was to wrap him in towels.  And so it was that I held him to my body throughout the night, changing the towels and willing him to fight for his life.  He lost the fight just as dawn broke… 
My second son, born in 1960, was delivered live but missing the whole back of his skull – as if it had been sliced off.  So the back part of the brain and the spinal cord were fully exposed.  After a week, the spinal cord became detached and he, too, developed a high fever and died the following day.  Aside from the brain deformity, my son was also missing both testicles and a penis.  He urinated through a stump-like thing measuring less than an inch.  The doctors who examined him told me that he would not survive.  And sure enough, he was dead within a week.  You know, it was heart wrenching having to nurse my son, all the while taking care his brain didn’t fall into my lap.  In spite of his handicaps, he was healthy in every respect.  It was good he died because I do not think he would have wanted to live a life as something less than a human…
The health assistant who delivered the child sent a message to Kwajalein, and I am certain those [U.S.] doctors came for the express purpose of seeing first-hand a live nuclear baby (“ajiri ebaam”).  In fact, they flew in the very same day the message was sent… They did a complete physical [of the baby], took blood samples, and lots and lots of photographs (August 23, 1994, Holly M. Barker, Majuro).

It is clear that at least some U.S. Government researchers were interested in the abnormal births of the Rongelapese women, like Catherine.  After the Marshallese health officer learned of Catherine’s birth and informed the U.S. doctors, the U.S. doctors dispatched him from Ebeye to see the baby:
Ezra Riklon:  I wrote to Dr. Conard about this.  Because they asked me that – if there was any – they even tell me to talk to the Magistrate there if these was any abnormal babies.  They should notify me personally so that I can go there and do whatever I can to study these babies.  And I report only one abnormal baby.  After she was born, she was born – the baby was very funny looking.  The legs and arms were there, but they were kind of larger than normal, and shorter than normal.  You can see the body, but there was no skull – and there was not skull except a membrane of the brain, but you can see the brain with your own eyes, you can see the brain is moving.  And the baby, the heart was beating also…  and the baby was quite shorter than normal.  Kind of thick and big, you know…  But you cannot see the skull… This baby, I wrote a complete letter to Dr. Conard about what I found during my physical examination.  I took a picture of the baby in different positions, and sent it to Dr. Conard in Brookhaven (August 18, 1994, Holly M. Barker, Majuro).   

Ezra Riklon’s 1994 comments are substantiated by his August 17, 1960 letter to Dr. Conard:
On August 16, 1960, 24 yrs. old Catherine gave a normal birth to a baby monster.  Miss Catherine, as you probably know, is listed among the unexposed group… The physical examination of the new born baby revealed a baby monster possessing a trunk but only an imperfectly developed head, from which a large part of the brain and skull is lacking.  The testicles and the scrotum were absent.  The penis appeared smaller than normal.  Large upper part of the brain and meninges were visible due to lack of cranial vault.  The child was still alive and breathing normally during my examination, but unable to cry when pinched hard with a sharp needle.  The best and closest diagnosis that I could think of is Hemicaphalus or Hemicephalic Monster… Lots of pictures of different positions of the Monster were taken and blood specimens.  I sincerely hope that you will get them soon.

Linguistic evidence indicates that the reproductive problems experienced by the Rongelapese women did not occur before the testing program and their exposure to radiation.  Instead of using Marshallese words to describe the illnesses, the interviewees apply descriptive terms from their local environment when talking about these birth anomalies, using words such as "octopus, grapes, hermit crab, dog" to describe the deformed children.  If these reproductive problems existed before the testing program, they would have proper Marshallese names like other illnesses experienced by the Marshallese before the testing program, such as normally occurring jibun, or stillbirths.
Almira Matayoshi:  One person gave birth to something that looked like a dog (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

Nerja Joseph:  In the years afterwards, one kid was born with a head like an octopus.  Other kids never really grew and were very short (March 8, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Majuro).

Aruko Bobo:  I know a boy, actually a young man now, whose head is so large that his body is unable to support it and his only means of getting around is to crawl backwards dragging his head along.  Like the movements of a coconut or hermit crab.  (August 27, 1994, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Reproduction problems and birth defects are now so common amongst the Rongelapese that every interviewee was able to describe problems suffered by their offspring.  Every woman interviewed complained about experiencing reproductive problems.  The Rongelapese believe these problems are directly linked to both the parents‚ and the children’s exposure to radiation:
John Anjain:  There were 16 kids DOE found with low blood cell counts.  Some kids died, some kids have severe problems.  Like Julie whose mouth kept growing bigger.  There were 19 kids that moved off of Rongelap. Only 2 or 3 are alive now.  Those who are alive have problems (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

The accounts by the Rongelapese correspond with Dr. Rosalie Bertell’s testimony to the United States Congress regarding observations from her medical examination of the Rongelapese.  In 1988 the percent of Rongelapese adults with medical problems was 88.5% for men and 88.6% for women and “among the children who were evacuated from the Rongelap atoll in 1985, there is a very high degree of ill health, with about 42% having medical problems.  Medical problems which were identified only among the evacuated children were:  multiple organ systems malfunctioning, autism, anemia, arthritis, arthralgia, epilepsy, Down’s Syndrome, facial asymmetry, loss of nasal bridge, and meningitis.  Heart disease was diagnosed in 9.2% of the evacuated children” (Bertell 1989:1, 3-4).

Brookhaven scientists also documented a range of immediate and longer-term health consequences from radiation exposure, though they typically did not pass along their findings to the Rongelapese.  For example, their research led to the conclusion that fetal or infant life was expected to be most sensitive to radiation exposure, but they did not notify the Rongelapese of their concerns (DOE #348:104-106).  

Assumptions that radiation-related health problems were limited to those resulting from acute exposure and immediate effects of a specific event meant that Brookhaven scientists failed to recognize some of the more systemic medical consequences from radiation exposure.  For example, Brookhaven scientists assumed that the thyroid was resistant to radiation.  This assumption translated to a failure to look for and treat thyroid abnormalities in the Rongelapese (ACHRE, 1994: 589).  Over time, researchers observed “markedly stunted growth” in Rongelapese children and suggested possible thyroid deficiencies (DOE #50:14).  Follow-up research found “unquestionable damage to the thyroid gland, especially to those exposed below the age of 10” (DOE #50:15) and found that “nearly all the people exposed on Rongelap to fallout at less than ten years of age have developed nodules (benign tumors) of the thyroid” (DOE #1023:35).  
Almira Matayoshi:  We didn’t have any retarded or short kids before the bomb (June 14, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

Isao Eknilang:  When I heard about the deformed kids, particularly the ones in my family, I felt afraid and furious, I just wanted to cut them [the US Government representatives] up with a knife (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

Jimako Kobnij:  One of my kids is mentally challenged.  He (gender unspecified) was born in 1963.  The child didn’t walk until he was 5 years old…He stays with me.  He gets mad sometimes.  I will have to care for him because he has to stay with me.  He gets upset and agitated when I do something he doesn’t like.  He went to school for the challenged.  He still hasn’t got to the Department of Energy doctors because they say they don’t take care of our children (March 18, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

The problems associated with reproductive health, congenital deformities, and degenerative health have been all the more difficult to endure given the difficulties in accessing health care.  After the community was returned to Rongelap in 1957, their medical needs were attended to by a local health assistant, with the exception of one yearly visit by Brookhaven National Laboratory.  When Brookhaven doctors did arrive, they looked for specific signs of radiation illnesses they expected to see and ignored the complaints of the people (such as illness from consuming contaminated foods).  During the 51 weeks of the year that Brookhaven was absent, the health assistant had to deal with unique and complex medical care needs.  As noted earlier, a 1957 document from Jorulej Jitiam reveals his concern about problems he did not know how to treat, his fear that radiation was the cause of these problems, and a request for a trained doctor to visit Rongelap immediately.

The Rongelapese were justified in their health care complaints, according to an independent physician who visited the community in 1980.  A sense of the degenerative effects produced by acute and long-term exposure to fallout in Rongelap is given in a July 15, 1980 report from Reuben Merliss, M.D. (accredited by the AEC to use radioactive isotopes in medical practice for treatment of thyroid disorders) to Gordon Stemple, attorney for affected communities.  Merliss notes the condition of Rongelapese subjects as being:
-	Vision.  “remarkable frequency of visual difficulties…”  
-	Thyroid.  “The frequency of thyroid tumors was shown by the examination of a number of patients who demonstrated thyroidectomy scars.”  There is an “epidemic” of thyroid disease.  People ran out of thyroid replacement drugs.  Exams show many thyroid cancers, but this conflicts with what Conard states.  “There appears to be little doubt that the tumors, benign or malignant, are radiation-induced.  There are just too many of them to be anything else.  Otherwise one would have to postulate that the Marshallese had a remarkably high incidence racially of tumors of the thyroid, this existing before 1946, and the old people I spoke to denied this.  They denied that prior to the bombs there was any particular epidemic of lumps in the neck.”
-	Reproductive problems.  There are an “unusual number of stillbirths or the birth of monstrosities.”
-	It is clear that there is a spread of radiation from island to island by birds and fish.
-	Diabetes.  “When I spoke to the old people who remember the way the islands were before the nuclear testing, they all routinely deny that diabetes was a great problem for the inhabitants.”
-	Impotence.  “There are some sexual problems among the males of the island, or among the females.  A number of men from one atoll had told me that they developed a failure of sexual interest after the explosions [this was confirmed by Rongelapese men during my June 2001 interviews in Hawaii], this persisting, and in several cases their families did not expand after the bomb blasts.”  “…[T]he testicles are in an exposed position, particularly in people who so commonly sit on the ground or squat as do the people of the Marshall Islands.”  
-	Hypertension.  High incidence.  5% in average white American males, but possibly up to 40% in the Marshall Islands.  Link between “inadequate space or, inadequate food, competition between them for sustenance and living space” and hypertension.
-	Conclusion.  “The follow-up care of patients with total ablation of the thyroid also appears inadequate.  Some had stopped their medicine because of side reactions and appear hypo-thyroid in my eyes.  No regular follow-up has been pursued to allow change of thyroid medication, or increase or decrease of dosage.  A general feeling of distrust of the Treaty Trust and Atomic Energy commission physicians is wide-spread among the Marshallese.  The people of the Marshall Islands I spoke to have no great faith in these physicians, do not consider them devoted to their interests, but instead representing the interests of the Atomic Energy Commission or the Trust Treaty authorities, and were reluctant to place their health in their hands… I am also impressed by the failure of the physicians to communicate findings and prognosis to the people of these islands.  Each patient is entitled to have his questions answered.  He should be told the nature of the lesion discovered, and, if he asks for it, a prognosis should be given.  The doctor should, when he can, inform the patient of the cause of his illness.  These basic rights of a patient have been in large part ignored in the Marshall Islands, and I found very few Marshallese who were acquainted with the nature of their pathology.”  
-	Need for “an improvement in diagnosis of hitherto unrecognized food-chain radiation caused diseases…” 

In addition to feeling angry about their treatment as subjects, rather than patients, the Rongelapese experienced profound humiliation, marginalization, and stigmatization as a result of their injuries, and reproductive problems.  These experiences occurred when people sought medical care with the DOE doctors in the public hospitals, were summoned for their exams by Brookhaven, when they sang in public, or even when they were walking down the street.
Norio Kebenli:  Our radiation exposure was so embarrassing.  Whenever we went to the hospital to get any kind of care, people would always point at us, they knew who we were.  Many people used to say things like: "don't marry the Rongelapese because they are sick and your kids will be sick."  When people heard that the Utrikese were sent back to their islands from Kwajalein, people said that the Utrikese were sent back because they were getting radiation from the Rongelapese.  The embarrassment still continues today.  Last week during graduation, many kids from Rongelap graduated, but when they were asked where they are from they didn't say Rongelap (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

Kobang Anjain:  As a kid it was particularly bad when the AEC used to come and pull us out of school.  I went to high school at ECES, a Christian school.  The AEC would come and pull me out of my classroom for my exams.  The kids made fun of me and they would say: "Etal bwe jenaaj radioactive ippem" (Get out of here because we're going to get radiation from you).  I could never blend in because the kids always remembered what happened to me, especially when the AEC turned up at our school.  I lost friends because of what happened (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Majuro).

Almira Matayoshi:  People didn't want to shake our hands for fear we would contaminate them.  We were embarrassed to walk around where there were other Marshallese because they would say things like: "rej kamour kiraap" (they give birth to grapes) (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

Summary of Consequential Damages 
Living in an isolated, contaminated setting meant dealing with the pain, suffering, and hardships of a contaminated and poisoned food supply; fear and anxiety of additional exposures; sociocultural and economic damages associated with loss of access to the material means to sustain a healthy way of life; and, the psychosocial trauma of living life with radiogenic illnesses.  The people of Rongelap were further burdened with difficulties of caring for the degenerative conditions associated with radiation exposure; the pain and suffering associated with miscarriages and the birth of congenitally deformed children; the difficulties of raising physically disabled children and caring for increasingly feeble elderly; the fear and anxiety of additional exposures; the fear and anxiety of the intergenerational and other unknown effects of radiation exposure; and, the psychosocial humiliation, marginalization and stigmatization experienced by the population as a whole as a result of their nuclear victimization.  The United States Government ignored complaints about the medical monitoring program, and routinely downplayed the effects of radiation through the use of a faulty control group. 

11.  Human Subject Research Experiences 
Policies and priorities established in 1954 by the United States scientists and military officials emphasized monitoring and human subject research rather than treatment of the Rongelap people.  These policies and priorities shaped the nature of medical attention in subsequent years on Rongelap.  In 1954 the Rongelapese were told that medical survey “treatments” were important and necessary to their health.  However, in 1954 and in the years since, numerous procedures and exams were conducted and samples obtained for a wide range of experiments that had little or nothing to do with their individual treatment needs (For example, see descriptions of the Thyroid Reserve Study, and the Iodine Protein study of different ethnic groups involving the administration of I-129 in the Protocal for the 1974 Medical Survey, page 3-4, Attachment A).

In addition to documenting the health effects of human exposure to nuclear weapons testing, United States scientists purposely exposed the Marshallese to additional radionuclides.  The White House Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE) confirmed the existence of at least two radioisotope studies where Marshallese citizens were used as human subjects in research without their awareness or consent.  Documents released since the 1995 publication of the ACHRE Final Report provide further evidence of human subject abuse.
 
In one study reviewed by the ACHRE, a chelating agent (Ethylene diamine tetra-acetic acid, also known as EDTA) was administered to Rongelap subjects seven weeks after exposure to radiation from weapons tests.  EDTA was normally administered shortly after internal radiation contamination to remove radioactive material.  Given the delay in administering the chelating agent, there was virtually no therapeutic benefit envisioned.  The stated purpose of this experiment was to mobilize and detect radioactive isotopes already present in their bodies as a result of their exposure to Bravo (ACHRE 1995).   There were also adverse health risks associated with this experiment, as in the early 1950s several deaths occurred from kidney toxicity after EDTA treatment (dosage used at that time was about 10 grams per infusion, current recommended dosage is 3 grams). 

In a second experiment discussed by the White House Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, Chromium 51 (Cr-51), a radioactive tracer, was given to ten people resettled on Rongelap in 1957.  The purpose of this experiment was to determine whether anemia observed among the Marshallese was an ethnic characteristic or due to radiation exposures.  Researchers argued that since these people were not present during the Bravo test, they were a viable control group who were not “exposed” to radioactive contamination.  Chromium 51 was given without explanation or informed consent to tag red blood cells and measure red blood cell mass.  The White House Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments noted that in this experiment “the tracer dose used would have posed a very minimal risk, but it was clearly not for the benefit of the ten subjects themselves” (ACHRE, 1994: 592).  This conclusion of minimal risk was based on ACHRE’s assumption that the subjects were non-exposed Rongelapese.  

In actuality, the Cr-51 received by the ten “non-exposed” Rongelapese subjects mentioned in the ACHRE report represents an additional burden to the already considerable exposure from consuming contaminated foods and living in a radioactive environment.  Furthermore, the 1959 Medical Survey plan suggests that Cr-51 was administered to a “control” group and to an “exposed” group, totaling 20 Rongelap subjects in this experiment.  Review of declassified documents raises the possibility that the Cr-51 experiment was also repeated on at least two other occasions in 1964 and 1965.  Laboratory reports filed with Dr. Conard report Marshall Island blood volume data findings from 21 Rongelapese samples taken in 1964 and from 18 Rongelapese samples in 1965. 

The1959 Medical Survey research plans also included instructions for the survey team to conduct additional human experiments and procedures, including:
•	Study thyroid uptake by giving Iodine 131 to 25 to 30 people being tested for serum iodine values.  Give small amounts of iodine 131 and 18 hours later use whole body counter to determine thyroid uptake.
•	Conduct whole body gamma spectroscopy on as many of the group being examined as possible.  Plant, soil, marine, and urine samples may also be analyzed in conjunction with University of Washington group.
•	Give one 5 grain tablet of ferrous sulfate daily to 34 people.  Comparison will determine whether iron deficiency is a factor in lowered hematocrits.  Serum iron used on those not receiving iron tablets.

In addition to experiments conducted on the Rongelap people during medical survey trips, some experiments were conducted on Rongelapese during visits to United States research labs and hospitals.  An April 9, 1965 letter from Dr. Leo Meyer to Dr. W. Siri reports findings from the administration of tritiated water and Cr-51 on six people who had traveled from Rongelap to Brookhaven labs.  Tritium was used to measure total body water, a factor of interest in determining the relative ability of the stomach to secrete iodine, bromine and other halogens.

In 1999, the Department of Energy acknowledged that Cr-51 and tritiated water clinical tests conducted 1961-1963 by Brookhaven National Laboratory involved 28 Marshallese subjects, including 6 subjects involved in both Cr-51 and tritiated water studies.  (See documents in Attachment A).  This acknowledgement was in response to a specific request for information on Cr-51 and tritiated water studies conducted in the early 1960s.  The DOE did not disclose information about Cr-51 or tritiated water tests that might have occurred in other years, nor did they disclose information about participants in other radioisotope studies, such as the I-131 thyroid uptake studies, Sr-85 studies, and Fe-55 studies mentioned in Medical Survey planning documents.

In addition to radioisotope studies, the Rongelapese were used as subjects in population genetics and chromosome abnormality studies.  In 1956, the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Lewis L. Strauss reported that genetic studies would take place with the Rongelapese: “With reference to the Rongelap people, I have been advised that genetic studies will be undertaken at the time of the next and succeeding resurveys of the medical status of these people.”   Rongelapese were also the subjects of chromosome abnormality studies.  Samples collected during the 1964 survey found: “A total of 51 persons has been examined and although findings are not spectacular, it appears that there is a difference between the heavily exposed population and the controls.” 

Exams also involved procedures that were difficult to endure and at times undertaken for broader research purposes, rather than monitoring and thus treating the health and well-being of the subject.  In at least one instance, Rongelapese subjects endured whole body irradiation to help scientists calibrate instruments between Brookhaven and Argonne Labs, as illustrated in the 20 January 95 oral history testimony of Dr. James S. Robertson:
Q:  When was the first group [of Marshall Islanders] brought to Brookhaven for the first studies there?  Or, if you can't remember, what was the purpose for bringing them to Brookhaven?
Robertson:  Well, for some of those body measurements we wanted to [establish absolute values by calibrating them with other instruments].  Actually, they stopped at Argonne [National Laboratory outside of Chicago] and they were measured there before they were at Brookhaven.  There were more sophisticated ways to measure things in the laboratory than what we could take with us to the island.  I don't know all the motives for doing it.  I think the main thing was to get better quality data....
Q:  Were any studies done on the people [who] came from the Marshall Islands? Any tracer studies or anything of that nature?
Robertson:  I don't think so.  Some of them that were brought back were developing thyroid problems, and this was studied, but I wasn't directly involved in that.  Again, the main thing that we were interested in was calibrating different instruments that were involved in the field and the laboratories, using [the islanders] as standard subjects and cross calibrating between what Argonne would determine as the body content and what Brookhaven would determine as the body content.... (James Robertson, 20 January 1995 Oral History testimony).

And, beginning in 1954 medical survey scientists collected teeth from the people of Rongelap and Utrik.  Trust Territory health staff was also instructed to collect deciduous teeth of children, and to extract teeth in support of Stronium 90 studies.  Brookhaven National Laboratory has charts showing whether the teeth belonged to exposed Rongelapese, children of exposed Rongelapese, matching controls, or children of matching controls.  The teeth were put in bottles and shipped back to New York to assess radiological content.  In some cases, good teeth, and not just decayed teeth, were removed.

The assault received from radiation injuries was all the more difficult when compounded by the lack of information provided to the subject, and treatment efforts that produced unanticipated harm.  For example, a 1978 letter from Dr. Conard to Dr. Walter Wyzen at the Department of Energy discussed the case of  “…a complete thyroidectomy at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Guam.  During the surgery, the parathyroid glands were inadvertently removed.  The parathyroidectomy presents a more serious condition than the thyroidectomy, requiring a more precise and strict treatment regimen with lack of treatment resulting in more serious consequences.”   According to Rongelapese informants, there were two women, who were young girls at the time, that had their parathyroids mistakenly removed, Chiyoko Tamayose and Lindy Nitihara.  

Lindy Nitihara described the trauma of being alone as a child for her thyroid surgery, as well as medical problems resulting from her surgery:
Lindy Nitihara:  They sent me and Tija to the Naval hospital in Guam.  I was 11 years old, and I didn’t speak English.  There was no one with me to translate or explain what was going on.  The rubber band on my underwear snapped and there was no one there to even help me mend my one pair of underwear.  The people laughed at our clothes and made fun of us there.  I was terrified without my mother or father, or anyone.  I think the surgery I had was bad because of the problems I’ve had, but I don’t know because up until now there is no medical record of what they did to me!  I’ve asked DOE for my medical record and they said there isn’t one (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

The medical survey experience was a dehumanizing experience where the Marshallese were transformed from individual patients with specific medical needs, to subjects whose identity was reduced to a number.  In 1963, the AEC made identification cards for each person in the study (Anjain, p. 97; See photo #3, Attachment A).  As they had in 1954 when Project 4.1 first began, people were asked to remove their clothes for identification photos.  People did not understand why they needed identification cards or why they had to remove their clothes:
Lijon Eknilang:  I don’t know about the men, only about the women, but when it came time to get our identification cards and numbers from the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), we had to hold up our individual numbers on a card and have our photographs taken.  What I don’t understand, and still don’t understand to this day, is why we had to take our clothes off just to have our I.D. pictures taken.  One by one, each one of the women was told to disrobe and have her photograph taken (March 28, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Majuro).

From the onset of the medical survey, Marshallese patients have complained that doctors in the program were much more interested in studying them, rather than addressing their medical concerns.  Informants noted that they would complain to the doctors about problems they experienced, but the doctors ignore their complaints and focus on their thyroids, blood, or urine.  The doctors dehumanized the people to the point that they were mere identification numbers or body parts.  This dehumanization was epitomized in the researchers’ lack of concern for the humility or feelings of patients.  Informants were especially traumatized by photographic procedures, recounting their feeling about the repeated instances where they had to pose naked: 
Almira Matayoshi:  There were at least three times when they took pictures of us naked – at the school on Rongelap and at the Majuro hospital.  They had us take off every single piece of clothing and stand naked before their cameras.  We were afraid.  They told us to take off our clothes.  I protested and didn’t want to take off my underwear, but they said I had to.  We had no choice.  Men and women lined up for pictures, as we were told.  Everyone knew what was happening.  This humiliation was so powerful to me.  We thought we were getting doctoring, but look what they did instead!  (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

Further evidence of the dehumanization of the patients is evident in the descriptions of the care the people of Rongelap received.  Routinely, the doctors violated Marshallese custom (by having people undress or discuss illnesses in front of relatives), humiliated people (by pulling students out of classrooms for medical exams), by failing to explain or translate procedures and prognoses to patients, by failing to provide patients with their medical charts, and by sending them to unknown doctors and facilities in the United States and Guam for unexplained procedures:
Lijon Eknilang:  In 1981, three women from Utrik and I went to Brookhaven.  It was so cold at the time because there was lots of snow outside.  During this visit, we were given mammograms for the first time.  We didn’t understand what the doctors were doing to us or why and it was embarrassing to have them touching our breasts and putting them in the machines.  There was no translator for us (March 28, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Majuro).

Ellen Boaz:  I had a tumor.  How many months and weeks they shocked my head in Washington [D.C.]!  They examined us… we don’t know what it is they did to us, or what they saw (August 26, 1994, Holly M. Barker, Mejatto).

Efforts by the people of Rongelap to exercise their rights to meaningful informed consent were dismissed, dissuaded, or were met with trivial efforts to placate concerns.  Medical survey reports include descriptions of efforts to entice Rongelapese participation in exams and procedures by offering hats, money, movies, ice-cream and cigarettes.  Sometimes participation was encouraged through more abusive means.  For example, Helena Alik, a participant in the “control” group, notes that not only did she miss school time to see AEC doctors, but medical survey exams and procedures occurred without any explanation, and sometimes the police went to get her to insure her presence and participation in Medical Survey exams and procedures (Interview with Holly Barker, March 13, 1998, Majuro).  John Anjain records in his Magistrate’s book that when he and others from Rongelap and Utrik traveled to the United States in 1957 to be examined, the AEC doctors told them that if they spoke with anyone they would be left behind forever in Hawaii (Anjain, 1957: 97).   In this case United States researchers used intimidation to insure that no one questioned their treatment of Marshallese patients.

Summary of Consequential Damages
Exams, procedures and sampling typically occurred without meaningful informed consent.  Some procedures resulted in the mistaken removal of parathyroid glands.  Often procedures were painful, resulted in additional exposure to radiation, were dehumanizing, and had little or no connection to the health treatment needs of the individual.  While the United States Government acknowledged culpability and accepted limited responsibility for specific radiation-related health effects, it systematically ignored the broader constellation of health needs that were directly and indirectly related to exposure.  Decades of medical focus on research priorities rather than individual health care needs constituted a systematic and long term abuse of the Rongelapese – abuse that continues to generate hardships for individuals, families, the broader communities of Rongelapese, and the nation.

12.  Evacuation of Rongelap in 1985 
Despite assurances by the United States Government that Rongelap was safe, the Rongelapese believed that their health and safety was further compromised after 1957 by living in an environment contaminated by radiation.  As detailed above, the food and water sources on Rongelap gave people blisters in their mouth and made them sick.  Interviewees believe that their environmental exposure led to premature deaths in the populations and severe deformities in their offspring.

In 1982, the United States Government published two reports that would ultimately lead the people of Rongelap into self-exile in 1985 (Anjain 1989:10).  The first report was a Defense Nuclear Agency document demonstrating that the United States Government was aware of the wind shift toward Rongelap before it detonated the Bravo shot.  The second report was a DOE survey of the northern Marshall Islands.  In this report, DOE concluded that Rongelap was safe for habitability.  Unfortunately, this report “failed to include the information on health and medical history of the residents of Rongelap.  Issues of risk to children, to pregnant women and to those in ill health were not addressed” (Bertell1989:6).  The report did not refer to data on individual body-burden from the whole-body counting done by the Marshall Islands Radiological Safety program-- this data was classified, and only released as part of the Clinton Administration study on use of human subjects in radiation research. 

Former Senator Jeton Anjain of Rongelap disagreed with DOE’s notion of habitability regarding Rongelap by countering DOE’s definition of habitability with one “defined in Black’s Law Dictionary as: Condition of premises which permits inhabitants to live free of serious defects to health and safety” (Anjain 1989:16).  Believing their lives to be in danger from environmental sources of radiation on Rongelap, Senator Anjain worked with the RMI Nitijela to pass a unanimous resolution asking the United States Government to relocate the Rongelapese.  The United States Government ignored these requests.  Therefore, the Rongelapese turned to Greenpeace, an environmental non-governmental organization, for assistance, and they dispatched their ship “The Rainbow Warrior” to Rongelap Island in May of 1985 to assist the Rongelapese with their evacuation.  The Rongelapese moved to Mejatto Island, a small island on the western side of Kwajalein Atoll.  The United States Department of Energy declared that there was “no justification” for the self-evacuation of the Rongelapese (Anjain 1989:14).  The Rongelapese viewed Mejatto as a temporary relocation while waiting for independent scientific work to be conducted (Greenpeace 1986).  This move was extremely difficult; people left with fear for their health and safety, and the fear that once gone, they would never be able to return.
Rokko Langinbelik:  We left Rongelap because we didn't want our children to be poisoned like we are.  Even if we were sad we left.  We left because we care about our children (CMI Nuclear Institute, 1999, Majuro).

Isao Eknilang:  The throats of people from Rongelap exploded (from grief), and I my throat was decimated the most because of my land (May 7, 1999, CMI Nuclear Institute, Majuro).

The Marshallese say that their emotions are in their throats, rather than in their hearts.  Literally, Isao Eknilang considers the loss of his land to the explosion of his heart.

Summary of Consequential Damages
The Rongelapese decided to leave their homes because of fear and concern for their safety.  Environmental contamination from the nuclear weapons testing program had forced them to abandon all that was familiar and owned by them.  Some of the consequences of this involuntary displacement include the accompanying hardships of struggling to survive on other people’s land; loss of the means to reproduce sociocultural traditions; and, erosion of trust regarding United States Government efforts to disseminate information and deliver medical care.

13.  Current Conditions Endured by a Fragmented Rongelap Community
After leaving Rongelap in 1985, the Rongelap community dispersed to Mejatto, Majuro, Ebeye, Hawaii and more recently the mainland United States.  Involuntary resettlement placed hundreds of people on small bits of rented land, creating extremely dense, unsanitary, and impoverished communities.  

In the urban areas, on the limited land in Mejatto, and in Hawaii where the community now lives, people no longer have the ability to get their foods locally the way they did on Rongelap.  Now, they have to purchase the vast majority of their food.  The Rongelapese complain that it is exceedingly difficult to feed their families.  The custom of feeding and helping others is beginning to disappear because people no longer have the means to care for others.  Furthermore, when the community was moved off of their homelands, they did not have the education or job skills necessary to seek employment and earn the money necessary to purchase food for their families.
 
Approximately 350 people moved from Rongelap to Mejatto in 1985.  Mejatto is a small island approximately one mile long.  It is situated on the western end of Kwajalein Atoll, approximately 60 miles from Ebeye Island, the nation’s second largest urban area.  Mejatto has no airstrip and its residents are completely reliant on small boats to travel approximately 60 miles from Ebeye, a major urban area.  When the Rongelapese relocated on Mejatto there was little traditional food.  The people planted pandanus, breadfruit, and coconut, but it took five years before they would produce food (Greenpeace 1986).  The islands surrounding Mejatto had food, but the Rongelapese were reluctant to gather food because they had no rights or permission to use these islands. 

The interviewees clearly describe many of the difficulties in securing food, transportation, and housing on Mejatto:
Nerja Joseph:  On Mejatto, there was no food when we got there.  We had to plant coconuts, pandanus, and other foods (March 8, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Majuro).

Jimako Kobnij:  People literally starved on Mejatto.  There was no transport for food, no government support for food (March 18, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).
 
Ken Kedi:  When we left Rongelap, we were told everyone would have big houses on Mejatto.  We only got small houses and the guys had to sleep outside under the trees where they were rained on (March 1, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Barbara Rose Johnston, and Stuart Kirsch, Majuro).

Because Mejatto was uninhabited when the Rongelapese arrived, the people had to plant local food crops.  Dangerous tides and rocky reefs around Mejatto made it difficult for the Rongelapese men to fish or to pass on knowledge about fishing to the younger generation.  During the first few years of their stay on Mejatto, there was little local food to support the Rongelapese on Mejatto.  Field trip boats serviced the island with supplies once every three months.  The people did not have motorboats or money for gas to make the 10-hour, very rough trip each way to Ebeye Island.  These problems on Mejatto made people long for their home atolls that were too contaminated to occupy:
Johnsay Riklon:  Mejatto is really different from Rongelap.  Mejatto is really small.  There are scarce resources, such as fish and grown foods.  In Mejatto, people fish only 2-3 times a week, but on Rongelap people fished everyday.  People depend on USDA and imported foods.  It’s like a camp. People are not healthy.  They have bad diets, diseases, and the health services are inadequate.  It’s expensive for me to visit Mejatto...  It is too rough to fish in Mejatto, and there are too many sharks.  People die in the current around Mejatto (February 28, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Barbara Rose Johnston, and Stuart Kirsch, Majuro).

Boney Boaz:  I didn’t want to leave Rongelap in 1985, but the elders did, so I went.  Because Rongelap was no good, I left, but I didn’t like Mejatto.  It is pretty difficult to fish on Mejatto.  Wind prevents people from fishing.  On Rongelap, there were many choices: many ways to fish and many places to fish...  
Kids on Mejatto don’t know how to sail an outrigger canoe.  It’s too low to launch there.  On Mejatto it’s hard to sail and hard to teach.  
On Mejatto there is lots of American food.  There’s more food, local food on Rongelap.  There was nothing at all on Mejatto in the beginning.  Now it’s better because we planted food.  
Mejatto is bad because it’s hard to get back and forth.  It’s dangerous on all the small islands.  Some people have disappeared, some drowned.  It’s hard to move about  (March 17, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

According to the Greenpeace team that helped evacuate the Rongelapese to Mejatto, teenage boys had a particularly difficult time with the transition to Mejatto: “they have little to do...  They sleep, talk story, play guitar and softball and now and then go fishing or help with community jobs... They are in between cultures, exposed to the American way of life through TV and videos and the consumer goodies available in Majuro and Ebeye... Outer island life is very different and does not prepare people for the materially orientated imported lifestyle” (Greenpeace 1986:3). 

The Rongelap community on Mejatto suffers from problems of isolation and lack of meaningful infrastructure.  In March 1999, while conducting research on sociocultural values of land, the research team tried unsuccessfully for many days to rent a boat to travel to Mejatto.  The fact that we were unable to secure a boat despite money and connections illustrates the transportation difficulties that the Rongelapese on Mejatto continue to encounter.  The Rongelapese complain that it is difficult to get supplies and people back and forth between Mejatto and Ebeye and it is expensive, often costing as much as $1,000 a trip.

The Rongelap community on Ebeye suffers from the immense problems of urbanization. Ebeye is the most densely crowded area in the Pacific Islands.  With a population of approximately 15,000 people on 1/10 of a square mile of land, housing, water, electricity, employment, education, health, shade, and play areas are all difficult to come by (see photo #5, Living Conditions in Ebeye, Attachment A).  Although Majuro is a larger landmass (some 15, 000 people living on 1/2 square mile of land), the problems in obtaining basic household needs are similar to Ebeye.  

The major complaints of interviewees on Ebeye are their inability to take care of their needs without money, overcrowded housing, ill-health, unemployment, lack of knowledge about Rongelap in the youth, and the burial of Rongelapese on other people’s land:
Jerkan Jenwor:  What is life like now? It’s filled with sickness.  It was better on the island (Rongelap).  I came to Ebeye because my kids have to go to school.  Food is hard when you don’t live on your own land.  It is also hard to find enough money to pay for school tuition (March 17, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Jimako Kobnij:  Now we stay at one of the typhoon houses at Dump Town.  Six of our kids are married.  There are lots of grandchildren.  There are thirty some people in three rooms.  You would laugh if you could see us sleeping-- everyone together.  I really need a house.  My husband is retired but he still works because no one else has a job (March 18, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye). 

Isao Eknilang:  I have a house on Majuro, but it’s not the same.  I don’t know the people.  My freedom is gone.  Gone also is the practice of taking food to people.  Now it’s ‘kwe wot kwe im na wot na’ (I take care of myself and you take care of yourself) (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

Rokko Langinbelik:  Marshallese custom used to make kids behave, but now they don’t respect us.  Now that we’re gone from Rongelap, all of our most precious customs are gone.  When we were on Rongelap we practiced them all (June 14, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

Malal Anjain:  My father died.  There are five people in my family now.  No one in my family works.  We survive just from our quarterly payments.  It was better when my grandfather was alive.  My stepfather was good, too.  He died at Christmas.  I want to go to college, but it will be tough on the people at my house because no one works (March 19, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Gugeegue).  

When the Rongelap community was moved off of their homelands, they did not have the education or job skills necessary to seek employment and earn the money necessary to purchase food for their families. The Rongelapese cannot live on Ebeye or Majuro without money.  All of their basic needs must be purchased:
Mwenadrik Kebenli:  On Ebeye... we buy things.  We don’t have pandanus leaves to make sleeping mats.  I lie on the tile.  We need money for everything.  When it runs out, there is no more food.  Our things to cook with break.  I still haven’t eaten breakfast today (11:15 a.m.).  There’s no medicine.  There’s no vehicle to go and get birds to eat.  They are far away... My children, they grew up on Ebeye.  They just hang around (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Rongelap).

Burying family members is extremely difficult because of limited land, and because people believe their spirits will not rest properly unless they are on their own land (see photo #6):
Jimako Kobnij:  Even if you move to a [new] place, you still remember your true place.  It's not good to die away from our land.  We shouldn't have to ask permission to be buried [on other people's land].  Even if we are far away, we know the place where we should be together, and where we share lands that we should bury our loved ones together on.  Here on Ebeye, it's too crowded to bury.  We have to look for places to bury our dead.  I want to go back to Rongelap to die (March 18, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Lijon Eknilang:  We shouldn’t have to ask to be buried.  Here on Ebeye, it’s too crowded to bury.  We have to look for places to bury our dead.  I want to go back to Rongelap to die.  Now they’re starting to cremate on Ebeye because there’s no place to bury now.   They told us it’s too full to bury.  The cemetery is full.  Burial areas are overcrowded, but cremation is against the custom and religion (March 18, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Obtaining access to adequate health care in all the Rongelap communities has been a major problem since initial exposure.  After the evacuation from Rongelap in 1985, medical surveys continued to visit the dispersed community twice a year.  This still left 50 weeks of the year during which people did not have access to adequate medical care for their unique and complex needs.  When the Compact of Free Association came into effect in 1986, the 177 Health Care Program provided for the routine needs of some patients, but the program is open to all members of the Enewetak, Bikini, Utrik and Rongelap communities, and is grossly under-funded (approximately $15 per patient per month to support all health treatment needs). 

In 1998 the Department of Energy changed contractors from Brookhaven National Laboratory to Pacific Health Research Institute (PHRI) to assume responsibility for DOE’s health care program.  PHRI is in the process of trying to give the Rongelapese full-time access to medical doctors, but this is 47 years after their initial exposure.  Furthermore, PHRI has been hampered by a DOE mandate that PHRI only treat the radiogenic conditions of its patients, a decision based on DOE policy and not congressionally mandated law.  Exceptions to this rule are made from time-to-time when a patient’s life is in danger from a non-radioactive illness, but this still represents a mistaken application of the U.S. Congress’ efforts to address the medical needs of the community.  Congress fully intended for DOE to provide for the radiogenic and non-radiogenic needs of the community, but DOE mistakenly believes that non-radiogenic health care concerns are the responsibility of the 177 HCP.  
Because DOE is unwilling to treat non-radiogenic illnesses unless they are life threatening, and because the 177 HCP lacks the funds to treat non-radiogenic illnesses, patients complain continually about being “ping-ponged” back and forth between medical providers that are reluctant or unwilling to care for them. 

Lost in this conflict over health care responsibility have been the individual needs of Rongelapese patients.  Thus, informants allege that a number of recent deaths occurred needlessly, because Rongelapese people suffering from the various effects of their exposure were unable to receive adequate health care.  These deaths include George Anjain, Jabeo Jabeo, Joe Jitiam, Edmil Edmond, and Bweradrik Eknilang.

The Rongelapese also believe that their children have radiation-related health care needs related to their exposure.  This is evident in the number of miscarriages, stillbirths, deformities, retardation, and stunted growth in the children of the people who were exposed to Bravo or who lived on Rongelap after the testing program.  DOE’s mandate does not include the offspring of the Rongelapese, and once again, the 177 HCP lacks the resources to adequately care for them.  

Because health care for the Rongelapese is limited to the still sporadic visits by PHRI and the underfunded 177 Health Care Program, many Rongelapese have opted to move to Hawaii to try to get access to the U.S. public health care facilities.  In Hawaii, people are burdened by the extremely high cost of living.  The costs of renting apartments, purchasing food and clothing, and providing for the basic needs of their families are exorbitant.  As a result, people often live in crowded apartments to help make ends meet.  

In June 2001 interviews with Rongelapese living in Hawaii, much of the conversation focused on the difficulties of negotiating medical bureaucracies and confronting the biases and stigmatization associated with their medical conditions.  A number of informants noted that political officials in Hawaii characterize all citizens of the Freely Associated States as nuisances and drains on their public resources, and do not understand the special medical needs of the Rongelapese who suffer the degenerative effects of exposure to near-lethal amounts of radiation.  Conflicts over healthcare responsibility – who should pay for what services—leave the Rongelap community in Hawaii struggling to obtain medical care that is often refused for lack of payment on previous bills that they cannot and should not have to pay.  Informants expressed their belief that all community members, including offspring, should have access to any and all medical care they need as a result of U.S. Government actions.  They are confused by the bureaucracy of the medical establishment in the United States, and frightened about the consequences of their inability to pay their medical bills.  Yet, they find this confusion and fear preferable to living in the Marshall Islands where there is extremely limited medical care available to them, and almost none for their children.   

Naiki Ribuka:  If you live in the US, or if you leave the RMI to get medical care, you’re not eligible for any assistance.  All of the medical bureaucracy is hard to understand.  We get billed for care, but we don’t have any insurance or any means to pay for our medical care.  But, we need the care; what can we do (June 14, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu)?!

Rokko Langinbelik:  Our kids need medical care.  If we die, who cares for them because we know their medical needs are beyond those of other kids?!  (June 14, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

Informant testimonies from all of the segments of the Rongelap community suggest a fragmented group living in extreme poverty, struggling with the comprehensive assaults resulting from their exposure and loss of land.  The disbursement of the community into several main residence locations means that the Rongelapese went from a close community where everyone worked together to a geographically fractured community.  The physical disbursement makes communication and group cohesion difficult for the Rongelapese.  Each of the different communities where the Rongelapese now reside presents challenges for the Rongelapese that they did not encounter on their own land (Johnsay Riklon, February 28, 1999). 

The consequential damages of this fragmentation are reflected in national reports and statistics.  Extremely dense residential patterns created by communities of exiles living on rented land has created or exacerbated terrestrial and marine pollution.  The impoverished condition of the Rongelap community has intensified local resource use (especially fishing, a commons resource).  The ecosystemic viability of “host” island environs has been dramatically degraded.  Rongelap community represents some 8% of the total Marshall Islands population.  While an estimated 49% of the nation is able to support household needs through agricultural production, 100% of the Rongelap community is alienated from land and the traditional resources needed to survive.   

The people of Rongelap also suffer sociocultural hardships.  While it is clear that the Rongelapese community would have experienced changes in diet, lifestyle, and employment over time, the weapons testing program accelerated the pace at which the people experienced these changes.  The changes happened far more quickly than the people could adapt to.

The loss of the means to be self-sufficient impacts the people of Rongelap in complex ways: 
Kobang Anjain:  Now I have to buy food all the time.  I have to listen to the landowners on the land where I stay.  Even if I don’t like what the landowners tell me to do, I have no choice because it’s not my land and I can’t do what I want to.  It’s not the fault of the alaps of the land where I stay now – we lost our place (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

Loss of land affects diet, health, and household economy and, as illustrated in later sections of this report, severely inhibits the Rongelapese ability to produce or reproduce cultural knowledge about the local environment—knowledge that is essential to the survival and long term well-being of the community.  Traditional and current use-rights arrangements include an implicit agreement to care for the land, including husbandry of trees, clearing underbrush, burning and improving the fertility of soil.  The scant terrestrial resources in the overcrowded urban areas render it impossible for the Rongelapese to live a subsistence lifestyle or to provide the maintenance of the land that traditional rental rights require.  The Rongelapese living in Ebeye and Majuro do not have rights to freely use without permission coconut, pandanus, and other material resources situated on the land, or reef heads and other marine resources adjoining the land.  

One of the many consequences of the inability of the Rongelapese to access plant resources means that they have lost the means to a free, culturally appropriate means of healthcare as well as the cultural respect reserved for people who are knowledgeable about Marshallese medicine.  Outer island populations rely heavily on traditional Marshallese medicine to assist them with their ailments.  

Instead of traditional work on the land and in the sea, the Rongelapese are largely idle in their relocation.  Suicide, malnutrition, alcoholism, smoking, and lack of physical fitness were complaints among the interviewees.  The psychosocial damages associated with the hardships, anxiety and reality of life for the people of Rongelap is reflected in apathy and misery in the younger generations:
Ken Kedi:  Here are the examples of youth activities for the Rongelapese:  gather, talk, smoke, make yeast (a homemade alchohol).  Increasing suicide.  A number of suicides have been attempted on Mejatto.  One family (the Balos family) had 3 or 5 suicides (March 1, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Barbara Rose Johnston, and Stuart Kirsch, Majuro).  

Since moving off of their land, the Rongelapese diet has changed substantially.  In the place of arrowroot, breadfruit and fish, the people now subsist primarily on rice, flour, and canned meats when they are available.  Fresh produce from local grocery stores is prohibitively expensive for families on a limited income.  Furthermore, the younger generation has become accustomed to processed foods because of the lack of availability of traditional foods.  One of the traditional means to maintaining family ties has been the sharing of food.  As indicated earlier, in the urban areas, on the limited land in Mejatto, and in Hawaii where the community now lives, people no longer have the ability to get their foods locally the way they did on Rongelap:
Naiki Ribuka:  When we were on Rongelap, we would worry about every thing that we ate, even if they said it was safe.  We thought the foods were contaminated.  Now, we always struggle with money.  We don’t have enough money to purchase the food we need, we can’t buy what we want.  “Jej jojolaer.  Ainwot bao ko rej jan bujik bwe ejjelok jineer.”  (“We’re lost and wandering.  [We’re] like the birds that cry out because their mother is gone.”) (June 14, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

Living on other peoples’ land means that the people can only use the rainwater that they collect from their roofs in catchments.  In some cases, people can get permission to use the groundwater, but people have to ask permission to use any and all water that they do not catch themselves.  In recent years, the RMI has suffered severe droughts.  The people did not have the means to gather sufficient water for their families: 
Abacca Anjain-Maddison:  As a child, I remember fighting to get the hose so I could get water on Ebeye.  We would also fight with each other to get on the boat to go over to Kwajalein to get water (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

Loss of land not only affects the means to sustain life, but impacts severely on the traditions that accompany the end of life.  In the areas where the Rongelapese are displaced, they have no connection to their ancestors.  During the site visit to Rongelap in 1999 with the elders of the community, an elderly Rongelapese woman proceeded immediately to the cemetery after the airplane landed.  She greeted the gravestones of her family out loud with “yokwe kom,” or “hello to you.”  It is painful for the Rongelapese to be physically removed from their ancestors.  Furthermore, it is not customary to bury the deceased on land that does not belong to the family:
Almira Matayoshi:  My father really wanted to be buried on Rongelap when he died, but there was no way to get him there (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Hawaii, 2001).

Ken Kedi:  Most elders died.  They died wanting to go back.  My great grandfather, Talekerab, said he wouldn’t leave the island when it was time to evacuate.  After they took him off, he started fasting and demanded to go back.  Everyday he would chant, sing, and talk of the good old days.  He would ask:  “Why are we here [in Mejatto]?” Because he said he wouldn’t eat until he went back, he died (March 1, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Barbara Rose Johnston, and Stuart Kirsch, Majuro).

In addition to these problems resulting from the loss of the means to sustain a self-sufficient way of life, the Rongelap community has been deeply affected by the social forces dividing a community of “exposed” and “non-exposed,” and constantly challenged by the hardships associated with obtaining some form of adequate treatment for the range of degenerative problems resulting from exposure to radiation.

The stigmatization of exposure was all the more difficult to endure because evidence of exposure is immediately apparent when someone speaks.  The Rongelapese feel deep anguish at the changes in their singing voice as a result of their thyroid disorders.  Singing is a vital part of Marshallese gatherings – all formal occasions, community gatherings, and church services are singing events.  Singing and dancing are often related activities that transmit stories and legends, commemorate significant events, and communicate honor and respect.  Numerous informants expressed deep sadness about their inability to sing in public and their embarrassment about the loss or range in their notes:  
Norio Kebenli:  We used to love singing!  Christmas time was always the most important to us because we come together and sing.  Now no one is interested in participating in our traditional Christmas get-togethers anymore because we can’t sing.  We’ve lost interest.  People who used to sing well now have flat voices.  Personally, I don’t sing in public anymore because people stare at me.  It’s like we’re in a constant state of puberty where our voices keep cracking.  I feel sorry for Jia Riklon.  He can’t speak unless he holds a contraption to his throat to make sound – he has only one level of sound he can make so he certainly can’t sing (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).  

Almira Matayoshi:  After the bomb, we can’t harmonize anymore.  Everyone’s voice is a base, and there are no more sopranos amongst us.  We have no interest in singing anymore.  People make fun of us when we do and say “etiroit men ne” (literally: that thing near you is thyroid, or that thing of a person has a thyroid problem) (June 13, 2001, Holly M. Barker, Honolulu).

Ellen Boaz:  At the time when they cut my throat I thought they – well I don’t know, I really can’t sing anymore, but I want to sing again but now I can’t.  I really don’t know.  After the people cut my throat, I really can’t sing at all anymore.  My voice won’t go high anymore.  Is that not from the contamination?  (August 26, 1994, Holly M. Barker, Mejatto).  

Summary of Consequential Damages
The loss of customary lands and the means to sustain community cohesion coupled with the particular nature of degenerative disease associated with radiation exposure has produced distinct affects on diet, health, and household economy.  Extremely dense residential patterns created by communities of exiles living on rented land has created or exacerbated terrestrial and marine pollution.  The impoverished condition of the Rongelap community has intensified local resource use, and the ecosystemic viability of “host” island environs has been degraded.  Restricted access to critical resources inhibits the ability to teach younger generations the means to sustain a self-sufficient way of life.  Loss of access to customary lands further inhibits efforts to transmit key information across the generations, knowledge that is essential to the survival of the community if they are ever to return to customary lands.  Some hardships are endured by individuals, like the many Rongelapese who experienced physical pain and suffering as a result of having their thyroid glands removed or treated, continue to endure the discomforts and side effects of taking lifelong thyroid medication (nausea, lethargy or hyperactivity, hot and cold flashes), or mourn throughout their life the loss of a unique part of their personal and social identity: their ability to sing.  Other hardships are endured by families, the community, and the nation, as they also struggle to care for children who were born retarded or handicapped, and an elderly population with severe degenerative healthcare needs.  These social, cultural, economic, and environmental problems are linked to exposure and the loss of lands and are consequential damages from nuclear testing.  These hardships are exacerbated by the fact that virtually all of Rongelapese community-- including those alive during the testing program, those who lived in the highly contaminated environment, and their offspring-- have significant health care needs related to their exposure, and struggle with inadequate access to meaningful health care.  Yet, there is no medical program to adequately address these needs and patients are frustrated and angry that the U.S. Government has failed to provide for them, and has “ping-ponged” them back and forth between inadequate programs.  

PART THREE:
LOSS OF A HEALTHY, SUSTAINABLE WAY OF LIFE
 1.   Introduction
 2.   Valuing Land from a Marshallese Perspective	
 3.   Land and Sea Tenure
 4.   Rules Governing Access and Use Rights
 5.   Cultural Land and Seascapes
 6.   Spiritual Values of Land and Seascape
 7.   Environmental Knowledge and Sustainable Resource Use
 8.   Flexible Patterns of Resource Use  
 9.   Taboos and Resource Management
 10. Concluding Discussion

1.    Introduction 
This chapter presents evidence to suggest that consequential damages and injuries associated with the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Testing Program include the loss of the means to sustain a healthy, sustainable way of life.  In their review of compensation claims for the people of Bikini and Enewetak the Nuclear Claims Tribunal has awarded compensation for loss of land based on valuation of land derived from a record of leases in Majuro, Kwajalein, and other atolls.  Such valuations reflect one aspect of economic value—the value of temporal occupation of dry acreage.  Such valuations do not consider and adequately address social and cultural values, meanings, and uses of land.  Nor do these valuations address the wider realm of arboreal and marine resources that sustain the Marshallese way of life.  In this chapter we focus on the complex social, cultural, political, and economic relationships between the people of Rongelap and their atolls.  We outline customary rules and obligations, identify critical resources, and describe some of the mechanisms used to care for and transmit knowledge about the land and the sea.  This human environmental detail provides a framework for interpreting subsequent damages and injuries experienced by the people of Rongelap when removed from the healthy use of their homelands. 

2.   Valuing Land from a Marshallese Perspective
Outside observers traveling to the islands from their continental homes, have described the Marshall Islands world as a very small place-- tiny spits of sand and reef forming islands and atolls, and separated by immense stretches of open sea.  In actuality, the Republic of Marshall Islands extends across some 750,000 square miles of ocean, an area equivalent to the landmass of Mexico.  Within this national boundary lies an estimated 870 reef systems and some 1225 islands distributed along two island chains: the Ratak (sunrise chain) and Ralik (sunset chain).  These islands form 29 atolls and 5 individual islands with a total estimated dry land mass of some 70 square miles.  For an estimated 4000 years, the people of the Marshall Islands have survived and thrived on thin stretches of land in a universe of ocean.  From their perspective, the world is largely water, and their terrestrial lands are part of--rather than separate from--the sea.  Survival required knowledge, experience, and access to critical resources present in both these fixed and fluid realms.

Descriptions of the land by outside observers often emphasized severe limitations:  “Of all the island and atoll types in Micronesia, the drier coral atolls” such as Rongelap, Ailinginae, and Rongerik “present the greatest challenge to human occupancy” (Mason 1968:278).  These low-lying, dry atolls have “slender resources” [and] “practically no soil covers the coral, and the inhospitable sand will grow few plants” (Krieger 1943:21).   

Ethnographic interviews with the people of Rongelap, Ailinginae and Rongerik paint a different picture.  For example:
Lijon Eknilang:  The islands in the northern islands, like Rongelap, they were the garden islands.  Everyone knew they were the best place to grow arrowroot, pandanus...  there were whole islands covered with birds, and turtles (March 4, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro). 

Kajim Abija:  There was always pandanus and coconuts.  During the times of hunger, we were not really hungry because there was so much of the pandanus (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).  

Mwenadrik Kebenli:  I was born in 1917 on Rongerik.  We came together and made food.  We stored food.  So many kinds of food.  Every type was there.  There was water.  We ate arrowroot, preserved breadfruit, pandanus, coconut, fish, crab, foods from the reef like octopus, clam and small fish.  There’s an island, Jipedbao, with lots of birds.  There were also turtles on the islands.  We would sail overnight in the outrigger canoe to Rongelap.  We would take food to Rongelap. We always exchanged food.  There were so many good things on Ailinginae (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).  

Dorothy Amos:  There was a lot of coconut, lots of pandanus and foods we make from pandanus, also arrowroot.  Foods from the ocean, there were so many.  Big clams, crab, every kind in the depths of the ocean.  We ate, or sold them to boats that would come in, we could exchange shells and food supplies.  So many crabs, and birds.  We got life from them.  There was good well water on Ailinginae.  There was also good food on the small islands around Rongelap, not just on Ailinginae (March 18, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).    

These contrary perceptions of the resource base as limited or lush in some ways reflect different worldviews.  From a continental perspective, limited land meant limited resources-- minimal agricultural production, no rivers, lakes or streams, and relatively few trees.  From a Pacific Island point of view, land provided access to an immense array of resources.  Cultivation and husbandry of trees and bushes were elements of a broader subsistence strategy that utilized the resources provided by the currents of wind and water -- migratory birds, fish, and marine mammals were all essential elements of the Marshallese subsistence economy.  Critical resources included not only terrestrial and marine materials and foods necessary for basic survival, but also the knowledge to use and exploit resources in sustainable ways.  

3.  Land and Sea Tenure  
The importance of land to the Marshallese--not only as a place to live and grow food, but also as the essence of Marshallese life-- is well documented.  On April 20, 1954, a petition was submitted to the United Nations Trusteeship Council on behalf of the Marshallese citizens of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.  In this petition, the Marshallese people cite their concerns about the United States Nuclear Weapons Testing Program, concerns that included damage to health and the long-term implications of being removed from their land: 
...  We, the Marshallese people feel that we must follow the dictates of our consciences to bring forth this urgent plea to the United Nations, which has pledged itself to safeguard the life, liberty and the general well being of the people of the Trust Territory, of which the Marshallese people are a part.
...  The Marshallese people are not only fearful of the danger to their persons from these deadly weapons in case of another miscalculation, but they are also very concerned for the increasing number of people who are being removed from their land.
...  Land means a great deal to the Marshallese.  It means more than just a place where you can plant your food crops and build your houses; or a place where you can bury your dead.  It is the very life of the people.  Take away their land and their spirits go also...  (“Petition from the Marshallese People Concerning the Pacific Islands: Complaint regarding explosion of lethal weapons within our home islands.” United Nations Trusteeship Council:T/PET.10/28). 

This paramount role of land rights in traditional Marshallese society was documented by anthropologist Jack A. Tobin (1958:3), District Anthropologist for the United States Territory of the Marshall Islands, and expressed in an interview he conducted: “We will never willingly accept any other land in exchange for our lineage land.”  As noted by Tobin, the concepts of alienation of lands by sale, lease, or rental were “introduced by foreigners” (1958:21).  Marshallese land tenure “forbids sale of land to non-indigenes” (1958:1), and the “Marshallese will not willingly accept complete alienation of their lands” (1958:3).

This recognition that the Marshallese valued land as an integrated part of the marine ecosystem is reflected in the reports of Jack Tobin.  In his 1958 report Tobin noted that property rights extend from terrestrial property into the marine area: “According to custom, the property rights extended out to the area where people stood, usually waist deep, in order to fish with a pole.  These rights belonged exclusively to the lineage, whose land holding bordered the marine area” (op cit, 1958:57).  Tobin also noted that the marine resources belonged to the iroij, but the people residing on an atoll were free to use the resources: “traditionally everything of value in the lagoon such as shellfish, langusta, etc., was considered to be the property of the chiefs.  The inhabitants of the particular atoll did not have to ask permission to take these items unless they were tabu property of the chiefs: the concept that the right to exploit the marine resources of an atoll is the prerogative of the inhabitants of that atoll only still persists” (ibid:8).

Customary resource relations involve the rules and traditions governing the access and use of critical resources; as well as the meanings and values assigned to critical resources.  The Marshallese are not alone in establishing rules and traditions to govern marine property.  Anthropologist John Cordell in his analysis of sea tenure systems notes that throughout the Pacific “seascapes are blanketed with history and imbued with names, myths, legends, and elaborate territories that sometimes become exclusive provinces partitioned with traditional rights and owners much like property on land” (1989:1).  Cordell notes that evidence of marine property systems is reflected in the localized and specific knowledge of reefs, tides, currents, winds; in the traditions that govern access and limit knowledge of fishing areas to those with specific entitlements; and, in the names for territories, subsurface features, rocks, and reef clefts-- names that represent events and mythical characters and provide local people with a “constant visible historical anchor”(1989:9). 

4.  Rules Governing Access and Use Rights
In his 1958 report on customary land tenure in the Marshall Islands, Tobin observed that “land, which is the source of their day-to-day existence, is considered by the Marshallese to be their most valuable asset” (1958:2), and while this asset is valued, it is not owned.  According to Tobin, the Marshallese property rights system is “premised on the notion that no single person owns the land.  Rather, the three-tier social structure acts like a corporation that collectively oversees the best interests of the property.  The lineage (bwij) members may live on and exploit the resources of the land parcel or, if they possess rights in more than one land parcel, as is usually the case, merely make copra on it and use its food resources such as: coconuts, breadfruit, arrowroot, pandanus, bananas, and taro.  Pigs and chickens are kept and fish and shellfish are obtained from the adjacent marine areas (ibid:7-8). 

Maintenance of the property and resources are critical to ensuring the continued livelihood of everyone in the corporation with rights to the property.  “On certain occasions, landowners may allow non-landowners to live and work on their property.  Members and associated members of the lineage (bwij) work the land, clearing it of underbrush and performing other tasks necessary for the simple type of agriculture practices in these low-lying coral atolls with their limited resources.  In some instances people are allowed to work land not belonging to their lineage when members of another lineage have more than enough land for their own needs, or want to help some less fortunate person” (ibid:10).

In this type of non-family use arrangement, the non-landowning tenant acts, in western terms, as a renter.  The renter is expected to provide a portion of cultivated resources or profits from the resources to the landholders.  Additionally, the renter is expected to maintain the land by using resources sustainably and ensuring the future production capacity of the property and resources.  If the renter is not a responsible steward of the property and resources, the landholders will evict the renters.  The landholders benefit from this rent-like arrangement by having their property and resources cared for responsibly.  By the same token, the renter benefits from accessing resources necessary for survival.  In addition to caring for property and resources for the well being of the existing generation, people with land rights work collectively to ensure that the lineage holdings will be productive for the succeeding generations that will inherit the land.  In this regard, customary ownership of property and resources is based on sustainable interactions with the environment and responsible stewardship that allows future generations to flourish.  

The national law of the Republic of the Marshall Islands reflects and codifies this customary law, protecting landholders and users and their customary traditions that allow sustainable subsistence in a fragile island environment.  Section 5.1 of the Constitution of the Republic of the Marshall Islands recognizes that the “means to obtain subsistence and benefits is of utmost value.  For this reason, the RMI Constitution upholds the notion of just compensation for all interest holders of the land when land is taken.”  Because the Marshallese view themselves as intergenerational holders of the land, interest holders of the land extend to future generations who will have rights to the land.  

These excerpts from Tobin (1958) and the Constitution of the Republic of the Marshall Islands illustrate a critical feature of the Marshallese subsistence system: this is a tightly structured common property rights system where rights to use land and other critical resources are inherited.  Our ethnographic research confirmed the presence and importance of land use rights that are transferred between generations.  The western notion of individual property rights (meaning the ability to own, sell, or buy a piece of land) and thus, a free market in land, do not exist.  There are exceptional cases where individuals with rights to wetos (parcels of land extending from ocean/ reef side to and into the lagoon) legally transfer their rights to land (to, for example, release themselves from a serious debt).  However, even in these cases, transactions involve the transfer of use rights between Marshallese families, with the transaction regulated and controlled by customary authority.  Non-Marshallese individuals cannot purchase land.  Rights to use land are occasionally exchanged for cash payment, but customary and current use rights are highly prescriptive, typically involving the right to occupy, and do not include rights to freely use without permission coconut, pandanus, and other materials resources situated on the land, or reef heads and other marine resources adjoining the land.  Customary exchanges of use rights, and many current use rights arrangements, typically involve the exchange of labor and the products of labor for the right to occupy and use with permission the natural resources of a particular weto, or area.  Traditional and current use-rights arrangements include an implicit agreement to care for the land, including husbandry of trees, clearing underbrush, burning and improving the fertility of soil.  The privilege to occupy or use a weto can be revoked when stewardship principles are not being met.  

Land rights in Marshallese society represent far more than the economic means to sustain a household: 
Mike Kabua:  Land gives you the meaning of life and the role of each individual in society...(March 4, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).    

Wilfred Kendall:  The people here have tenaciously held on to land.  The resource people treasure most is land.  Land speaks of your being, essence, reason for living.  You relate to the world in terms of land... [that] provides for your present, future, and future needs... You cannot put enough value on land.... How do you put a value on something that people consider as a living thing that is part of your soul? (March 3, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).  

The pattern of access and use rights to property and natural resources reflect social relationships and standing in the community.  
Dorothy Amos:  We have different customs than Americans.  They won’t say there are three tier of land rights, but for us, there are.  We protect the land.  This is our inheritance from our grandfathers and grandmothers.  We bury on our land.  We do planting (March 18, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).  

Customary traditions and current practices involve a fluid, rather than fixed system of rights to wetos.  Weto rights are inherited, with women often investing a male member of her family with the power to claim use rights.  To claim the right to use a weto, one must be able to describe it in relation to other wetos.  The power to recognize and validate that claim rests in the hands of customary authorities (alaps and iroij).  Customary authorities adjudicate conflicts over family claims.  Changes in family structures and changes in customary power structures (with, for example the death of a mother, or an alap, or iroij) can produce a redistribution of use rights.  Monetary compensation for denied use or damage to land based on the rights to use as defined and recognized at a given point in time can, in effect, impose a system of individual property rights, and this has the potential to undermine the traditional balance of power between men and women in society.

Marshallese culture and the structure of society revolve around a three-tier approach of reciprocal use rights for the iroij, alap and ri-jerbal.  Because the social structure of the Marshall Islands is extensively documented elsewhere (Tobin 1953, 1958, Mason 1968, and Kiste 1974), this portion of the report focuses on Rongelapese perspectives about the three-tier social structure as it relates to property and access to resource rights. 

Iroij:  Although the iroij did not reside on Rongelap, Rongerik or Ailinginae, the iroij, as everywhere in the Marshall Islands, is responsible for the people.  The iroij provides for the people.  He/she is expected to provide in times of need and to help distribute resources so everyone is taken care of.  The iroij is the key to the customary resource management system.  It is his/her job to decide the rules of access and use-- to hear and settle disputes over fish weirs; stolen fish, breadfruit and coconut; and to determine weto boundaries, rights to use wetos, and succession rights:
Mike Kabua:  The iroij always protects their people like a fence wrapped around them, standing at the gate taking care of them (March 4, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).  

Lijon Eknilang:  The iroij is like our government (March 4, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).  

Wilfred Kendall:  The iroij have people clean the land.  People get to use the resources on the land and the iroij benefit from having the land maintained (March 5, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).

Alap:  In exchange for the care and use of land provided by the iroij, the alaps, or managers of the land, keep records and books with information about the land and the wetos.  They provide daily oversight for the land and the workers of the land, the ri-jerbal or kajor.  The alap also carry the rights to their lineages-- their “property.”
Mike Jenkins:  Alaps essentially act like a corporation.  There is a system of checks and balances in place.  You can’t have private ownership anymore.  Instead, the corporation looks after your trust, or jolet.  The alap is the Chairman of the Board.  The alap can’t make an agreement that is binding on our next generation.  It is important to understand the holding of the corporation (what land), the conditions of the land, and what decisions you are allowed to make regarding the land.  Alaps are closer to the iroij than other people in the community because they bring them their food when they visit and they serve as intermediaries between the workers and the chief (March 15, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Gugeegue).  

Ri-jerbal or kajor:  While the alaps have the power to control the day-to-day work on the land, the ri-jerbal have the rights to use the land.  Ri-jerbal is a word that developed during Japanese times when the people began to collect coconuts for commercial value (Mike Kabua, August 7, 1999).  Ri, literally the people, and jerbal, or work, defined those that did the work for money.  Kajor is the traditional word that is used to describe the third tier of society.  Kajor means strength in the Marshallese language and reflects the symbiotic relationship of society in which the kajor provide the strength or support to the alap and iroij.  While the alaps control and manage the land, the ri-jerbal maintain the rights to use the land and its resources necessary for survival.  If a ri-jerbal does not take proper care of the property and its resources, the iroij might forbid the ri-jerbal from using it.  The majority of the community members of Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae are the ri-jerbal who have the rights to work and maintain the land in exchange for sustenance and survival from the land.  

The Rongelapese recognize the iroij’s ultimate authority over the natural resources.  To demonstrate this, certain foods and areas of the reef and land are set aside for iroij:
Lijon Eknilang:  Certain species are used just for the iroij, such as brown eel, turtle, whales, dolphins, and frigate birds.  Other coral heads in a lagoon are reserved just for the iroij as the place to collect food for the iroij.  It is “mo,” or forbidden, to go to islands and areas reserved for the iroij (March 2, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).

Mitjua Jankwin:   When he was here [on Rongelap], we gave him food from those coral heads.  Sometimes food from those coral heads was sent to Ebeye.  We sent janwin (preserved breadfruit), too (March 10, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Rongelap).  

Delineating land rights: Beyond iroij authority over critical resources, all three tiers of society are entitled to use the land and resources for their well being.  The strongest entitlements come from matrilineal rights to the land, although the Rongelapese recognize paternal rights to the land as well:
John Anjain:  On Jabwaan, my father is the ri-jerbal.  I don’t have to ask to use my father’s land.  On Eniaetok, my mother is the alap.  All of your mother’s family has rights.  Even if someone is gone for a long time, his or her rights won’t disappear.  If other people have rights to the land, they can use it.  People who don’t have any rights have to ask permission to use it (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

In addition to rights inherited from parents, people obtain rights to the land by permission of the iroij or family, or by marriage: 
Johnsay Riklon:  When you are married, you are entitled to the land of your spouse.  It is also understood that relatives can ask for resources (February 28, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Barbara Rose Johnston, and Stuart Kirsch, Majuro).

Because land is so important to survival, “the Marshallese jealously guard their land rights and will not willingly part with them” (Tobin, 1967:3).   

The Rongelapese are very clear about the boundaries of their weto property.  It is clear, for example, that the extension of weto boundaries incorporate rights to the lagoon:
Emos Jilej:  The boundary of this weto (Tutulonarijet weto), my wife’s land, is the small, sharp peninsula you will see further down and the row of pandanus trees over there (March 10, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Rongelap).  

George Anjain:  My land extends from the middle of this island all the way down to the end.  My land covers half of the island.  Weto rights extend to the water’s edge, including the sand and any exposed areas.  Beneath the tidal zone out to 5 miles belongs to the local government.  From 5 miles to the 200-mile EEZ belongs to the national government  (March 15, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Rongelap).

John Anjain:  People have rights up to the high tide mark where the water ends.  The Navy explained this to us.  Sometimes we just go and take food from the water area on someone’s property, but sometimes we ask for permission (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).  

Everyone who has rights to land also has the responsibility to help harvest or maintain shared resources-- including cleaning, planning, harvesting, and the division of food resources.  People with land rights are also responsible for deciding what plants will be grown on certain islands, and what areas will remain in a wild state.  

If someone does not have rights to the land, they can ask the landholders for permission to use the land.  This enables those who seek permission to benefit from the resources on the land and for the landholders to have their land taken care of: 
Wilfred Kendall:  People ask permission to work on someone else’s land, but it is always expected the land will be returned in good shape.  You do what is expected of you or people will have the right to keep you from the land (March 3, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).

John Anjain:  If someone uses your land, they are expected to take care of it, and to maintain it.  If they don’t or if they cut trees or wreck the house, you can stop them from making copra.  You can even stop a family member from using the land because there is always a leader in the family (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

In some cases, especially in the urbanized areas of Majuro and Ebeye, housing is rented.  In these cases renters have the right to occupy, but do not have the right to use any of the other resources associated with the land.  They cannot harvest fruits, cut or clear trees, or use other significant resources without express permission from the landowner:
Mike Kabua:  They are merely leasing the house--not the land.  The property owner still has the right to collect breadfruit (March 3, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).

In addition to maintaining the land for their own use, the Rongelapese have a clear perception of the importance of protecting the land for future generations.  The Rongelapese understand that they are fortunate to receive the gift of property from their ancestors.  They, in turn, look forward to bequeathing it to future generations: 
Lijon Eknilang:  It’s better to use the word jolet (inheritors) instead of owner.  We are the inheritors, but the owner is God.  (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).  

There is also a conscious effort by the Rongelapese to teach the younger people where their land rights are so they can continue to claim and use their property in the future.  Knowledge of the land, its resources, the family history of use, and the relationship of the weto boundaries in relation to other wetos are essential to proving a family claim.  
James Matayoshi:  My mother shows me where our land is so I can take care of it (March 1, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Majuro).

Emos Jilej:  My grandchildren have never been to Rongelap.  I tell them where their land rights are so they will know (March 10, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Mike Jenkins:  I was raised in the United States.  My mother was Marshallese.  She was an alap of Kwajalein, and my father was American.  My mother taught me all about Marshallese land rights.  Before I ever came to the Marshall Islands, my mother taught me about the iroij system, land claims and family rights.  My mother chose me out of all ten children to come back to the Marshall Islands to claim my family’s land rights (March 15, 1999, Gugeegu).

5.  Cultural Land and Seascapes 
Marshallese place names explain the history of terrestrial and marine property.  Atoll, island, weto, seamount and reef names all remind the Rongelapese of the history and the social and environmental significance of their property, as illustrated in Table 2 below.  

Weto names are place names that typically describe physical characteristics or explain why and how people inherited and use the land:
Wilfred Kendall:  Land speaks for everything out here in the island...  the name (of the land) speaks to the history, whose rights, and why those rights exist (March 3, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).

 The interviewees know where all of the important natural resources are located on the atolls:  
John Anjain:  There are places where we lived and places where we would go to stay and gather food.  People would stay for years on Buokku, Eniaitok, Jabwaan, Rongelap, Aerik, Mellu and Yugui. (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

One interviewee, Mwenadrik Kebenli, recited a chant (roro) about Kapijinamu reef that teaches listeners to follow the waves off of the reef in order to get to the atoll.  The waves bouncing off the reef affect the wave patterns far off the land and help sailors find the reef.  The fact that reefs on Rongelap have place names indicates that the reefs were an integral and valued part of the lives of the Rongelapese people.  Names are assigned by the Rongelapese to the reefs and seamounts in the same way as atolls, islands, and wetos.

Table 2: Examples of Place Names for Rongelap, Ailinginae and Rongerik.

Atoll names:
Rongelap: Ron (hole, referring to the lagoon)   lap (large) =  large lagoon
Rongerik: Ron (hole)  rik (small) =  small lagoon
Ailinginae: Aelon (atoll)  in (in)  ae (current) =  atoll in the current

Island names:
Enetaitok: Ene (island)  aitok (long) =  long island
Enebarbar: Ene (island)  barbar (rocky, or lots of reef) =  island with lots of reef
Aeroken: Ae (current)  rok (southern)  en (away from speaker) =  southern current

Weto names:
Marren: Mar (bushes)  en (away from speaker) =  land with bushes away from the village
Monbako: Mon (house)  Bako (shark) =  house of the sharks
Aibwej: Aibwej (water) =  water

Reef names:
The reefs have names, like Kapijinamu, the huge reef in the south of Rongelap = the place to fish and get food from the reef.  Other reef names are Kijukan, Patelona, Kejenen, Tuilok en Kijenen, and Metalaen.
__________________________________________________________________
 Source: Land Valuation Advisory Committee, March 1999.

One of the reasons why the northern atolls enjoy such an excellent reputation for fisheries is their proximity to seamounts.   Seamounts are large submarine volcanic mountains rising at least 1,000 m (3,300 feet) above the surrounding deep-sea floor.  Preliminary oceanographic studies have shown that seamounts are biologically rich areas supporting a distinct benthic (bottom dwelling) community of animals, many of which are unique and do not occur elsewhere on earth.  In addition to supporting diverse marine life, seamounts attract pelagic species-- schools of large fish (especially tuna)-- that visit to feed and spawn.  Seamounts are more than a magnet for sea life, they also attract fishermen.  Traditional fishing in these areas sustainably supported the needs of a community.  However, technologically intensive exploitation seriously damages the coral forests and associated marine life found in seamounts worldwide, and seamounts are increasingly being devastated by commercial fishing, especially by trawlers.  This threat to a unique marine habitat has been recognized by the United Nations Environment Program and by a number of nations, like Australia, who are attempting to protect seamount resources by designating them as marine reserves.  Of the 43 named seamounts in the Marshall Islands, some 30 are located in the northern atolls.  Seamounts immediately north of Ailinginae are Ruwituntun and Look.  Immediately south of Ailinginae (between Ailinginae and Wotho) is Lewonjpoui.  Northeast of Rongerik is Lawun-Pikaar.  And, immediately north of Bikini is Wodejebato (Sylvania).  According to Alfred Capelle, some of the names associated with the seamounts were those of sea demons and legendary spirits, both good and evil, inflicting upon those who knowingly went near them either good or bad luck, depending upon the intent of the trespasser (personal communication, September 2001).  Rongelap informants both confirmed the importance of these areas as fishing grounds, and expressed their fears that foreign commercial trawlers were destroying these areas in their long absence from Rongelap.  (See Map 2, Seamounts near Rongelap, in Attachment A).

For the Rongelapese, and other Marshallese people, the cultural landscape is both fluid and fixed—terrestrial and marine.  Seamounts, reefs, islands, and lagoons are all significant features of the land and seascape and are valued for many reasons.  Marshallese stories of the beginnings of life on earth involve features of the seascape.  In many cases place names represent the physical manifestations of social relationships over time.  Land is inherited through family name and valued for its connections to future generations.  The name of the land in itself can depict important events and relationships.  For example:
Mike Kabua: The names of some land reflect the possession history of the property: kidili land is land that an iroij or alap gives to his wife.  That land will be passed down through the family of the wife upon her death.... Of all the types of land, land acquired by battle is particularly important.  (March 2, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).  

This type of land acquired in battle, morjinkot, literally means “and taken at the point of a spear” (Tobin 1958:29).  It is given to a warrior by an iroij to show appreciation for a warrior’s battle skills.  Morjinkot “was always given by the iroij alone to commoners” (ibid, p.29).  Rights to the land extended to the family of the warrior as “maternal relatives and paternal relatives both used the land.  Maternal relatives have a usufruct right to the land.  Paternal relatives could utilize the resources of the land but did not have usufruct rights in the land” (ibid, p.31).  

All of Rongerik Atoll is morjinkot land.  Rongelap’s former Magistrate, John Anjain, has recorded a history of Rongerik Atoll in his Magistrate’s records.  Rongerik was given to Lejkonikik Antoren, an ancestor of Rongerik’s current Iroij Anjua Loeak, for heroics in a battle between Kili and Jaluit.  For this reason, the property on Rongerik is accorded great respect and great value in the Marshallese culture.

6.   Spiritual Values of Land and Seascape
It is exceedingly difficult to use western terms in order to convey the spiritual value of land to the Marshallese. All of Marshallese life, culture, and sense of identity emanates from the people’s connection to their land.  In an April 1999 interview, one Rongelapese youth equated the loss of one’s land to hanging oneself with a rope (Malal Anjain, 1999).  Comparing the violence levied against the Rongelapese people and their environment to the violent suicides of many Marshallese youth demonstrates that the Rongelapese feel they have been violently removed from the land that gives them purpose and meaning in life.  In this regard, removal from land is akin to a violent death for the Rongelapese. 

Because of the central importance of land and property to the Marshallese, people have a strong attachment and sense of who they are in society that comes from their families’ land.  The Marshallese have words to capture the importance of this connection that translate poorly into English, such as lamoren, or “old lineage land” (ibid, p.22), and jolet, or inheritance.  This notion is expressed throughout the Marshall Islands in national and local government seals, in the Constitution, and in the national anthem, popular songs and stories.  The first national anthem of the Republic describes the spiritual value of the land for the Marshallese:
Ij iokwe lok aelon eo ao
Ijo iar lotak ie.
Melan ko ie im iaieo ko ie.
Ijamin ilok jen e
Bwe ijo jiku emool.
In ao lamoren in deo
Emman lok ne inaaj mij ie.

I love my island
Here where I was born.
The beautiful surroundings and joining together with friends.
I don’t want to leave here
This is my true place.
It’s my inheritance forever
It’s best for me to die here.   
  
The sanctity of certain land is reflected in the range of taboos: there are certain areas where it is forbidden to walk, such as medicinal areas (taban).  Certain areas were also set aside for magic, and other areas for birthing.  There are some islands where it is forbidden to scream.  In some cases there are taboos against saying the real name of a place, and nicknames are used out of respect for the place or the events that created the name.

Historically, this attachment to the land appears rooted in the indigenous religion of the Marshall Islands.  Although the arrival of the missionaries in the 19th century effectively replaced the indigenous religion with Christianity, there is evidence of a Marshallese religion devoted to the natural gods, such as the god of breadfruit, Jebro; the god of fish, irooj rilik; chants to the sharks before fishing; and the establishment of sacred bird sanctuaries.  In 1958, anthropologist Jack Tobin noted the existence of bird sanctuaries in the Marshall Islands existing from “time immemorial” as reserves for birds and turtles.  According to Tobin, elaborate rituals to Lawi Jemo, or the kanal tree god, accompanied annual food gathering trips to these bird sanctuaries.  Chiefs would lead a fleet of canoes from a neighboring atoll to the sanctuary.  Upon arrival, women hid under mats in the canoes for fear of bringing bad luck to the gathering of birds and eggs.  For the men, “it was tabu to use ordinary Marshallese, [and] the laroij (esoteric) language was mandatory” (ibid, p.50).  Special chants were used to request strength to haul the canoes up on the beach.  Once the expedition arrived at the sanctuary island: “The chief was the first person to step ashore.  Everyone assembled on the beach before proceeding inland and cut a leaf of coconut frond.  With the chief leading the way toward Lawi Jemo (the kanal tree), they walked in single file, each individual carefully stepping in the footprints of the person in front of him so that only one set of footprints would appear, as if only one person had been there.  Strict silence was observed on the way to worship Lawi Jemo.  When the group reached the tree, each man placed his coconut leaf over a branch of the tree and then sat down in front of the tree and waited for a breeze to come and blow the leaf off.  When this occurred, the kebbwi in bwil (ritual name for the chief on this occasion) would announce: Wurin‚ (we are lucky)” (ibid, pp.51-52).

The spiritual significance of place was confirmed in our ethnographic interviews, where some of the strongest expressions of Marshallese sentiment were voiced in relation to the meaning of atolls and land rights.  For the Rongelapese, land represents much, much more than what is expressed in western notions of property ownership.  Land is the physical framework for a spiritual realm that brings meaning, cohesion and happiness to people’s lives:
Mwenadrik Kebenli:  Without the land, all shatters.  Land binds us.  I was really happy on Rongerik because it’s my place, I grew up there (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).  

Isao Eknilang:  The three atolls, truthfully are like one person.  We looked after one another and fed one another when we were there... The three atolls are like one person in our understanding, and we have to take care of each other (May 7, 1999, CMI Nuclear Institute, Majuro).

Boney Boaz:  On Rongelap, I went everywhere.  No one told me I was forbidden from going anywhere.  In Ebeye, I just go from my home to work and back again.  What is the importance of land?  It’s so important!  The land is what is important.  Here are some examples: I planted so many coconut and pandanus seedlings.  It used to be great.  I didn’t watch my father work.  I planted the seedlings myself.  But, now I’m not there to see the trees I planted (March 17, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).  

Dorothy Amos:  Last week on Rongelap, I was sad, extremely sad.  The atoll is so big.  And it’s the surroundings where I grew up.  I might or I might not live.  If they go back there, I will make a trip again.  I stood in the church and remembered our good times there.  The breadfruit there is all gone.  I walked to Jabwaan so I could really see the land.  I saw the tombstones and really stared at them.  I stared at them for an hour... It was sad (March 18, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Kajim Abija:  We were sad about leaving Rongelap.  It’s our place.  I was accustomed to it (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Isao Eknilang:  Rongelap's Local Government seal has a picture of the flower for Rongelap and it's arrowroot, and it's not because there was no reason to pick it as Rongelap's flower.  The reason is because we ate so much of that food that it was the most important for us... (May 7, 1999, Holly M. Barker, CMI Nuclear Institute, Majuro).

People put a value on their way of life, a life they are proud of and which is based on self-sufficiency.  Money and material are not as important as the ability to live without outside influences:
Mitjua Jankwin: This is the house where I lived (pointing to the fallen-down remains of her home on Rongelap which is nothing more than a concrete floor and rotted planks).  My room was here (points to the front).  My father died in this room (points to another area).  We buried him over there (points to the cemetery down the road) (March 10, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Rongelap).

Lijon Eknilang:  It makes me sad to come here because I used to come here all the time with my grandmother (swimming in the lagoon in front of her grandmother’s house on Rongelap).  She used to swim everyday in this small pool…I lived in three different places while I was here [on Rongelap].  I moved back and forth between my mother and father’s places.  Life was so good here.  We really had fun  (March 10, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Rongelap).
 
Kajim Abija:  Papa said that Rongelap was a place to get younger.  You don’t get older but you get younger on Rongelap.  Rongelap women were known for looking young when they are older even though they may not be as good looking as women from other atolls when they are younger (laughs) (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

7.   Environmental Knowledge and Sustainable Resource Use
George Anjain:  Using resources from all islands and all available atolls is essential to survival.  People depend on the ability to use their whole system of islands.  In Rongelap, we need to use the northern islands.  Survival depends on being able to use everything around us and on sharing food.  People got together to sail to distant islands and also to harvest food.  Food was then collected and distributed to everyone (March 3, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).

The people of Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae, like other Marshallese, have a keen understanding of local environmental conditions, resources, and ecosystemic dynamics.  Ecosystem knowledge was essential to survival.  Atoll resources provided water, food, building materials, tools, transportation, medicine, toys, and ceremonial needs.  

The geophysical characteristics of atolls-- small spits of land, sparse vegetation, porous substrata that limited the build up of fresh water aquifers-- meant that terrestrial resources were scattered across the atoll, rather than concentrated on a specific island mass.  Thus, the sustainable use of scarce resources required the ability to travel, sparse settlement patterns that encouraged mobility rather than permanent residency, resource management systems that allowed each household access and use rights to ecologically diverse settings throughout the atoll system, and social and cultural systems that allowed efficient use and equitable distribution of food and other critical resources.  

The island ecosystem presented challenging biophysical constraints: scarce land, high vegetative stress from salt-laden winds, constant threat of erosion from wave action and storm surges, relatively infertile soils, minimal fresh water sources, and a tendency towards salt water intrusion in the few subsurface aquifers present on coral-based atolls.  Therefore, sustainable use of scarce resources also required the development of resource management strategies that enhanced ecosystemic viability while encouraging greater productivity.  Soil fertility was enriched with fish remains.  Pandanus, breadfruit, and coconut trees were carefully nurtured.  Woven mats and baskets were used to shelter seedlings from the wind and fierce sun.  Mature trees were regularly pruned, and the fronds and other debris carefully piled, burned, and the ashes reworked into the soil.  Rocks and coral rubble were used to build small retaining walls around the root systems of trees growing near the shore.  These rubble-retaining walls captured plant debris, allowed the build up of soil around the root system, and served as a protective barrier during periodic inundation from the tidal surge accompanying tropical storms.  These traditional agroforestry practices are still used today and illustrate the essential role played by humans in the maintenance of the Marshall Islands ecosystem. 

Some Rongelapese believe that the people and plants are symbiotically linked.  After observing that the trees and plants on Rongelap have no flowers or fruit, a Rongelapese woman explained that: 
Lijon Eknilang:  Plants don’t grow without people.  We make the plants happy and they make us happy (March 9, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Rongelap).

Without exception, and despite long absences from their lands, all interviewees were able to clearly identify and describe the resources and use strategies critical to survival on Rongelap, Rongerik, and Ailinginae (see Map 3, Critical Resources on Rongelap Atoll, Attachment A). In reviewing traditional patterns of resource access and use, interviewees expressed keen frustration in their current ability to teach the younger generation the information and skills needed to survive on an isolated atoll.  Some of the areas of information that informants identified as being important to produce and pass on to the next generation include survival and self-sufficiency, sustainability, storing or preserving resources, sharing of resources, medicine, legends or bwebwenatos, navigation, and strategies for coping with famine, drought, and other dangers.  These points are illustrated and discussed below.  

Water:  Drinking water sources include springs and ponds fed by subsurface aquifers, rainwater caught and stored in giant clamshells (emok), the hole in the ground from a fallen coconut tree, and rainwater caught from tin roofs or in catchments first paved by the Japanese.  Despite long absences, and in the case of Rongerik despite lack of personal experience, interviewees were able to describe the location of potable water sources on Rongelap, Rongerik, and Ailinginae atolls.
John Anjain:  On Jabwaan, we drank the well water.  It was less salty than the well water on Eniaitok or Rongelap.  Rongerik had good ground water.  Ailinginae had one well.  Mwenlap weto on Jabwaan has the best water.  It is a water source from long ago. (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Lijon Eknilang: We had different ways to quench thirst... coconut milk, pandanus, we used the big roots from the pandanus tree to get at water (March 2, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).

Wilfred Kendall:  Anyone can get water, but you must ask permission.  Rainwater is more reserved for family (March 2, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).

Fish:  Fish is central to the Marshallese diet.  There are 66 entries in the Marshallese-English dictionary that depict the wide range of fishing methods available to take advantage of different weather variables, times of the day, or to catch specific species of fish.  Fish was caught with long line (mueo), net (ok), and fish traps (baskets of different sizes).  Lobsters were snared.  Rainbow runners and dolphins were hunted with lines, lassoed and beached.  The Rongelapese consider themselves masters at fishing and pride themselves in their knowledge about where and how to fish.  The Rongelapese men sailed throughout their three-atoll system to exploit different fishing areas.  On Rongerik, one of the three ocean beaches was set aside for women to fish, usually with nets (according to Lijon Eknilang, March 3, 1999).  The entire community helped chase migratory schools of fish on to the reefs, and into shallow storage ponds.  Fish was used to sustain the people and pay tribute to the alap and iroij, but the Rongelapese also used fish bones and scraps to fertilize their land.  
John Anjain:  We got food from all of the islands on Rongelap.  There was lots of fish and lobster on Buroku Island.  It was a place to get our meats (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Boney Boaz:  On Rongelap, Karuwe and Boarok islands in the north were the best places to fish (March 17, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Birds:  Many of the interviewees discussed the importance of birds and bird eggs to their diet.  In fact, the people on Ailinginae were busy collecting birds and bird eggs when they experienced the fallout from the Bravo test.  Bokankaer, Enebarbar, Enealo, and Eniaitok islands were particularly known for having many birds including ak (frigate), kalo (brown booby), kear (tern), and pejwak (brown noddy).  The interviewees were able to identify favorite locations for nesting birds and describe techniques for capturing them:
Lijon Eknilang: We would break the wings of birds when they were young so they wouldn’t fly away. (This enables people to go back and get them when they are older).  Not all the young have their wings broken.  We also collected the eggs of birds to eat.  Birds were found on certain islands.  Some types of birds were best to catch at nighttime (March 2, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).  

On Rongerik, people used to collect the eggs from many birds, including the oo, ak, kalo, ker, and pijowa.  Jipedbao Island on Rongerik was known for its’ birds.
Mitjua Jankwin:  On Ailinginae there were plenty of oo birds to eat.  We used to fill buckets with oo (March 10, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Rongelap).

Turtle:  All five of the world’s sea turtle species nest in the Marshall Islands, and turtles were found all over Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae.  There are no seasons for turtles.  Again, the interviewees know the best locations to find turtles.  Bock Island on Rongerik is particularly well known for turtles.
George Anjain:  Turtles used to lay eggs everywhere on the atolls, even on populated islands (March 3, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).

Nerja Joseph:  Rongerik is known as the atoll of birds and turtles (March 8, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Majuro).

Mitjua Jankwin:  Turtles used to lay their eggs on Rongelap.  There were turtles on all the side islands (March 10, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Rongelap).

Emos Jilej:  Rongelap was always known for its bounty of food.  It was number two in turtle after Kwajalein.  There were turtles on all the small islands (March 10, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Rongelap).

Clam:  Giant clams and other clams species found in the reef are important sources of food.  Clams shells were also used as tools (dekenin) to soften the fibers woven for mats, and giant clams were used to collect and store rainwater.  Women and children often gather smaller clams found along the shoreline.  Men would collect the larger clams found in deeper waters.
Lijon Eknilang:  On Rongelap, there were always lots of clams on the reef where my grandmother lived, near the church (March 10, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Rongelap).

John Anjain:  Ailinginae was known for its clams and birds.  We would ask for permission to make trips to gather them (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Crab:  Coconut crabs are considered a delicacy to Marshallese.  Islands such as Arbar Island on Rongelap Atoll had crabs everywhere, and the Rongelapese ate coconut crabs on a consistent basis.  Smaller crabs that live in the rocks and coconut husks by the shore were also consumed.  

Lobster and octopus:  
John Anjain:  The reefs on all three atolls were full of lobsters and octopus.  Anyone could go to the reefs and collect them because the reef food belonged to everyone (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Pumpkin:  Pumpkin was available on all three of the atolls.
Lijon Eknilang: There was pumpkin all the time, it has no season (March19, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Kwajalein Island).

Kajim Abija:  When people traveled from Ailinginae to Rongelap at Christmas time, they would always bring pumpkin (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Coconuts:  Coconuts provided not only food to the Rongelapese, but materials important to survival.  As the Marshallese advisory committee noted, there are 1,000 different products come from the coconut tree.  The Marshallese depend on the coconut tree for food, drink, building, toys, and money made from selling the dried coconut meat.  The Rongelapese traded dried coconut meat, or copra, for cash or needed supplies from the ships that stopped in Rongelap every three to six months.  
Johnsay Riklon:  While the United States might look at a coconut tree and see the value of the copra, we see medicine, toys for our kids, food, weaving materials, sails and canoes.  Nothing is wasted.  One coconut tree, similarly to a pandanus or breadfruit tree, can almost support a family with all of its needs (February 28, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Barbara Rose Johnston, and Stuart Kirsch, Majuro).

Pandanus, breadfruit, arrowroot:  Pandanus, breadfruit and arrowroot are other staple food sources.  Breadfruit is a staple food that can be prepared in a variety of ways.  Arrowroot was so abundant that the Rongelapese used it to make flour from it.  Pandanus and breadfruit are seasonal foods, arrowroot is not.  The Rongelapese distributed these foods as gifts to their relatives and their iroij, who in turn, shared them with people throughout the Marshall Islands.  The Rongelapese often gave gifts of staple foods, and later received gifts of other cultivated foods or supplies.  When the supply ships sailed to Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae, the people bought flour, sugar, rice and other foods, but the preservation techniques the Rongelapese used to prepare pandanus, breadfruit and arrowroot ensured that the people did not go hungry if the supply ships did not arrive. 

Pandanus is important for making certain types of food for the iroij, such as jaankun, but also to make baby food.  People eat the fruit raw or boil it and use the softened meat for baby food, baked goods, or candy.  People also depend on the leaves of the pandanus trees to weave sleeping mats.  The roots of pandanus trees also served as storage areas for water in times of extreme drought.  As a water substitute, people would steam pandanus tree roots in a fire until the water comes out.  

Medicine:  Non-edible plants are used for windbreak, tools, spices, but particularly for medicine.  Some medicines are passed down in a family, some require higher, more rare knowledge that exists with a few people.  Some parts of the plant may be more powerful, some times of the year the plant may be deadly, some means for ingestion may cure, and others may harm or even kill.  

Knowledge about medicine is considered powerful.  People use virtually every indigenous species of plant for medicinal purposes: 
Lijon Eknilang:  Everything that grows is medicinal.  Even grass is used for kids, and as reproductive medicines.  But, Marshallese medicines are never to be used on menstruating women.  When the people lived on Rongelap, Rongelap used to be a place for making medicine (March 3, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).

The interviewees felt that Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae were very good areas for acquiring medicine.  Although Marshallese medicine is free, healers benefit from the power and prestige that their knowledge accords them and from the food and other expressions of appreciation from their patients.  Ri-bubu, usually men, are particularly strong healers.  

Transmitting environmental knowledge through legends or bwebwenatos:  It is clear from the interviewees that legends and story telling are important means to transmit knowledge about the environment that is essential to survival.  For example, local stories instruct listeners about the best location to catch eels, find important resources, and how to navigate the islands:
Mwenadrik Kebenli:  On the ocean side of Rongerik when you look out at the ocean, it looks like there are men out there fishing and they are looking for eels.  The rocks are shaped like that (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

John Anjain:  An old man, Jelan, saw akwolej bird digging into the ground.  When he went to see what it was, he found water (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).  

Kajim Abija and Lijon Eknilang:  In order to find Rongelap, sailors would follow the North Star, Limanman.  Limanman is included on the Rongelap Local Government’s seal to help people find the atoll (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).
 
John Anjain:  Eniaitok, an island known for its birds, is shaped like a bird.  There is a story of a boy, Leok, who threw a rock at the bird, Jebtaka, and knocked it to the ground.  The north and south sides of the island are the wings, and the central part of the island, Jibiken, is the tail of the bird.  The large stone in the reef on the northern part of the island is the stone used to knock the bird down (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Knowledge about dangers in the environment saved the Rongelapese from potential hazards or threats to their lives. This knowledge is critical to the well being of the community.  Children were taught about the species of fish and plants that were dangerous to consume or touch.  The adults on Rongelap also taught children the locations with many sharks: 
Shirley Kabinmeto:  As children, we didn’t go swimming at the end of the island where I lived, Jabwaan, because Jabwaan is full of sharks.  Jabwaan is at the end of the island, near a deep pass where the sharks enter the lagoon from the ocean side (March 10, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Rongelap).

Navigation:  Navigational knowledge is transmitted in the ancient chants, or roro, that instruct sailors about the hazards of the reefs and how to navigate their islands.  Locally based knowledge about navigation is crucial to the survival of the Marshallese.  People can not live solely from the resources of one island and depend on navigation to maintain their social and political relationships and to gain access to the full range of natural resources necessary for survival.  The Marshallese are legendary, even among Pacific Islanders, as being the best navigators (Krieger 1943).  

The Rongelapese relied on their navigational ability to access the small islands on Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae.  This is particularly true for Ailinginae (aelon in ae = atoll in the current), which is known as one of the most difficult currents to navigate.  The people who went to Ailinginae were expert sailors and navigators.  
Boney Boaz:  I know how to sail an outrigger canoe.  I’ve sailed to every single island on Rongelap, which is about thirty miles across... On Rongelap, we grew up learning sailing and navigation (March 17, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).  

Natural resources and social relations:  Natural resources provided the essentials for biological well being such as food, shelter, and water.  During the collection of ethnographic data, one interviewee explained the importance of land in terms of self-sufficiency and how the land and the resources provide for people:
Dorothy Amos:  The importance of land?  We eat from it.  We drink from it.  We make handicrafts from it.  We can make foods and things to drink from it.  We make enra, Marshallese plates for our one-year birthday celebrations.  We also make copra that people can sell.  We prepare the fronds from the coconut tree for sitting on and making fires.  We also make brooms for the houses.  And pandanus, the ancestors made clothes from the coconut and pandanus.  Women use the pandanus leaves to make sleeping mats, things to lie on…  And many kinds of food.  There is pandanus time, and breadfruit.  Wonderful food.  Boats--outriggers.  We make Marshallese tin by weaving coconut fronds.  Coconut husks to make ropes.  They don’t cost anything.  Today they are really expensive (March 18, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Ethnographic interviews also provided numerous examples of natural resources providing the essentials for social well being.  First-year birthdays (kemem), marriages and funerals, and iroij visits are important occasions for the community members to meet as a group, to celebrate, and to socialize.  At one year, the child has a much greater chance of surviving, and therefore, is recognized as part of the community.  Gifts and food are exchanged to celebrate the well being of the child: 
Mike Kabua:  It is important to have materials to weave mats for funerals, as well as important occasions like iroij visits, the first year birthday party (kemem), weddings and Christmas.  It is also essential to share food with everyone on these occasions as the gifts and the food make people feel closer together as a community (March 3, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).

During funerals:
Mike Kabua:  During funerals, people come together and revisit and learn their family connections and place in society.  People give gifts to burial areas.  Community members place white rocks around gravesites as a symbol of purity.  People come together at the eoreak to forgive each other...  a time to forget hatreds and to forgive any misdeeds of the departed.  People know where the burial areas are.  They also know where the sea burials took place (March 3, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).

During iroij visits:
Lijon Eknilang:  Certain flowers are used for the iroij during visits, such as the kano (fern).  People always put the flowers on a necklace so they don’t touch the head of the iroij (March 3, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro). 

Mike Kabua:  Food is prepared in advance of the visit.  Fish comes from the coral heads designated for the iroij.  Certain types of foods are given to the iroij, such as turtle, coconut crabs, preserved breadfruit and pandanus, arrowroot, dolphins and certain species of fish.  The only type of coconut the iroij can drink is the nibarbar.  Food is placed in a large, woven basket or kilek that only the alap can bring to the iroij.  The iroij collects food as he goes from island to island (kejinbwij) (March 3, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro). 

8.  Flexible Patterns of Resource Use – Sustainable Living on Atoll Ecosystems
A major factor that provided the Rongelapese with a flexible, fluid means of gathering resources necessary for survival is full access to a range of cultivation options from numerous small islands of three atolls.  The Rongelapese accessed the plants, terrestrial animals, birds, marine and reef life from Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae.  This range of options enabled the Rongelapese to live sustainably with their environment by ensuring that they did not deplete available resources in any single area.  Multiple resource gathering options also enabled the Rongelapese to adjust to seasonal and climatic variations.

In order to protect their resource base, sustainable resource use was an important aspect of food gathering on Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae.  For example:
George Anjain and Lijon Eknilang: ...the Rongelapese know to only fish for two days in one spot and then move.  With the coconut crab, we didn’t used to take the females and we didn’t take too many from one place.  We never took small crabs or pregnant crabs.  As for the turtles and birds, we never took all their eggs.  We didn’t break the wings of all the older birds, either, because we wanted to leave some older birds to lay more eggs.  These principles are also true for trees and plants because if you don’t clean them and take care of the dead flowers or fruits, the trees and plants get sick and don’t grow well (March 3, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro). 

Sustainable gathering techniques were also used with the oo birds:  
Mitjua Jankwin:  We broke their wings when they were young.  We ate the younger birds so the adult birds could make more birds.  We only ate them during the birthing season (March 10, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Rongelap).

It was critical for the Rongelapese to be familiar with techniques for preserving and storing food because of the limited seasons of their primary food sources, in particular, staple crops such as breadfruit, pandanus and arrowroot, but also water: 
Lijon Eknilang:  Breadfruit appears in the rok season from July through December.  Pandanus and arrowroot appear in the anonaen season from December through July.  People got together to harvest arrowroot, breadfruit and other foods to preserve them.  We salted, dried and grated pandanus for preservation.  Jekaka is dried pandanus that is grated like a powder or flour so it can last for years (March 3, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).

Timako Klonij:  Young girls like me learned to make janwin (preserved pandanus) and other foods from pandanus (March 18, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Lijon Eknilang:  Rainwater was carefully collected and stored.  People placed basins (emok) at the bottoms of coconut trees to catch runoff rainwater.  These basins were usually made of clamshells or carved wood (March 3, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro). 

Because food and water are critical to life, but limited on a coral atoll, the sharing of resources is essential to survival.  The Rongelapese worked together to harvest and prepare food, and shared water and food resources with their families and neighbors.  For example, the interviewees discussed how they would come together and work during breadfruit season, from July through December, to make preserved breadfruit for ceremonies, family consumption, and to send to distant family members and iroij.  Other resources were shared, too:
Wilfred Kendall:  Because of its central importance, water was shared perhaps more than any other resource.  It was understood that if you have a good well, people can come and ask to use it, or just take it (March 2, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).
 
Mitjua Jankwin:  On Monluel weto, there was a big fence with chickens in it.  The birds belonged to the family, but people would ask for them.  When there were many birds, sometimes they would hand out a bird to each family (March 10, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Rongelap).

Due to the seasonality of important resources, droughts, and the intense labor required to secure food, people periodically face times of famine and drought with severely limited resources.  Because the Rongelapese could depend on the small islands of three atolls and ocean resources, they had multiple areas they could gather resources from.  Multiple access sites and the their knowledge about their resources allowed the Rongelapese to survive times of famine and drought relatively well:
Kajim Abija:  There was always pandanus and coconuts.  During the times of hunger, we were not really hungry because there was so much of the pandanus (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Boney Boaz: We used to eat coconut in times of hunger.  If I could have eaten those foods, like [restricted coconut] crab, during the famines, I wouldn’t have been so hungry (March 17, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Timako Kolnij:  We relied on sprouted coconut and things from the ocean-- large clams, crab, small clams, fish-- they were adequate in the times of hunger.  We ate mature coconut and drank the drinking coconuts... As a water substitute, people would suck on the coconut husk or the roots of the plant to get the liquid out.  We also drank the young coconuts, or ni (March 18, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

The interviewees are knowledgeable about the best times, places, and techniques to catch various species of fish.  During certain times of the year, there are runs of particular species of fish: 
Lijon Eknilang:  In January and February, the mackerel (mwilmwil) run.  In November and December the grouper fish (lojepjep) run (March 19, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Kwajalein Island).

When the fish were running, the Rongelapese would work together as a group to catch as many of the fish as possible and to smoke them and preserve them so they could eat them for many months and send them to the iroij and family members in distant places.  

9.  Taboos and Resource Management
Customary rules and traditions are an essential component of the Marshallese psyche.  Rules that restrict behavior (termed, here, as taboos) were traditionally defined and imposed by internal actors in ways that established and regulated social, political, and economic relationships. Traditional taboos made sense.  The taboo and the rationale for a taboo were often embedded in stories, legends, and sayings.  Some taboos support the three tier social structure by demonstrating respect to the iroij.  For example, it is taboo to touch the head of an iroij, to stand or sit above or higher than the iroij, or to pass between the iroij’s house and the lagoon.  Other taboos are for health and safety reasons.  For instance, it is taboo to have sexual relations for several months after a woman gives birth, or for women to climb coconut or other trees.  And, some fish are taboo during different seasons (and if eaten when taboo, will result in fish poisoning).  Still other taboos enable people living together on very small parcels of land to cooperate and live together peacefully.  It is inappropriate, for instance, to express anger or grievance directly with someone.  Instead, the use of a third party to relay information and mitigate the disagreement is encouraged.  

Some taboos reinforce the roles of women and men in society: 
Lijon Eknilang:  It is taboo for women to be on the beach when some fish show up... On Rongerik island there are three sides, one which is reserved for women to swim, fish-- a place that is taboo for men (March 3, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).

Many taboos restrict free access, but establish permissive use.  Use of critical resources such as drinking water, wild plants, crabs, seashells, and fishing off coral heads is generally unrestricted for family members, and accessible with permission by others.  
Mike Kabua:  I guess that's why we respect each other.  Someday you will need something from your neighbor (March 2, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting Majuro).

Many taboos regulate resource access and use.  A number of the islands set aside for iroij are migratory bird nesting sites:
Wilfred Kendall:  There are areas we know that are set aside specifically and you don’t clear the land.  Animals need food from plants.  These islands are set aside to leave as they are.  The knowledge (of these areas) is handed down through the generations (March 2, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).

Mike Kabua: “Kinbit” is the word for the rules and regulations about when you collect coconut crab... Only the largest males are collected, no females.  Nowadays I see people eating female coconut crab because they don’t know how to tell.  I say “you know you’re eating female coconut crab?” They say “how do you know?” I turn it over and show them.... and they say “oohhh!” (July 18, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Majuro).

Taboos established the rules on what you can, and cannot use, and why.  Some foods and locations were taboo for all but the iroij, some taboo for all but the alap, and some foods for all but the ri-jerbal.  Many of these taboos helped shape seasonality, protecting plants and animals during vulnerable periods and allowing use without over exploitation.

10.  Concluding Discussion
The traditional way of life in Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae Atolls involved social, cultural, and economic activities, values, and meanings that supported a vibrant, marine-based, self-sufficient and sustainable way of life.  Inherited access and use rights, and the associated stewardship responsibilities, included atoll islands, reefs, lagoon, and the myriad of resources within.  The natural resources of Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae provided the daily and long-term needs of the household and the community.  Food, shelter, transportation, tools, and toys were all derived from locally accessible materials.  According to informants, and the records kept by Rongelap Magistrate John Anjain, in the years immediately preceding the United States Nuclear Weapons Testing Program relatively few provisions were purchased-- kerosene, tin roofing, lamps, cigarettes, matches, thread and needles, sugar, rice, and flour-- and the lack of these items did not severely impact household health.  These were supplementary provisions acquired by the Rongelapese by trading or selling copra and handicrafts with ships that passed by their islands.  Men processed and sold copra (Tobin 1958, Mason 1988).  Women used handicrafts to exchange for goods, and Rongelap was the first area to establish a woman’s group:
Lijon Eknilang:  We had a coop used to do all kinds of work, such as making copra, pumpkin, and limes.  The name of this group was “White Rose” named after something rare and beautiful (March 10, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Rongelap). 

In addition to providing for the day-to-day economy of the household and community, natural resources provided the Rongelapese the means to create and sustain social relationships.  Resources were exchanged for other resources, for labor, or to mark important cultural occasions.  The rights and responsibilities associated with these resources both reflect and reinforce the basic rules of society.  As will be further illustrated in later chapters of this report, environmental contamination from nuclear weapons testing not only damaged the health and viability of the natural resources and those who relied upon them, but also denied the Rongelapese the means to produce and reproduce their self sufficient lifestyle.  The social, cultural, economic, political, and psychological consequences of this damage and loss are complex and profound:
Lijon Eknilang:  When we move from Rongelap, it’s like we are using somebody else’s bedroom and one of these days these people will come and ask for their room back...  (March 2, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).

Mike Kabua:  Land speaks for everything out here in the islands... (without land) you lose your respect for your elders, community leaders.  Customs mean respect.  Without land you don’t have any fear of punishment...  Authority comes from land, respect for the elders comes from land (March 3, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).

Lijon Eknilang:  People who were born outside of Rongelap have little sense of belonging.  Their sense of identity is through their parents, not from having lived there (on Rongelap), not from experience... (March 2, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).

In their review of compensation claims for the people of Bikini and Enewetak the Nuclear Claims Tribunal has awarded compensation for loss of land based on valuation of land derived from a record of leases in Majuro, Kwajalein, and other atolls.  Such valuations reflect one aspect of economic value—the value of temporal occupation of dry acreage.  They do not reflect or address the damages associated with the loss of the wider realm of arboreal and marine resources that sustain the Marshallese way of life.  The data contained in this review demonstrates the need to consider and address:
1)	Natural resource damage and loss of lagoon, reef heads, clam beds, reef fisheries, turtle and bird nesting grounds.
2)	Cultural resource damage and loss of access to family cemeteries, burial sites of iroij, sacred sites and sanctuaries, and morjinkot land.
3)	The consequential damages to this and future generations produced by the loss of access to and ability to use a healthy ecosystem.
4)	Consequential damages include problems resulting from the inability to interact in a healthy land and seascape in ways that allow the transmission of knowledge and the ability to sustain a healthy way of life.

PART FOUR:
SUMMARY OF DAMAGES, NEEDS, COMPENSATION CONCERNS
1.	Claims by the People of Rongelap for Hardship and Related Consequential Damage and Injuries of the Nuclear Weapons Testing Program
2.	Consequences of these Events and Injuries
3.	Compensation Concerns
4.	Research Needs
5.	Ideas for Remedial Action

1.  Claims by the People of Rongelap for Hardship and Related Consequential Damages of the Nuclear Weapons Testing Program

Evidence in Part Two and Three of this report support the following findings:

•	The people of Rongelap experienced involuntary displacement from Rongelap and Ailinginae Atolls when physically removed from their atolls (March – May 1946; 1954-1957).  They lost access to a viable healthy ecosystem (thus, displaced from their ability and rights to safely live in their environment) when returned to their atolls (1957-1985).  They became exiles (1985-present) when finally informed of the life-threatening contamination levels in their homeland.

•	Families were deprived of their right to live and use lands on Rongerik Atoll.   Rongerik Atoll was taken for United States Naval use following World War II and used as a weather and fallout tracking station during the Nuclear Testing Program (1946-1958).  The United States Navy, without permission or compensation, used Rongerik as a resettlement site for the Bikinians (1946-1948).  And, in 1957 when the Rongelap community was resettled on Rongelap and Ailinginae, all access and subsistence use of Rongerik Atoll was prohibited by the United States due to severe contamination from nuclear weapons fallout.  

•	Exposure concerns involve much more than the exposure to radiation and fallout from a singular testing event in 1954. Exposure concerns involve the persistent presences of contamination from 67 atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands.  This contamination includes radioactive elements released through nuclear explosions, as well as tracer chemicals, such as arsenic, used to “fingerprint” the fallout from each weapon.  The people of Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae were not only exposed to external radiation and other toxic substances from fallout, but more significantly, from internal ingestion:  breathing dust and smoke from household and garden fires, drinking water, consuming terrestrial and marine food sources, living in houses and using the material culture fashioned from contaminated materials.  

•	“Exposed” people of Rongelap include those living on Rongelap and Ailinginae in 1954 who were exposed to Bravo and other test fallout; those who were resettled in 1957; those who were born on the contaminated atoll; those who were exposed to materials and food originating from Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae atolls; and, the descendents of people exposed to radioactive contaminants.  Given the synergistic, cumulative and genetic effects of long-term exposure to radioactive isotopes and other environmental contamination from military testing, exposure is of concern to this and future generations.  

•	The people of Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae, with other Marshallese, served as unwitting subjects in a series of experiments designed to take advantage of the research opportunities accompanying exposure of a distinct human population to radiation.  Human subject research involving the Marshallese was initially funded by the AEC in 1951 in an effort to document “spontaneous mutation rates” to better estimate the genetic effects of radiation produced through the Nuclear Weapons Testing Program.  Research on the human effects of radiation was intensively conducted beginning in March 1954, with efforts to document the physiological symptoms of American servicemen and Marshallese natives exposed to fallout from the Bravo test.  Initial findings from this and other biological research projects helped shaped the goals and approach to an integrated long-term study on the human and environmental effects of nuclear weapons fallout that began in 1954 and continued through 1997. 

•	The people of Rongelap believe, and the documentary record confirms, that the United States were aware of the extraordinary levels of fallout of Bravo and subsequent tests and continuing levels of radioactivity, were aware of contamination in the marine as well as terrestrial ecosystem, were aware of the bioaccumulative nature of contamination, noted radiation-induced changes in vegetative and marine life that islanders relied upon for food, monitored the increased radiation burdens of the resettled people returned to Rongelap in 1957, and documented the human health consequences of this systematic and cumulative exposure.  Medical exams, especially in the 1950s-early 1970s, were surveys meant to document bioaccumulation processes and the physiological symptoms related to radiation exposure, rather than clinical efforts to treat the various health conditions of the people of Rongelap.  Periodic “Medical Surveys” also subjected the people of Rongelap to various procedures that produced biological samples in support of a wide range of experiments, many of which had little or no connection to the individual health and treatment needs of the people of Rongelap.  Various human subject experimentation also occurred during medical treatment trips to research laboratories based in the United States and Guam.  Ethnographic and documentary evidence demonstrates that these human subject experiences were painful, abusive, and traumatic.

•	In addition to biophysical injuries, exposure to the environmental hazards generated by the United States Nuclear Testing Program (and related biomedical research) resulted in stigmatization and other psychosocial injuries that adversely affected individuals, the community, and the nation.  Nuclear testing introduced new taboos where certain lands and certain foods were off limits, where marriage to certain people involved new social stigmas, where birthing presented new fears and health risks, and where family life often involved the psychological, social and economic burden of caring for the chronically ill and disabled.  The failure of the United States Government to provide the Rongelap people with accurate information concerning environmental hazards and risks, coupled with contradictory pronouncements on what is and is not safe, created taboos that were incomprehensible, yet dominated living conditions after the onset of testing in the Marshall Islands. This transformation in the loci of control over “taboos” from a Marshallese cultural realm to a United States scientific realm undermined rules and the customary power structures that shaped, interpreted, and reproduced strategies for living in the Marshall Islands.  The fear of nuclear contamination and the personal health and intergenerational effects from exposure, color all aspects of social, cultural, economic, and psychological wellbeing.  This imposed stigmatization adversely affects the economy, society, family, and individual health and well being of the people of Rongelap, Ailinginae, and Rongerik, and to varying degrees, the entire nation.  

•	After leaving Rongelap and Ailinginae Atolls in 1985, the Rongelap community faced severe hardships as they struggled to rebuild some semblance of community in Mejatto, Majuro, Ebeye, and other locations.  Involuntary resettlement placed hundreds of people on small bits of rented land, creating extremely dense, unsanitary, and impoverished communities.  The Rongelap community represents some 8% of the total Marshall Islands population, and while an estimated 48% of the nation is able to support household needs through agricultural production, the Rongelap community is alienated from land and the traditional resources needed to survive.  This loss of access affects diet, health, and household economy.  

•	Extremely dense residential patterns created by communities of exiles living on rented land has created or exacerbated terrestrial and marine pollution.  The extreme impoverished condition of the Rongelap community has intensified local resource use, and the ecosystemic viability of “host” island environs has been degraded.  Restricted access to critical resources inhibits the ability to teach younger generations the means to sustain a self-sufficient way of life.  Loss of access to customary lands further inhibits efforts to transmit key information across the generations, knowledge that is essential to the survival of the community if they are ever to return to customary lands.  These social, cultural, economic, and environmental problems of “urbanization” are linked to the loss of lands, involuntary displacement, and are consequential damages from nuclear testing. 

•	Nuclear testing destroyed the means to sustain a self-sufficient way of life for the people of Rongelap.  Customary uses of Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae atolls encompassed a rich range of social, cultural, economic activities, values, and meanings that allowed a vibrant, marine-based, self-sufficient and sustainable way of life.  Current and customary laws, traditions, and subsistence production patterns involve an inherited system of rights to both terrestrial and marine resources.  The consequential damage and injuries of contamination from the Nuclear Weapons Test Program affects both terrestrial and marine ecosystems, including the natural and cultural resources that sustain life.  Damage assessments and compensatory actions need to include consideration of lagoon, reef heads, clam beds, reef fisheries, turtle and bird nesting grounds, as well as those resources important for sustaining the social and cultural aspects of life including family cemeteries, burial sites of iroij, sacred sites and sanctuaries, and morjinkot land. Because sustainable subsistence production requires access to multiple locations to survive without overusing the resource base, clean up and resettlement of the main island of Rongelap Atoll is not sustainable without restoration of all of Rongelap's islands and Rongerik and Ailinginae atolls.  Compensatory actions should reflect a commitment to replace, restore, or create new means to sustain a self-sufficient way of life.  

•	Nuclear testing created environmental hazards, health problems, hardships and other consequential damages that will persist for decades to come.  Compensatory actions should incorporate principles of nuclear stewardship and provide sufficient funds, facilities, expertise, and training to allow the people of the Marshall Islands the means and ability to conduct their own intergenerational epidemiological surveys, environmental risk assessments, develop culturally appropriate environmental risk management strategies (including monitoring contamination levels and decay rates and remediating terrestrial and marine ecosystems), and provide intergenerational medical care.  

2.  Consequences of these events and injuries
Stigmatization and other psychosocial injuries:  Exposure to the environmental hazards introduced by the United States Nuclear Testing Program resulted in stigmatization and other psychosocial injuries that adversely affected the local economy, the community, and the nation.  Customary rules and traditions are an essential component of the Marshallese psyche.  Rules that restrict behavior (termed, here, as taboos) were traditionally defined and imposed by internal actors in ways that established and regulated social, political, and economic relationships.  Traditional taboos made sense.  Nuclear testing introduced new taboos where certain lands and certain foods were off limits, where marriage to certain people involved new social stigmas, where birthing presented new fears and health risks, and where family life often involved the psychological, social and economic burden of caring for the chronically ill and disabled.  The knowledge of and control over what is and is not taboo resided in the hands of United States scientists and the agencies that sponsored and controlled their research.  The failure of the United States Government to provide the Rongelap people with adequate and accurate information concerning environmental hazards and risks, coupled with contradictory pronouncements on what is and is not safe, created taboos that were incomprehensible, yet dominated all facets of society and way of life.  This transformation in the loci of control over “taboos” from a Marshallese to United States/scientific realm undermined rules and the customary power structures that shaped, interpreted, and insured the community’s ability to care for itself. Furthermore, the fear of nuclear contamination and the personal health and intergenerational effects from exposure color all aspects of social, culture, economic, and psychological well being.  This imposed stigmatization adversely affects the economy, society, family, and the individual health and well being of the people of Rongelap, Ailinginae, and Rongerik, and to varying degrees, the nation as well.  National economic development options and market response is intrinsically linked to its nuclear history and the accompanying stigmatization of radioactive contamination.

The psychological impacts of the United States Nuclear Weapons Testing Program are severe.  These impacts are not based on unjustified, unsubstantiated fears, but result from decades of mismanagement of the radiation crisis by the United States Government.  Prior to the testing, Rongelapese survival depended on their knowledge and understanding of the local environment.  The Rongelapese knew when, where, and how to cultivate the resources necessary for survival.  With the introduction of a hazardous, invisible threat to their environment and health, the Rongelapese feared the radiation they could not see or taste when they ingested it.  In this sense, radiation has become the new “taboo” for the Rongelapese.  The Rongelapese are forbidden to eat their traditional foods, such as the coconut crab, because of an intangible hazard.  Their own lands have also become taboo as they are off limits because of radiation contamination.  As a result, all members of the community experience a cultural agony from the dispossession and removal from land, the culturally important places, and the subsequent disintegration of community identity. 

The United States Government’s mismanagement of the Rongelapese radiation crisis exacerbates people’s fears about radiation.  The United States Government prematurely resettled the people on an island declared “safe” by the United States Government.  As a result of the premature resettlement, the health of the Rongelapese was compromised.  The United States Government monitored increased radiation body-burdens in the Rongelapese and failed to inform them about their risks to environmental exposure.   

The United States Government also created conflicting directives for the resettled Rongelapese.  For example, the people were told they could eat coconut crab, then they were told they could not.  Finally, the Rongelapese believe the United States Government is unwilling to take responsibility for their exposure because they will not discuss safety in terms of absolute safety.  Instead of telling the Rongelapese definitively whether they are putting themselves at risk, United States Government scientists discuss the issue in terms of calculated risks in which a few people could be affected, but each person has to make up their mind whether they are willing to take that risk or not.  The United States Government’s wrongful resettlement of the people, the failure to disclose increased environmental exposure risk, and the refusal to talk about safety in definitive terms increases the stresses and psychological burdens of radiation exposure for the Rongelapese people.

The Rongelapese have a first-hand understanding of the effects of radiation on human health and the environment.  Their experiences differ from the scientific effects of radiation that the United States Government imposes on the Rongelapese.  For example, the scientific community failed to reach a decisive conclusion about the effects of radiation on the second generation.  The Rongelapese have experienced changes in reproduction among women and changes in the health of their offspring since the testing program.  These changes remain underreported, however, as cultural barriers exist which prevent women from reporting or registering their experiences with either United States or Marshallese health authorities.  The United States Government’s unwillingness to acknowledge the effects of radiation that the Rongelapese attribute to the testing program undermines the Rongelapese people’s trust in the United States Government’s willingness to reconcile all the consequences of the testing program.

The ethnographic data collected for this project reveals the anxiety of the Rongelapese about the insidious, invisible radiation threat that has taken them from good health to illness, from their homelands to exile, and from trust to skepticism:
Nerja Joseph:  I won’t go back.  The radiation won’t go away (March 8, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Majuro).

Dorothy Amos:  We were afraid of the powder and the explosions.  We were afraid they would drop powder again (March 18, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Psychologically, you stop believing in everything around you.  Your feeling of safety no longer exists when the radiation-contaminated medicine and food around you is no good, restricted, and makes you worry (Advisory Committee meeting, March 3, 1999, Majuro).

Household economic injuries:  As noted earlier, on Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae, the Rongelapese had sufficient resources to provide for the majority of their needs.  Some provisions, such as kerosene, tin roofing, lamps, cigarettes, matches, sugar, rice, and flour were purchased.  The Rongelapese would acquire these provisions by selling their natural resources with ships that would pass by their islands.  The Rongelapese men sold copra, a major source of income to the outer atolls in the RMI throughout this century.  Women generated an income from the sale of handicrafts or foodstuffs that they made as individuals or as part of a Rongelapese cooperative, the White Rose.  Natural resources have value to the Rongelapese as items of exchange between families and neighbors. Resources are exchanged for other resources, for labor, or to mark important cultural occasions.  Today, the Rongelapese live on small segments of other people’s land, typically in dense clusters of shacks built from scavenged pieces of plywood, tin and other materials.  The houses have relatively little surrounding vegetation.  The few resources that may be present (coconut, breadfruit, papaya or pandanus trees) belong to the landowner and not people who live there.  Environmental contamination has robbed the Rongelapese of their customary access to natural resources used to sustain households, communities, exchange for other goods, or generate an income.  

Community injuries:  Leaving Rongelap Island has had profound implications on the Rongelapese community.  Fragmentation, for example, has made it difficult for the Rongelapese to remain unified as a community.  Because people reside in different locations, and because the younger generation grows up in a lifestyle radically different than their parents and grandparents, community unity is a greater challenge to the local leadership.  As the former City Manager for the Rongelap Local Government observed, “I am a City Manager with no city” because there is no capital city for the Rongelapese people in their Diaspora. 

While the fragmented communities still have many common interests, such as housing, health concerns, and the future of their land, the local leadership has to work harder to establish communication and a common plan of action to reach their objectives.  In comparison, the Rongelapese community worked together constantly to ensure the survival and well being of all community members on Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae atolls.  

In addition to the problems caused by fragmentation, relocation from Rongelap has undermined cultural authority and respect for elders as people don’t listen to their elders when they no longer fear the reproach of being kicked off their lands.  Lacking land and resources, the people experience great difficulty generating tribute to offer to their iroij.  Dispersed communities and expensive transportation costs mean that the iroij, alaps and ri-jerbal have few opportunities to meet as a group.  Birth, marriage, and death -- the cycles of life in a community-- are events no longer tied to the land and are celebrated without overt reaffirmation of land rights and respect for those who confirm land rights.  Landholders and elders are experiencing an erosion of their ability to hold the community together, and an erosion of their own social power since their authority is tied to use of the land and resources.  The interviewees are clear about how displacement affects a sense of community:
Johnsay Riklon:  The community is scattered and splintered with no base.  There are many different categories of Rongelapese now-- those who have lived there, those who have not, teenagers, etc. (February 28, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Barbara Rose Johnston, and Stuart Kirsch, Majuro).

Wilfred Kendall:  Consider the role of individuals in a society defined by the environment.  There are three tiers of rights.  These rights are reciprocal.  Alap and ri-jerbal roles are specific.  Community life comes from the land.  The movement of people from their land changes all of this:  people are no longer connected to the land, or anything.  When people are not on their land with its social ranks they cannot perform what is expected of them.  This makes them feel insecure.  Land is a privilege and it tells you who you are in the community...  The role of the alap and iroij are specific in nature.  Moving away really messes up things.  Going to new land, new areas, you don’t know what land belongs to whom. There is no iroij system there  (March 2, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).

John Anjain:  Sometimes today, there are problems determining who the alap is.  There are more problems nowadays because there are more people, money is of greater importance, and because people marry with outsiders and mix the blood.  When you marry Rongelap to Rongelap, it is in the best interest of the community to keep the conflicts down.  Being moved off the land accelerates marriage to outsiders and reduces the power of landowners.  It’s easier for family to push you out, especially when your mother is from outside (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Displacement makes the Rongelapese marry non-Rongelapese.  This attenuates the land and power a family is able to secure by marrying cross cousins and other Rongelapese.  Menonak-- people who marry and go away with their spouse--also weakens the community.

Political impacts:  The RMI national government has a constitutional responsibility to provide for the needs of the people and the protection of their environment.  According to Section 5 of the RMI Constitution:
No land right or other private property may be taken unless a law authorizes such taking; and any such taking must be by the Government of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, for public use and in accord with all safeguards provided by law… [And,] where any land rights are taken, just compensation shall include reasonably equivalent land rights for all interest holders or the means to obtain the subsistence and benefits that such land rights provide.

Despite these protections of rights by the RMI Constitution, the RMI Government is forced to reconcile the United States Government’s taking of private property from the Rongelapese.  The RMI Government lacks the human, financial and institutional resources to provide the housing, food, water, and other needs that the Rongelapese used to provide for themselves on Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae.  The RMI national government does not have three spare atolls to provide the equivalent of the land the Rongelapese lost, nor the resources to enable the Rongelapese to live self-sufficiently.  Rongelapese dislocation causes a drain on national resources as the RMI Government must allocate resources to provide for the needs of the Rongelapese who did not receive just compensation from the United States Government and are dislocated in the urban areas and Mejatto. 

The displacement of the Rongelapese from Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae also affects the political composition of the national government.  Political representation in the nation’s parliament, the Nitijela, is conditioned on physical occupation of the land.  Each occupied atoll or large island has the right to elect one senator, no matter how small the atoll population might be.  If there are no people residing on an atoll, there is no political representation for that area in the Nitijela.  According to the former Senator representing Rongelap Atoll, the nuclear testing disrupted politics on the three atolls by reducing three atoll communities to just one:
Johnsay Riklon:  Ailinginae and Rongerik are large atolls, but they are treated like small islands by the United States. People should have been returned to these atolls and there should be three senators representing the three areas, not one.  In this regard, the testing affected the political make-up of the country…
Now, people talk about Rongelap as if it is just one place, Rongelap Island.  But, it was the fallout and testing brought people from Ailinginae and Rongerik to Rongelap.  Actually, there should be political representation from all three areas since there are people with land rights in those different places (February 28, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Barbara Rose Johnston, and Stuart Kirsch, Majuro).

Rongerik Atoll lacks representation because the Rongelapese were denied the right to return to their land following WWII because the United States Navy wanted to use that atoll as a weather and fallout tracking station, and for a two year period (1946-1948) to accommodate the displaced Bikinians:  
John Anjain:  We moved from Rongerik during the war to stay together on Rongelap.  We didn’t use it after the war because the Navy used Rongerik.  People lived with their relatives on Rongelap, but the land rights were different than on Rongerik (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Majuro).

Ailinginae Atoll lacks representation because in 1957 the United States Government confined resettlement to a single island in Rongelap Atoll, and declared Ailinginae as off limits for permanent occupancy.

Stewardship concerns:  On the single island of Rongelap, as wells on the single islands of Mejatto, Majuro and Ebeye where the Rongelapese currently reside, the Rongelapese are unable to practice principles of responsible stewardship, nor are they able to transmit their knowledge of sustainable access and use to the younger generations.  Notions of stewardship involve care of the land and limited use of resources in multiple marine and terrestrial locations.  The inability of the Rongelapese to adhere to principles of stewardship while confined to Rongelap Island during their resettlement, and currently while living on Mejatto, Ebeye, and Majuro, means that the Rongelapese are contributing to the degradation of the land they use.  

While the Rongelapese are off their atolls, there is no one to maintain the land and protect the resources and property inheritance of future generations.  The Rongelapese express concern about people who sail to their atolls and pillage their resources while they are dislocated and residing in other locations:
George Anjain:  When land is evacuated, people can’t protect their resources.  Fishing boats and other boats steal the clams and other resources.  The local government is unable to protect its resources.  Foreign fishing and other vessels come and pillage the natural resources, such as the giant clams and turtles. Because there are no people living on the land, there is no one to protect the land (March 15, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Countless generations of future Rongelapese will inherit property contaminated by radiation.  Unfortunately for the Rongelapese, the more time people are off the atolls, the more difficult it is for people to exercise their land rights and ensure that the land is passed on to future generations.  Rongelapese who grow up away from Rongerik, Ailinginae and Rongelap lack the knowledge about essential cultivation areas and dangers that are important to survival if they return to the land.  Part of the difficulty of passing land on to future generations is because some of the books of information about the lands and wetos were burned or destroyed. 
People couldn’t take all of their possessions with them [when they were evacuated].  This leads to disputes.  People used to work by consensus.  (Advisory Committee meeting, March 3, 1999, Majuro).  

Loss of way of life:  Most informants emphasized that what has been lost is the means to sustain a way of life.  Contamination forced the Rongelapese to abandon their three atolls, and the Rongelapese must rent or stay on other people’s land.  While the Rongelapese have places to live they do not have just compensation for the United States Government’s taking or rental of their atolls:  they have-not received from the United States Government the means to rent other people’s land.  They do not have access to the natural resources they need as the “means to obtain subsistence and benefits” necessary to survive (RMI Constitution, 5.5).  

3. Compensation Concerns
...any Marshallese citizens who are removed as a result of test activities will be reestablished in their original habitat in such a way that no financial loss would be involved. United Nations Trusteeship Council, 1954.

In the course of our interviews one of the most common questions informants asked of us was the question of how can you possibly place a monetary value on land, or compensate for many lifetimes of suffering?  How can any amount of money ever compensate for the pain and loss experienced by those who lived through the testing... by those who endured years of living in a contaminated setting... by those unwitting test subjects in a series of radiation exposure experiments... by those who struggle to retain identity and sustain family needs while enduring the socioeconomic hardships of life on Ebeye, Mejatto, Majuro, and other places of exile?  Land represents a perpetual resource -- something that sustains this and future generations.  How can a sum of money be equivalent? 

For the Rongelapese what has been lost is the means to sustain a self-sufficient way of life.  Towards this end, we asked our informants to think beyond individual complaints and monetary awards and imagine broader forms of compensatory action.  What actions might help the Rongelap people and the nation reclaim a healthy, viable way of life?  What kind of research is needed?  What actions might help the displaced community regain its sense of integrity?  Identity?  Self-sufficiency?  These questions prompted a wide range of ideas and concerns over how to proceed, in the event that some compensation is granted. Compensation concerns, research needs, and ideas for remedial action are summarized below. 

Land compensation concerns:  Many of the responses focused on issues around compensation to those current owners of weto rights.  Informants explained that customary traditions and current practices involve a fluid, rather than fixed system of rights to wetos.  Weto rights are inherited, with women usually investing a male member of her family with the power to manage use rights.  To claim the right to use a weto, one must know its boundaries and history.  The power to recognize and validate that claim rests in the hands of customary authorities (alabs and iroij).  Changes in family structures and changes in customary power structures (with, for example the death of a mother, alap, or iroij) produces a new distribution of use rights.  Monetary compensation for denied use or damage to land based on use rights for a fixed point in time imposes a system of individual property rights.  

Under customary practice:
[T]he Marshallese system of land tenure provides for all eventualities and takes care of the needs of all of the members of the Marshallese society.  It is, in effect, its social security.  Under normal conditions no one need go hungry for lack of land from which to draw food. There are no poor houses or old people’s homes in the Marshall Islands. The system provides for all members of the Marshallese society, each of whom is born into land rights (Tobin 1958:1).  

Monetary compensation to a primary landholder for loss of use over a fixed amount of time undermines a very complex Marshallese land tenure system.  By imposing a simple compensation scheme that does not account for the multiple loss of use rights over time, this approach fails to recognize that “land in the Marshall Islands is placed in many categories, each with its own descriptive name and rules of inheritance.  The Marshallese system of land tenure had developed to meet the needs of this particular group of people and is the dominant factor in the cultural configuration.  Any radical change by outsiders would disturb the society and could do irreparable damage” (Tobin 1958:2).  This fixed, western notion of compensation threatens traditional, fluid systems of “reciprocal rights and obligations of all classes within the framework of the society” (Tobin 1958:4) and the rights of future generations.

In addition to failing to recognize the full range of rights use, fixed compensation approaches create vulnerabilities that vary according to gender, class and age and exacerbate the displacement problems of the Rongelapese.  Many informants observed that the increased incidence of lease payments to individuals (and other forms of payment to individuals, including compensation) do not result in the same patterns of distribution that customary payments in food products allowed.  Monetary payments are typically transactions between individuals and much less transparent than the public presentation of tributes and redistribution of goods that occurs in customary settings.  Many informants expressed the need for compensatory and remediative actions that reflect community and intergenerational rights and needs. 

Alienation of land rarely occurs in the Marshall Islands because it is the lifeline for the lineage and the basis of Marshallese culture and survival.  As explained to project researchers in March 1999 by a member of the land value advisory committee:   
Mike Kabua:  It is extremely rare for people to alienate their land.  Traditionally, this only occurred when the iroij gave land as a gift or when it was won through war.  Alienating land is so rare that there is no word for lease or borrowing land in Marshallese because that was never done.  Land was never leased to another Marshallese because land is so precious (March 2, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).

If compensation payment is awarded to individual owners of weto rights whose lands were irreparably damaged or lost, and money is exchanged for land, the land system will change in ways that cannot be predicted.

When people are forced to leave their land, the iroij lose their authority over the people who manage and work their land.  The people lack access to the resources that they are expected to provide to the iroij.  Since the iroij distributes the resources between all people, the loss of resources from the Rongelapese reduces the iroij’s ability to distribute goods to the alap and ri-jerbal on atolls other than Rongelap, Ailinginae and Rongerik.  This reduces the iroij’s power and means that the people get less assistance:
Mike Kabua:  Without people occupying the land, there is no iroij.  The word iroij means many people and comes from the words “er woj.”  What’s the point of being an iroij without any land?
When the bomb exploded, the culture was also gone, too.  It is impossible for people to act in their proper roles.  Our social roles are something you use everyday, 24 hours a day:  You have to use it everyday or you lose it. (March 2, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro).

Traditionally, the care provided by the iroij was rewarded by work and gifts from the people under the iroij.  Because the Rongelapese are unable to cultivate the land where they are currently displaced, they have no means to provide for their iroij.  Lacking land and the means to produce customary tributes, the Rongelap community now issues $5,000 quarterly payments to the iroij of Rongelap as a tribute.  The Rongelap local government also pays $3,000 per quarter to the Mejatto alap.  Compensatory damages need to be structured in ways that respect the reciprocal exchanges, obligations, and responsibilities of each--and between each-- of the three tiers of Marshallese society.

Youth concerns:  The Rongelapese have expressed deep concern about the fate of Rongelap’s youth whom, unlike the elders, have not had the same breadth of experience with or connection to their property on the outer islands.  Furthermore, Rongelapese adults worry about the fate of their youth that will be unable to exercise or understand their full range of property rights in the future:
Johnsay Riklon:  Kids from Rongelap that live in Majuro are not involved in the Rongelap community.  There aren’t many community activities for them to get involved in.  I don’t think they feel Rongelapese.  They don’t know their relatives.  Their friends are kids from other atoll communities.  I doubt kids will want to go back to Rongelap.  It will be a big adaptation from Coca-Cola to coconuts.  Youth are not involved much in voting or other activities (February 28, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Barbara Rose Johnston, and Stuart Kirsch, Majuro).

George Anjain:  When you leave home, there is no role for the kids.  They used to work and contribute, but not anymore (March 2, 1999, Advisory Committee meeting, Majuro). 

Kajim Abija:  My kids are Rongelapese but they are from Kwajalein (March 16, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Ebeye).

Jerkan Jenwor:  When I was a youth on Rongelap, I started to fish when I was about 8 years old.  I knew how to make copra and do all kinds of work.  8 to 12 years of age are important learning years (March 17, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Majuro).

Rongelapese youth also have concerns.  Informants voiced worries about decisions the elderly might make regarding future resettlement of Rongelap.  The youth fear that the elders haven’t had as much education as the youth and they might not have the ability to make the right decision about resettlement.  Rongelapese youth also worry about the range of opportunities available to them in the urban and displaced areas:
Ken Kedi:  Rongelapese youth can’t climb trees, but they are familiar with Coca-Cola.  Youth used to keep busy and fit doing work in their environment, such as making copra.  They can’t do that in the urban areas, however, and they are unfit as a result.  (March 1, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Barbara Rose Johnston, and Stuart Kirsch, Majuro).

Compensatory strategies for damages to the people and environment of Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae should acknowledge the rights and needs of Rongelap youth and future generations to survive from their property and resources.  Youth also need sports equipment, education, and opportunities to learn about the unique history and survival techniques of their elders and ancestors.

Needs of the Elderly:  The older community members from Rongelap suffer greatly from the testing program.  They were exposed to near lethal amounts of radioactive fallout, they suffer from a range of health problems, they get ping-ponged between medical programs without adequate attention, they watch friends and children die, they were relocated many times, they are displaced from their land, they are anxious about death away from their homeland and proper burial ground, they are unable to obtain their basic needs, and they worry about the future of their children and the community.  Furthermore, the elders lack the traditional respect they receive on their own land because of their ownership of property and knowledge about survival, and younger Rongelapese lack the monetary resources to adequately provide for the elderly the way they did on Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae.  As a result, the elderly Rongelapese are sick, often hungry, and dependent on others to provide them with their needs.  Their knowledge about survival and the importance of the land rights they pass are attenuated in their displacement.  The elderly are concerned that if they die, no one will pass on the information to the youth about their property and about their experiences during the testing.  
James Matayoshi:  The elders mostly want to return to Rongelap because they know no other way of life (March 1, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Barbara Rose Johnston, and Stuart Kirsch, Majuro).

Compensation for Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae must include ways for the elderly to provide for themselves to compensate for the ways in that loss of land and critical resources impinges on family ability to provide traditional care for elderly.  Some informants suggested that rather than providing outside assistance to support the individual needs of the elderly, compensation schemes should support families in ways that allow them to fulfill their obligations to the elderly.  

3d.  Compensation issues of women:  Land is passed down matrilineally in the Marshall Islands.  Because the Rongelapese do not live on their land, the authority that women possess as inheritors in the land is attenuated since the Rongelapese are unable to use their contaminated property.  Displacement also means that the Rongelapese women have lost their ability to make handicrafts and household supplies on Ebeye and Majuro because of lack of access to the materials they need.  As a result, Rongelapese women do not have the same ability to generate an income that they did on their own property:
Timako Kolnij:  On Rongelap, young girls like me learned to make preserved pandanus and food from pandanus.  We cooked it in the underground oven.  We also made sitting mats, sleeping mats, and baskets.  Our grandmothers taught us.  We prepared shells for handicrafts. We got the pandanus leaves ready for the women.  We got the pandanus leaves from the middle of the island.  We didn’t ask if we could cut the pandanus.  We all lived together from the resources.  I also prepared a lot of ripe breadfruit (March 18, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Majuro).

Compensation schemes must be careful not to place monetary compensation for a fixed period of time solely in the hands of the Marshallese men who manage the land for the women who carry the rights to the land.  It is important to recognize and not undermine the power and position in society that women retain as a result of their land stewardship.  Furthermore, compensation for the loss of use of Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae should include means for women to participate in the economy.  Training and education will be required to help Rongelapese find new ways to contribute to family incomes.

Compensation issues of men:  The Rongelapese men are proud of their fishing, sailing and navigation skills that they cultivated on Rongelap, Ailinginae and Rongerik.  On their homelands, Rongelapese had a range of fishing and food gathering techniques that ensured their ability to provide food for their families, as is expected of Marshallese men.  In the areas where the Rongelapese now live, the ability to survive depends largely on the ability to generate a cash income.  Rongelapese believe they lack the educational and professional background required to obtain wage-earning jobs.  The interviewees believe that suicide has increased dramatically among young Marshallese men, and that the increased levels of suicide are due to a perceived loss of worth of Rongelapese men.
Ken Kedi:  We have lost our knowledge, our ability, our moral standing and self-esteem in the community.  What we were taught is no longer practical.  To be a good fisherman, you have to know where to fish on an island.  A lot has been lost, not just our land (March 1, 1999, Holly M. Barker, Barbara Rose Johnston, and Stuart Kirsch, Majuro).

It is really hard for the men to practice fishing skills they know so well (Advisory Committee meeting, March 2, 1999, Majuro).

Compensation schemes should consider the long-term ability and qualifications of Rongelapese men to provide for their families.  If the Rongelapese cannot reinhabit their atolls because of lingering contamination, compensation should consider the training and employment needs of Rongelapese men.

4.  Research Needs
Research Principles:  Despite the fact that the Rongelapese express anger and resentment about being the subject of numerous research experiments, the Rongelapese recognize that investigations still must be made into areas that are not understood.  Informants provided a number of suggestions for future research, and these are summarized below as guiding principles and specific recommendations.  
1.	Research conducted in the Marshall Islands should be conducted in ways that assist the Marshallese in one area or another.  
2.	The goal of research on living subjects should be to improve the quality of life for that person.  
3.	All research should be conducted in a transparent manner with community participation in every aspect of the research and reporting.  
4.	Epidemiological investigation and health care should be provided for the full range of radiation related problems that the Rongelapese feel they are experiencing-- not just the illnesses that outsiders want to consider-- including reproductive abnormalities, second and third generation problems.
5.	Medical research and health care should be based on the wide range of individual experiences rather than efforts to establish generalizations based on “control” groups in relation to “exposed” experiences.  
6.	All research must be translated into Marshallese.  Results of research and copies of research results must be discussed with and turned over to the community.

Research questions:  Some of the specific research questions that the Rongelapese want to see addressed include:
•	Is it really safe to return to Rongelap?
•	If some areas are so contaminated that people can’t live there, can they be safely used for short periods time?
•	If some foods are too contaminated for subsistence use, such as the coconut crab, can they still use them for special occasions? 
•	Many species of fish that did not cause fish poisoning before the nuclear tests became poisonous after the tests.  Is there a correlation between fish poisoning (from ciguatera or other sources) and nuclear testing?  
•	Is it safe to consume reef fish, shellfish, and other marine resources from the northern islands?
•	Is it safe to drink water from wells, or water stored in catchments or cisterns made from local materials? 
•	If lagoon sediments are so heavily contaminated with plutonium, is it safe to swim and bathe in lagoon waters? 
•	Are there times when women (because of menstruation, childbirth, vaginal infections, and other reproductive tract changes) increase their vulnerability by swimming and bathing in plutonium-contaminated lagoon waters or squatting close to contaminated soil? 
•	Can “hot spots” and contaminants be monitored to let us know where it is safe? 
•	Environmental surveys to date have sampled for the presence of a few radioisotopes.  A holistic approach to environmental contaminants in soil, water, and vegetation is lacking.  Where are all the environmentally hazardous sites?  In addition to “hotspots” from radioactive fallout and bioaccumulation, where are the sites where Naval ships were decontaminated and scuttled, and sites where toxics such as PCP’s were disposed?  Tracer chemicals include a range of persistent radioactive isotopes and other toxins, like arsenic-- are there current and future environmental risks from exposure to persistent tracer chemicals?  Are their any other environmental hazards associated with United States military use in the northern islands?
•	Is it safe for women to get pregnant and raise children in the northern islands?  What are the mutagenic effects of long-term systemic exposure? 
•	Is it safe for people who were acutely exposed in the past to return to a setting where they will receive constant low-level exposure?  Do assurances of safety consider the effects of contaminants on individuals whose health has already been compromised by long-term cumulative exposures?  Do current protection standards protect people who were previously exposed?  
•	Does exposure to radionuclides contribute in some way to increased susceptibility to other ailments (synergistic effects)?
•	How can we reduce risks by modifying behavior?  How do different factors such as eating habits, exposure from cooking-fire smoke inhalation, and different work activities increase or reduce risk to radionuclides and other environmental contaminants?  Are there different exposure pathways and risks for women, men, children, youth, and the elderly? Are there ways to reduce inter-generational risks?  What behavioral changes are needed to reduce risks? 
•	How does radiation affect the overall health of families (not just individuals)?

5.  Ideas for Remedial Action
Community Healthcare Needs:  Suggestions for improving community health include:
•	Medical centers for all of the Rongelap community, not just the small number of people eligible to participate in the health programs defined in the Compact of Free Association.  
•	A women's health education and outreach program with mobile clinics staffed by Marshallese women trained to give ob/gyn exams, treat infections, and do breast and reproductive tract cancer screening procedures.
•	Counseling services to assist the Rongelap community with domestic problems, depression, and substance abuse.
•	Establishment of cancer and thyroid registries for the Rongelap community to better understand disease incidence levels and to allow the Marshallese scientific and health community the means to generate reliable statistics on the health consequences of the nuclear testing program.

Social and Cultural Health:  Community health should also reflect the social and cultural health of the community.  Suggestions in this area include:
•	Building a Rongelap community center to provide a central meeting place for those scattered throughout the Marshall Islands, and for those who live in the immediate area.  The Rongelapese envision a large building constructed with local materials.  Construction of the building would be part of the educational process of the center.  Once erected, the structure will serve as a focal point for the older Rongelapese to meet with the younger generation to teach them about their history, their land rights, and the traditional knowledge and skills necessary for survival.  Rongelapese elders could instruct the youth in fishing techniques, boat building, weaving, food cultivation, cooking, navigation, chants, dancing and so forth.  Food prepared by the center could be distributed to the disabled and elderly Rongelapese in the community.  Some members of the community would look after small children so more adults could participate in the community’s activities.  Lighting for evening classes would enable the center to operate in the evenings when it is cooler and people are not working.  Solar power and computer terminals would enable the center to communicate with Rongelapese community members scattered throughout the RMI and the United States.  The center could collaborate with the larger community, local schools, and the College of the Marshall Islands in various education and outreach programs.  

•	Job training:  When the Rongelapese lived on their own lands, they had the skills and knowledge to provide for their families.  In their displacement, Rongelapese do not have the educational background or the job skills necessary to obtain the wage earning jobs they need to support themselves.  Special job training programs should be made available for the Rongelapese to prepare them for employment in the sectors of the RMI’s economy that are growing, such as fisheries and aquaculture, tourism, and construction.  Job training should capitalize on customary knowledge, techniques, methods and materials.

•	National Treasures:  Similar to the designation of important historic locations as historic trusts, the Rongelapese people who are recognized masters in their command of history, customary knowledge, or traditional skills should be designated National Treasures.  Master navigators, builders, dancers and singers, fishers, weavers, healers, and so forth would be honored with a title and lifetime salary, and bestowed with the responsibility of passing on their knowledge to the younger generation in meaningful ways, such as instruction in the local schools and community center and sharing their pictures, stories, records, and skills with the community.

•	Oral history project:  The number of Rongelapese who were alive during the United States Nuclear Weapons Testing Program is dwindling rapidly because of illness and age.  It is imperative to document the experiences and history of the community that resides with the survivors of the Bravo test and those who understand the history of the community.  The oral histories of all of the Rongelapese alive during the testing program should be collected and archived. Ideally, Rongelapese youth should be trained in oral history collection techniques so they can be active participants in gathering information and learning their history from their elders.  These oral histories should be video taped, transcribed, and translated.  Effort should be made to capture the memories and experiences in situ - with stories and testimony documented on Rongelap, Ailinginae and Rongerik.  This will enable the community to preserve important source material about its history and their homeland.  The oral histories will educate subsequent generations of Rongelapese as well as the larger public about the experiences of the Rongelapese.

•	Higher education:  Scholarships should be set aside for Rongelapese students to pursue collegiate and graduate studies in subjects that are important to the health and well being of the community, including it’s economic future.  Scholarships should support training in radiation science, medicine, marine biology, toxicology and environmental health, natural resource management, tourism, education and other academic and trade priorities defined by the community.

•	Museum:  A museum should be erected on Rongelap or another location that documents and displays the Rongelapese people’s history and experiences with the United States Nuclear Weapons Testing Program.  The Rongelapese who remember the events surrounding the Bravo test could give tours of the museum to patrons.  The museum would educate younger Rongelapese and the Marshallese public.  Furthermore, the museum would attract international visitors and provide economic assistance to the community, particularly if the community decides to return to Rongelap.

Community Infrastructure
•	Safe Food:  Rongelap informants were especially concerned about food safety.  Because of concern about residual radiation and lack of space, some Rongelap informants suggested building a community greenhouse using hydroponics to grow fruits and vegetables in a safe environment.  A greenhouse would provide nutritious foods to the Rongelap community.  Operation of the greenhouse would also provide educational and employment opportunities for the community.  An alternative agricultural research facility might look at adopting other techniques for use in the Marshall Islands.  For example, lagoons might serve as a viable location for building floating gardens, and allow the production of food for land-scarce communities such as Ebeye.  

•	Realistic transportation:  Transportation is a major problem that impedes the ability of the Rongelapese community to come together and function as a community.  Some informants suggested supplying all islands with free bicycles for general transportation use.  Bicycles would provide a means of exercise and transportation to schools, the community center, jobs, and homes on the islands where community members reside.  Inter-island ferries or boats are also needed to move resources and people between islands, especially to and from Mejatto.  Seaplanes or helicopters are needed to provide transportation for medical and other emergencies on the islands with no facilities.

•	Information Access and Communication:  Like transportation, communication is a major problem, especially when the community lives in such widely separated spaces.  Community integrity would be significantly enhanced with the means to regularly communicate.  Some informants suggested the need for nation-wide access to computers, modems, satellite hook ups, and independent power sources (such as wind generators or solar power battery packs).  Computers could be made available at public school sites, community centers, or other public settings on all residential islands. 

Environmental Concerns
•	Environmental concerns voiced by informants included the inability to maintain a stewardship presence on their land; the inability to protect fish, clams, birds, turtles and other valuable resources from outside exploitation (especially foreign fishermen stripping unmonitored resources); the difficulty of restoring Rongerik’s devastated ecosystem; the inability to utilize the plants, water, or marine resources due to contamination; and, the biodegenerative conditions of valued resources.  
•	Recommendations included a developing a comprehensive plan for environmental assessment, monitoring, remediation and restoration;
•	Implementing this plan in ways that develop Marshallese capacity to effectively address the natural resource management needs of Rongelap, Rongerik, and Ailinginae; 
•	Integrating natural resource restoration and management work with economic development strategies such as scientific and ecotourism.

PART FIVE:
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
1.   Violations of Trustee Relationships 
2.   Statements of Culpability
3.   Reparations 
4.   Relevant Case Precedents
5.   Recommendations for Categories of Concern in this Claim
6.   Concluding Remarks

1.  Violations of Trustee Relationships    
The United States exerted territorial authority over the Marshall Islands by establishing a military presence in the Marshall Islands during World War II.  Their presence and authority significantly increased with the onset of the Nuclear Weapons Testing Program in 1946.  In 1947 the United Nations formally recognized this territorial relationship, designating the Marshall Islands as a trust territory of the United States.  

International trusteeships, established by United Nations Charter, were meant to “promote the political, economic, social, and educational advancement of the inhabitants of the trust territories, and their progressive development towards self government or independence.”  Trustee relationships between the State and domestic dependent nations have been acknowledged and confirmed in constitutions, treaties, and enabling legislation.  Trust relationships represent an enforceable legal acknowledgement by the State that it has taken what once belonged to trustees (native, indigenous, aboriginal) peoples and now agrees to protect what they retain.  Trust relationships involve a fiduciary relationship, where the State is legally bound to “act for the benefit of the other while subordinating one’s personal interest.”

In addition to the rights and responsibilities outlined in Trusteeship Agreements, inhabitants of Trust Territories are “protected peoples” whose status and conditions are protected by rights outlined in United Nations covenants, including those outlined in the Geneva Conventions of 1949 (defining medical experiments on protected persons as a grave breach and crime against humanity); and the1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (identifying medical experiments as war crimes, whether they occur in an international or internal context).  The 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines this crime as: “Subjecting persons who are in the power of an adverse party to the physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are neither justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the person concerned nor carried out in his interest, and which cause death to or seriously endanger the health of such person or persons.”

Under United States law, inhabitants of a trust can sue to enforce their treaty rights.  There are literally thousands of examples of this type of suit filed by Native American tribes seeking remedy for damages from violations of treaty rights.  Similarly, the International Court of Justice has ruled that inhabitants of an international trusteeship can sue for violations of substantive rights and duties established in Trusteeship Agreements.

This report includes documentation of various violations of trusteeship responsibilities occurred as a result of the United States Nuclear Testing Program: 
•	Atmospheric testing in the Marshall Islands (1946-1958) demonstrated military might, but also inflicted nuclear war conditions on a fragile atoll ecosystem and a vulnerable population.  
•	Devastation and contamination was documented from the onset of testing, and despite requests from the Marshallese in 1954 to cease using their atolls as a “proving grounds” nuclear weapons tests continued, producing additional fallout on Rongelap and other populated atolls.  
•	Nuclear weapons testing destroyed the physical means to sustain and reproduce a self-sufficient way of life for peoples living in the northern atolls, and produced great hardships for the nation as a whole.  
•	Radioactive contamination and involuntary relocation radically altered health, subsistence strategies, sociopolitical organization, and community integrity.  
•	Human subject research included the willful return of an exposed population to a known hazardous setting for the purpose of documenting the long-term and cumulative effects of continual exposures to nuclear weapons fallout.  
•	Human subject research experiments violated legal and ethical responsibilities of medical research and informed consent.  
•	Human subject research activities included experiments conducted without meaningful consent for purposes that had no direct benefit to individuals.
•	Human subject research experiments included multiple incidents of additional exposures to radioactive materials producing pain and suffering, and by increasing the cumulative dose, further endangered the health of the human subjects.  
•	Responding to the medical needs of an exposed population by an intensive research program, rather than a holistic health treatment program, produced otherwise avoidable incidents of pain and suffering.

2.  Statements of Culpability 
In addition to the careful documentation of damage and injury contained in the recently declassified medical surveys and lab reports cited in Section 2 of this report, culpability for radiation-related injuries has been publicly acknowledged in United States statements to the United Nations, and in treaties and agreements between the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the United States Government.  

On April 20, 1954, a petition was submitted to the United Nations Trusteeship Council on behalf of the Marshallese citizens of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.  In this petition, the Marshallese people cite their concerns about the United States Nuclear Weapons Testing Program, concerns that included damage to health and the long-term implications of being removed from their land: 
...  We, the Marshallese people feel that we must follow the dictates of our consciences to bring forth this urgent plea to the United Nations, which has pledged itself to safeguard the life, liberty and the general well being of the people of the Trust Territory, of which the Marshallese people are a part.
...  The Marshallese people are not only fearful of the danger to their persons from these deadly weapons in case of another miscalculation, but they are also very concerned for the increasing number of people who are being removed from their land.
...  Land means a great deal to the Marshallese.  It means more than just a place where you can plant your food crops and build your houses; or a place where you can bury your dead.  It is the very life of the people.  Take away their land and their spirits go also...  (Petition from the Marshallese People Concerning the Pacific Islands: Complaint regarding explosion of lethal weapons within our home islands, 1954)

The United Nations Trusteeship Council response to the Marshallese petition noted “The Administering Authority adds that any Marshallese citizens who are removed as a result of test activities will be reestablished in their original habitat in such a way that no financial loss would be involved.”  United Nations Trusteeship Council:T/PET.10/28).
  
In response to this petition and the resulting international inquiry at the United Nations, the United States assured the Marshallese and the nations of the world that: 
The fact that anyone was injured by recent nuclear tests in the Pacific has caused the American people genuine and deep regret… The United States Government considers the resulting petition of the Marshall Islanders to be both reasonable and helpful… The Trusteeship Agreement of 1947 which covers the Marshall Islands was predicated upon the fact that the United Nations clearly approved these islands as a strategic area in which atomic tests had already been held.  Hence, from the onset, it was clear that the right to close areas for security reasons anticipated closing them for atomic tests, and the United Nations was so notified; such tests were conducted in 1948, 1951, 1952 as well as in 1954… The question is whether the United States authorities in charge have exercised due precaution in looking after the safety and welfare of the Islanders involved. That is the essence of their petition and it is entirely justified. In reply, it can be categorically stated that no stone will be left unturned to safeguard the present and future well-being of the Islanders.  (Mears, UN Press Release #1932:1954).

And, in a related press release statement issued by the United States Mission to the United Nations: “Guarantees are given the Marshallese for fair and just compensation for losses of all sorts…” (Midkiff, UN Press Release #1932:1954).

Statements of United States culpability are also found in the 1983 Compact of Free Association (approved by United States Congress in 1986).  In Section 177 of the Compact of Free Association, it states that:
The Government of the United States accepts the responsibility for compensation owing to the citizens of the Marshall Islands, or the Federated States of Micronesia (or Palau) for loss or damage to property and person of the citizens of the Marshall Islands, or the Federated States of Micronesia, resulting from the nuclear testing program which the Government of the United States conducted in the Northern Marshall Islands between June 30, 1946 and August 18, 1958. 

Section 177 of the Agreement outlines United States responsibility for the consequences of the Nuclear Weapons Testing Program and provides $150 million to the Republic of the Marshall Islands to create a trust fund for addressing the past, present, and future claims arising from the testing program.  Included in the Compact is a “changed circumstance” clause that allows the RMI to petition Congress to provide additional funding and assistance.  Criteria include if the RMI can (1) demonstrate the existence the existence of new and additional information about the effects of the testing program; (2) demonstrate that this new information was not known during the negotiations of the Compact; and, (3) based on this new information, show that U.S. compensation provided in the Compact is manifestly inadequate.

The United States has also publicly acknowledged that human subject experimentation the involving Rongelapese were in some cases nontherapeutic and that biomedical tests in general occurred with “some tension between data gathering and patient care”… where “the 
additional strains of language and cultural differences between the Marshall Islanders and the physicians appears to have compromised the process of informing the subjects of the purposes of the tests and of obtaining their consent.”  Experiments “took place at a time (the mid-1950s) when the government rules requiring disclosure and consent in the use of radioisotopes with healthy subjects were established and public; the available documented evidence suggests that these rules were not followed  (ACHRE 1995:585).

Following the published results of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments review of documents and testimony, the Rongelap Atoll Local Government (RALGOV) asked the DOE to review their patient records and identify Rongelapese participants of the anemia experiment referred to by ACHRE, involving Cr-51 and tritiated water.  In April 1999 DOE disclosed to RALGOV their ability to identify all 21 participants who received radioisotopes in the 1963 BNL anemia studies, and “less than complete information” for the1961 and 1962 studies involving 13 Marshallese participants, including six patients used in at least two studies (see April 29, 1999 letter to Mayor James Matayoshi from Paul Seligman, Attachment A).

3.  Reparations
In the years since the initial Compact was signed, thousands of documents have been declassified demonstrating a much broader area of contamination and greater numbers of affected people than previously acknowledged.  Also, since the Compact of Free Association was first crafted, scientific research has further demonstrated a wide range of health risks associated with low-level radiation exposure, including the cumulative effects of low-level exposure over time.  This report has presented evidence drawn from new information that has come to light demonstrating a broad range of physical hardships and sociocultural, economic, political and psychosocial consequential damages experienced by individuals, the community, and the nation. This evidence suggests that United States efforts to address their breach of obligation, by providing medical treatment, environmental cleanup, and other remedial actions were not only insufficient, but these actions in a number of instances produced further harm. 

Broader levels of compensatory actions are needed to address the much greater injury to people and the environment suggested and substantiated by this new information.  One strategy for broadening the approach to compensation is to consider compensatory payments as one of a wide range of remedial actions that provide remedy, or reparations, for damages.  Reparation is defined as being action or processes that repair, make amends, or compensate for damages. In a legal sense, there are three generally recognized forms of reparation:  restitution, indemnity (or compensation), and satisfaction.  The term reparation is generally used to refer to remedial actions meant to repair a breach of obligations established in international law.   

Restitution is designed to put the offended state back in the position it would have been had the breach not occurred, and may include performance of the obligation, revocation of the offending act, or abstention of the unlawful conduct.  Restitution, with reference to this case, should include United States actions that seek to restore a healthy ecosystem and sustainable way of life, including efforts to mitigate adverse socioenvironmental impacts by reducing individual and household risk, improving degraded marine and terrestrial ecosystems, increasing awareness and involvement in risk management activities, and providing education and training opportunities that ensure Rongelapese control over the knowledge and health of their environs.  

Indemnity, also termed compensation, involves the payment of money to the offended party for any losses incurred by the illegal act, including any lost profit or value of lost property.  As it has been used within the Republic of the Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal, “compensation” refers to indemnity payments to affected peoples to compensate for bodily injuries, and the loss of assets and property.  Indemnity payments as part of reparations agreements have been used to provide individual cash awards as well as fund a variety of remedial actions, including resettlement plans, development programs, and the like. However, in many cases compensation has only been granted to those who can demonstrate (1) legal ownership and (2) individual claim with loss value calculated according to prevailing market rates as an average of registered sales prices (of land and other economic assets) in the recent past.  Thus, this form of reparation generally represents indemnity payments based on market values, rather than replacement values. 

Satisfaction includes almost every other form of reparation and is meant to address any non-material damage.  Examples of satisfaction include public acknowledgements that a wrong was committed, formal apology, and discipline of guilty individuals.  Satisfaction also may include damage awards for hardships encountered as a result of the long term and cumulative affects from the original breach of obligation. 

4.  Relevant Case Precedents
Until recently, the majority of cases involving reparations acknowledged and compensated victims of war-related atrocities, especially those surrounding the events of World War II. These cases include acknowledgement and efforts to seek some sort of remedy for injuries suffered by protected persons as unwilling subjects in medical experiments.  With the creation of post-World War II human rights treaties and the expansion of international and national human rights and environmental law, a broader range of rights has been acknowledged, abuses or violations of rights documented, and increasingly, reparations are being made to redress violations of international and domestic law committed in the name of colonial expansion and related violations of trustee relationships, economic development, and national security.  Some examples of restitution, indemnity, and satisfaction relevant to this hardship and consequential damages claim are briefly summarized below.

In 1948, the United States Congress passed the Japanese American Evaluation Claims Act which provided funds to pay claims for real and personal property losses to the 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry who were forced to abandon their property and reside in federal internment camps during World War II.  Some $38 million has been paid under this Act.  In 1988, as part of the Civil Liberties Act, the United States Congress established a $1.65 billion restitution program authorizing reparations of $20,000 for hardship and indignity experienced by some 60,000 eligible persons of Japanese ancestry who were forced to relocate to internment camps from March 1942 to January 1946. 

The 1988 Civil Liberties Act also provided some $12,000 each to 450 surviving Aleutian Islanders who were removed from their homeland by the U.S. Navy in 1942 and relocated to abandoned canneries and mines in southern Alaska for three years.  An additional $1.4 million was authorized to establish a trust fund to be used for health, education, cultural preservation, community development, and other projects meant to improve the condition of Aleut life.  Another $15 million was allocated to compensate for the loss of Attu Island used as a Coast Guard station during and after the war, and later designated as a wilderness area in 1980.

Loss of critical resources and damages to a Way of Life 
Examples of restitution, indemnity, and satisfaction for the consequential damages accompanying violations of trusteeship responsibilities are also found in Native American case law.  These cases often produce reparations awards for violations of trusteeship responsibilities that result in loss of land and other critical resources, producing significant damage to social structures, cultural institutions, and customary ways of life.  Thus, in many cases, remedial actions for “loss of a way of life” have included compensation for the loss of the means of subsistence, efforts to restore damaged human and environmental systems, as well as efforts to provide the means to develop community capacity to regain meaningful and self-sufficient ways of life.  These means can incorporate a range of actions including appropriations, trust funds, program assistance, and other forms of technical assistance. These considerations are present in the Zuni Land Claims case outlined below. 

The aboriginal territory that supported the Zuni way of life originally stretched from the Grand Canyon to the Rio Grande River in central New Mexico.  Today the Zuni control some 750 square miles of trust lands, the bulk of which are located in west central New Mexico, with a smaller non-contiguous section in east-central Arizona.  To reclaim treaty-protected lost lands, the Pueblo of Zuni filed a series of lawsuits in federal courts.  In the case filed in U.S. Claims Court on May 27, 1987 the Zuni Tribe of New Mexico claimed that their land was taken without compensation when the United States acquired the land from Mexico.  Oral histories with Zuni elders provided initial documentation of traditional land use, and this information was corroborated by scientific and historical documents.  Contested issues included whether the Zuni claim to a large area of land and resources contained within could be substantiated lacking individual title and based on a record of subsistence-oriented use, and whether damages could be awarded for injuries and loss of a sustainable a way of life.  The tribe used historic records and informant testimony to "... demonstrate how Zuni land use involved a core area of permanent and seasonal settlements, where agriculture was intensively practiced, surrounded by a larger sustaining area...with extensive grazing, hunting, and gathering of numerous plants and minerals.”   The court ruled in favor of the Zuni finding that lands were taken by the U.S. Government without adequate compensation. The ultimate finding of the court was that while the Zuni resided in specific locations "This entire claim area was used by the Zuni for one purpose or another including: habitation...and life-sustaining activities including farming, hunting, grazing, gathering, and religious worship.

The result of the Court's finding was "The Zuni Land Conservation Act of 1990" P. L.101-486.  In this Act, the Zuni and the U.S.  Department of Interior were instructed to formulate a Zuni resource plan for: 
•	a methodology for sustained development of renewable resources; 
•	a program of watershed rehabilitation; 
•	a computerized system of resource management and monitoring; 
•	programs for funding and training of Zuni Indians to fill professional positions that implement the overall plan; 
•	proposals for cooperative programs with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and other private or public agencies to provide technical assistance in carrying out the plan; and 
•	identification and acquisition of lands necessary to sustain Zuni resources development.  
Congress established a $25 million trust fund to formulate and implement the plan.  Portions of the trust are also set aside to pay outstanding debts of the Tribe, to construct a public elementary school and increase educational opportunities, and to purchase land for the community.  It was recognized that this action is essential to "the preservation of the Zuni history, culture, tradition, and religion..."

Findings in the Zuni cases reinforce earlier court rulings on Native American claims which recognized that compensation for material losses experienced by individual property owners does not adequately encompass the corporate losses experienced by a group whose way of life revolves around subsistence oriented use of natural resources.  For example, when the Southern California Soboba band of Mission Indians went to court to claim compensation for damages from lost water resources, economist Raul Fernandez used ethnographic material compiled by anthropologist Joe Jorgensen to demonstrate that impoverishment and sociocultural disintegration was linked to the building of the Colorado River aqueduct, when tribal water resources began to dry up and eventually disappear.  Compensation had been initially offered to individual landowners, and this was contested as inadequate by the tribe.  The court found that the tribe as a whole had experienced damage from the loss of “natural capital” represented by naturally occurring water resources on their reservation.   Court rulings acknowledged that compensation to individuals for the loss of water and agricultural production did not adequately compensate for broader sociocultural losses.  Thus, court rulings included mandates to restore water and restitution granted to the entire tribe to support social reconstruction of the Soboba community.

Other relevant Native American case precedents include those awards for consequential damages of actions that damage or destroy subsistence and commercial fisheries.  For example, construction of the Grand Coulee Dam in 1933 displaced an estimated 5000 people, including 1,500 Colville Indians and 100-250 Spokane Indians.  Neighboring Nez Percè, Coeur d’Alene, Warm Springs and Yakima tribes were also affected.  Displaced peoples received inadequate compensation for land and goods, and no financial support or assistance for resettlement.  Many inhabitants of submerged towns were relocated to areas lacking basic utilities such as a water source, public telephones and electricity.  Some rejected the government’s compensation offers as being too low, and the government responded by condemning their land to obtain the title.  Subsequent efforts in court to secure just compensation were not successful.  Native Americans objected to failures to live up to compensatory promises, such as the promise from Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes to the tribes that they would receive a share of hydroelectric power revenues.  Dam construction hampered inter-tribal communication, resulted in the loss of sacred sites and cemeteries, and caused a significant decline in native fish populations including five species of salmon and two species of trout. The loss of fish resulted in the loss of the tribal way of life. 

In 1951, the Colville Confederated Tribes filed suit against the United States.  The Indian Claims Commission divided the suit into two cases. Docket 181C contained claims for the loss of fisheries and the elimination of salmon run populations as a result of dam construction.  Docket 181D covered compensation for annual power share revenue from tribal land that had been promised to the tribes.  In 1978, the Commission ruled on Docket 181C that the United States government was obliged to guarantee tribal fishing rights.  The tribes were entitled to reparations for the difference between the fish they were able to catch between 1872 and 1939, and the value of what their normal subsistence catch would have been.  This reasoning produced an award of only $3,257,083, which did not include damages.  In Docket 181-D, after two federal court rulings in 1990 and 1992 (20 Ct.Cl 31; 964 F.2nd 1102), the United States and the tribe negotiated a settlement.  This was the first time the United States provided partial compensation to the tribe for the damages suffered from the dam.  The tribe received a $53 million lump sum settlement for previous years, from funds appropriated by Congress in 1944.  The act also provided that thereafter, the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) -- the hydroelectric producer that benefited from dams placed on the Columbia River -- would make annual payments to the tribe of approximately $15 million.  

Natural Resource Damages
In addition to case precedents awarding compensation for past experiences involving the loss of critical resources and related damage to a way of life, case precedents relevant to the Rongelap claim include those awarding damages for current and future conditions involving contaminated or destroyed natural resources.

Some of the relevant sources of United States law and implementing policy framing the assessment of environmental contamination and the valuation of natural resource damage include:  
•	Final Guidance For Incorporating Environmental Justice Concerns in EPA's NEPA Compliance Analyses” released by the US Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Federal Activities, April 1998;
•	Council on Environmental Quality, March 1998, Guidance for Addressing Environmental Justice under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA); 
•	Council on Environmental Quality, January 1997, Considering Cumulative Effects Under the National Environmental Policy Act; 
•	Executive Order 12898 on Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations with accompanying Memorandum, February 11, 1994;
•	The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA); 
•	The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 as amended, 42 U.S.C. 4321-4347, January 1, 1970; 
•	U.S. General Accounting Office, June 1, 1983, Siting of Hazardous Waste Landfills and Their Correlation with Racial and Economic Status of Surrounding Communities; 
•	The United States Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA).

These statutes and implementing policy define "injury" to natural resources and establish procedures for the valuation of damages on the direct and indirect costs for restoring, rehabilitating, replacing, and/or acquiring the equivalent of injured natural resources.  For example, in CERCLA (also known as SUPERFUND) the natural resources covered include land, fish, wildlife, biota, air, water, groundwater, drinking water supplies, and other government- or privately-owned resources.  Damages may also reflect the value of the services lost to the public between the time of release (polluting act) and the time the resources and services those resources provide are returned to baseline conditions (i.e., those conditions which would have existed had the release not occurred).  EPA guidelines on Environmental Justice Assessment procedures state “in considering direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts on natural resources, analysts must identify and assess the patterns and degrees to which affected communities depend on natural resources for its economic base (e.g., tourism and cash crops) as well as the cultural values that the community and/or Indian Tribe may place on a natural resource at risk.  Damages are calculated and used as supporting evidence in federal, state, tribal and civil court cases against polluting parties, with awards used to fund remediative actions (such as environmental restoration programs, individual and community compensation for lost wages and income from fishing, and so forth).  

These statutes have also been used by local and state agencies and nongovernmental agencies in their efforts to force federal agency attention and resources to address the problems relating to nuclear waste contamination.  Thus, suits filed against the United States Department of Energy resulted in the current DOE effort to develop “long-term stewardship” management plans for all sites where long-lived wastes and contaminants relating to nuclear energy and weapons production and use remain in place.  As per a settlement agreement negotiated in 1999 DOE has established a $6.25 million fund to assist citizens’ groups and tribes in conducting independent technical and scientific reviews of environmental management activities at DOE sites.  Over $6 billion dollars per year is spent by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management to meet its responsibility for cleaning up the contamination, wastes, nuclear materials, and contaminated structures resulting from nuclear weapons production at over 100 sites in thirty states around the United States.  Estimates for total cleanup of these 100 sites range from $150 to 250 billion.  Despite the acknowledgements of culpability by the United States Government in creating severely contaminated radioactive sites in the Marshall Islands, no effort to date has been made to include Marshall Islands sites in the assessment, monitoring, and development of remediation plans, as is the case for all other nuclear weapons testing sites under DOE’s management.

United States environmental protection statutes and implementing policies identify strategies to determine the damage to biological and human systems, and these methods are regularly employed in a variety of lawsuits involving contamination and natural resource damage.  In the United States compensation for environmental damage has been awarded in tens of thousands of “toxic torts” cases including those dealing with oil spills; chemical contamination of soil, water, and air from oil refineries, gas stations, various manufacturing industries, and military base activities; and, mining and the downstream effects from mining.  Compensatory awards have acknowledged direct and indirect damages to natural ecosystems, loss of land and damage to land (including economic, social, and culturally valued land and property contained within), socioeconomic damages resulting from the stigmatization of contamination, and damages associated with loss of a way of life.  

Perhaps the most significant case of compensation for natural resource damage involves the1989 Exxon Valdez 11 million gallon oil spill in the Prince William Sound of Alaska, polluting some 1,000 miles of shoreline, killing tens of thousands of birds and marine mammals, and causing socioeconomic damage to local communities, fishing industries, and native peoples.  On October 9, 1991, the U.S. District Court approved a settlement between the State of Alaska, the United States government and Exxon resolving various criminal charges against Exxon as well as civil claims brought by the federal and state governments for recovery of natural resource damages resulting from the oil spill (http://www.oilspill.state.ak.us/setlment/setlment.htm).  The 1991 settlement had three distinct parts: 
1.	Criminal Plea Agreement: Exxon was fined $150 million, the largest fine ever imposed for an environmental crime.  The court forgave $125 million of that fine in recognition of Exxon’s cooperation in cleaning up the spill and paying certain private claims. Of the remaining $25 million, $12 million went to the North American Wetlands Conservation Fund and $13 million went to the national Victims of Crime Fund.   
2.	Criminal Restitution: As restitution for the injuries caused to the fish, wildlife, and lands of the spill region, Exxon agreed to pay $100 million.  This money was divided evenly between the federal and state governments.   
3.	Civil Settlement: Exxon agreed to pay $900 million with annual payments stretched over a 10-year period.  The settlement has a provision allowing the governments to make a claim for up to an additional $100 million to restore resources that suffered a substantial loss, the nature of which could not have been anticipated from data available at the time of the settlement. 

Other fines and settlement agreements brought Exxon’s total liability to $3.5 billion by 1994. In 1994 an Alaskan jury awarded $5.3 billion in punitive damages in a class action suit representing 20,000 fishermen, natives, and others harmed by the natural resource damage caused by the Exxon Valdez oil spill.  Exxon appealed the jury award in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court.  In August 1998, Exxon Corp.'s request for a new trial on the grounds of jury tampering was rejected.  Exxon appealed this ruling, and on October 2, 2000 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Exxon Valdez punitive damage award.

Stigma Damages
Stigma damage is a reduction in the value of property caused by increased risk associated with the historical presence of contamination on the property or belief that the property is contaminated.  Stigma simply makes the property less desirable to a prospective purchaser, tenant, or visitor.  Stigma is independent of the actual remediation costs to clean up the property, and remains even after the property is cleaned up to meet governmental requirements.  Stigmatized asset valuation is a common strategy used to develop compensatory awards in court cases involving environmental contamination.

For example, in a California case, Bixby Rance Co. v. Spectrol Electronics Inc., a jury awarded stigma damages to the owner of contaminated property even after the tenant at the property who was responsible for the contamination, had paid for the cleanup (Cal. Super. Ct., Los Angeles County, No. BC052566, December 1993).

In a Minnesota case damages were awarded for nuisance to proximity to landfill (Frank v. Environmental Sanitation Management Inc., 687 S.W. 2d 876, 883 (Mo. 1985).  Findings in this case established that demonstration of physical damage to the property is a precondition to the award of stigma damages.  In addition to damage awards to cover the costs to repair and restore the environment to its pre-contaminated setting, the court awarded damages to compensate for the loss in value of the property due to the stigma of contamination. 

In a recent Indiana Court determination (June 2001 decision in Terra Products, Inc. v. Kraft General Foods, Inc.) involving PCB contamination, the court ruled that where a plaintiff can demonstrate that repairs to real property do not restore the land to its former value, the plaintiff may recover both the costs of restoration and damages for any reduction of value that remains after remediation.  In this case the cost to remediate the property far exceeded the value of the property.  The court also noted that legal requirements to remediate contaminated land apply without regard to cost.  A plaintiff in Indiana now may be able to recover damages for the stigma attached to property following remediation if it can establish that the cleanup did not restore the property to its pre-contamination value.

Stigma damages have also recently been valued in relation to the storage of nuclear wastes.  When the United States Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 and the amendments to the Act of December 1987, it recognized the potentially significant socioeconomic dimensions of siting, constructing, and operating facilities for the storage and disposal of high-level radioactive wastes.  Specific provisions were written into the Act to enable prospective host states, tribes, and local governments to carefully and comprehensively assess socioeconomic impacts associated with waste disposal activities.  Studies associated with the impact analysis assessment for locating a high-level radioactive waste facility at Yucca Mountain found significant negative effects relating to loss of income from an actual or potential tourist industry.  In one recent study by the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects the repository was compared in economic terms with a representative economic initiative that could be at risk if negative impacts do occur.  A model of projected revenues associated with the Yucca Mountain repository was compared to a representative sample of the state’s tourist industry, namely the visitor/gaming industry.  Research addressed the questions of “What would be the effects on the state economy if, as a result of the repository, one large hotel/casino project were canceled or chose not to locate in Las Vegas?  What are the costs of losing such a project compared to with the jobs and revenue associated with the proposed Yucca Mountain repository?”   The analysis showed that, should the repository cause just one hotel/casino project not to locate in Nevada in the future, the immediate impacts to southern Nevada could be upwards of 14,200 jobs and almost $500 million in revenue lost to the local economy annually.  This includes jobs directly associated with the repository project and the secondary jobs generated in the wider economy.

Human Subject Experimentation
The above case summaries are a few of the precedents that support the people of Rongelap and their claims for hardships and related damages relating to involuntary resettlement, and the various damages associated with loss of land and other critical resources, and the long term impacts of environmental contamination of natural resources.  With reference to the hardships, indignities, pain and suffering associated with human subject experimentation a number of settlements in United States cases are relevant.

In a negotiated settlement announced in November 1996, the United States government agreed to pay $4.8 million to 12 plutonium experiment subjects or their descendents ($400,000 a piece).  These subjects had received an injection of plutonium in experiments where University of Rochester patients were deliberately not informed about their involvement in a medical research experiment and the contents of injections. 

In December 1997, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Quaker Oats announced a $1.85 million settlement in a class action suit representing the claims of over 100 people who as institutionalized students between the ages of 12 and 17 at the Fernald School in Waltham, Massachusetts, were given radioactive iron in their breakfast cereal once a month for three months.

On May 27, 1998 U.S. District Court Judge John Nixon gave preliminary approval to a $10 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit against Vanderbilt University brought by 829 pregnant women who unknowingly ingested radioactive iron.  The 1946 Vanderbilt University nutrition study involved 1600 pregnant women, with 829 receiving a single doe of Fe-59 during the second prenatal visit before receiving routine therapeutic iron.  On the third prenatal visit blood was drawn and a test performed to determine the percentage of iron absorbed by the mother.  The infant’s blood was also examined at birth to determine the percentage of radioiron absorbed by the fetus.  The doses were later estimated in a March 1951 American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology article by Dr. P. Hahn to be between 5 and 15 rad.  Contemporary estimates of the fetal doses by the ACHRE and others suggest that the fetal dose was a few hundred millirems.  While a 1963-1964 study by Vanderbilt researchers found no significant differences in malignancy rates between mothers in control and exposed groups, they reported a higher number of malignancies among exposed offspring with four children dying of childhood cancers, and researchers concluded a causal relationship existed between prenatal exposure to Fe-59 and cancer.

On May 5, 1999 a settlement was announced in the Cincinnati Radiation Litigation case in which defendants paid $5.4 million but admitted no wrong doing.  In this case, in the years between 1960 and 1972 cancer patients (mostly Negroes of below-average intelligence who were charity patients) were exposed to large doses of whole body radiation as part of an experiment sponsored by the U.S. military.  None of the subjects gave informed consent, they thought they were receiving treatment for their cancer.  Subjects experienced nausea and vomiting from acute radiation sickness, pain from burns on their bodies, and some died prematurely as a result of radiation exposure.

In the case of human radiation experiments on Alaskan Indians and Eskimos (1955 –1957) involving administration of one single oral dose of Iodine 131 to 102 native men, women and children, public acknowledgement by the United States Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments that a wrong was committed eventually produced a formal apology from U.S. Air Force Secretary F. Whitten Peters, who personally signed apology that letters were presented to Alaskan subjects and their families in October 2000.  An announcement of a damage award settlement of $7 million dollars accompanied public apologies (awards were made through the annual defense appropriation for 2001).  This award includes payments of $67,000 to each study participants or their descendents as compensation for perceptions of health risk associated with an oral dose of Iodine 131-- especially the anxiety and stress caused by learning of the radioactive dosage.  The North Slope Borough will also receive some $1.36 million as an award to the community.

Establishing the “Value” of Life
Awards for damages in these cases generally acknowledge the difficulties of identifying an appropriate monetary value for the pain, suffering, and hardships of a life fundamentally altered by medical research abuses.  Recently, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established the value of statistical life -- that is the monetized benefit from regulations that protect citizens from environmental risks known to produce cancers with high mortality rates.  In studies supporting newly established regulations for levels of arsenic in drinking water, EPA conducted wage-risk studies using national income data.  Assuming a 26% mortality rate for bladder cancer and an 88% mortality rate for lung cancer, the current value of statistical life used by the Environmental Protection Agency is $6.1 million per person, in 1999 dollars.  This value does not reflect any adjustments to account for national real income growth that occurred subsequent to the completion of those studies.  Were the Agency to adjust the VSL to account for this growth in real income, the VSL would be approximately $6.77 million (assuming a 1.0 income elasticity).  

The U.S. EPA arsenic regulations also establish a willingness-to-pay value for those cancer cases that do not result in mortality.  The willingness-to-pay value for avoiding a non-fatal condition was based on economic research that established a willingness to pay to avoid a case of chronic bronchitis.  EPA noted that use of this proxy might understate the true benefit if the willingness-to-pay to avoid a nonfatal cancer is greater than the willingness-to-pay to avoid a case of chronic bronchitis.  The mean value of this willingness-to-pay estimate is $607,000 per person (in 1999 dollars).  

5. Recommendations for Categories of Concern in this Claim
Some might argue that the social and cultural changes, physical injuries, and economic hardships experienced by the people of Rongelap during evacuation periods and after leaving their atolls in 1985, reflect the broader experience of modernization and development in the Pacific.  Modernization and development has swept through the entire Pacific region, and accompanying these changes has been erosion of traditional customs and relationships in the face of market economy and consumer lifestyle, dietary shifts and increased health problems associated with a western diet.  Since World War II the Pacific region has seen demographic shifts, with the population of many island nations living in densely populated urban settings. Environmental degradation, dietary changes and resulting degenerative health conditions (diabetes, hypertension) have accompanied these changes.  

However, as a direct result of the United States Nuclear Weapons Testing Program, the pace of change and the nature of change are radically different for the Rongelapese, as compared to the broader Pacific region.  The events that resulted in involuntary evacuation in 1946 and 1954 were sudden systemic assaults that forcibly evicted the community from a traditional way of life to a life forever bound to western culture, food, medicine, and technology.  The 1982 disclosure that subsistence lifestyles in Rongelap posed serious threats to the health and safety of the people of Rongelap produced an immediate fear and led to the 1985 exile of the community, against United States government wishes and without United States government assistance.  Loss of a healthy environment, loss of all access to Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae, coupled with the difficulties of life in fragmented communities on leased land further increased community reliance on western food, culture, and technology, and produced a redefined notion of what is good and bad in the world around them.  The Rongelapese adjusted to these events and conditions without the luxury of time, community integrity, and the related resources that other Pacific Island nations enjoyed in the last half of the 20th century.  Today, the Rongelapese live in fragmented communities characterized by anxiety and melancholy for what has been lost, and what, for future generations, may never again be enjoyed.  Other Pacific Islanders share some of their conditions and experiences, however the Rongelapese experience is one of extremes.  

Reparations —meaningful efforts to repair or make amends for the individual assaults and cumulative injuries experienced by individuals, the Rongelap community, and the nation over many decades—could be addressed through various actions designed to provide restitution, indemnity, and satisfaction under four general categories of concern. These general categories of concern include: 
•	The hardships, injuries and consequential damages of the loss of a healthy self-sufficient way of life,
•	Natural resource damage and related socioeconomic stigmatization, 
•	Consequential damages of human exposure to fallout from the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Testing Program,
•	Negligence, negligent misrepresentation, battery and related consequential damages of involuntary participation in human subject research.

Category of Concern #1:  Loss of a Healthy, Self-Sufficient Way of Life.  
One of the major consequences of the United States Nuclear Weapons Testing Program was the eventual loss of a healthy, self-sufficient way of life previously enjoyed by the people of Rongelap, Rongerik, and Ailinginae.  The loss of the material basis to sustain a healthy, self-sufficient way of life produced social, cultural, economic, and political hardships and injuries. Damages include -- and specific remedial actions are needed to address --
a.	Social, cultural, economic, and political hardships, indignities and other injuries resulting from evacuation of Rongelap and Ailinginae and involuntary resettlement in 1946.
b.	Social, cultural, economic, and political hardships, indignities and other injuries resulting from evacuation of Rongelap and Ailinginae and involuntary resettlement in 1954-1957. 
c.	Social, cultural, economic, and political hardships, indignities and other injuries resulting from evacuation of Rongelap and Ailinginae in 1985 and involuntary resettlement in Majuro, Ebeye, Hawaii and other communities beginning in 1985 and continuing through an unknown future date.
d.	Social, cultural, economic and political injuries resulting from loss of access, use, and the extensive contamination of sacred land (Rongerik Atoll) from 1946 through an unknown future date when the environment (lagoon, reefs, islands and all the resources within contaminated by radioactive and other toxic materials used in U.S. Nuclear Weapons Tests) has been restored.
e.	Social, cultural and economic injuries resulting from the loss of access and safe use of terrestrial resources in Rongelap and Ailinginae from 1954 through an unknown future date when the environment -- soil, water, vegetation, and other life on all atoll islands contaminated by radioactive and other toxic materials used in U.S. Nuclear Weapons Tests-- has been restored.
f.	Social, cultural and economic injuries resulting from the loss of access and safe use of marine resources in Rongelap and Ailinginae from 1954 through an unknown future date when the marine environment (lagoon, reefs, and all the resources within contaminated by radioactive and other toxic materials used in U.S. Nuclear Weapons Tests) has been restored. 

In the Marshall Islands land is not a commodity that can be bought or sold, but is an integral component in the “natural capital” that sustains a way of life.  In western property law, loss of land means loss of income.  But for the Marshallese, and for many traditional cultures where power, authority, status, and meaning is shaped by kinship and the meaningful use of communally-owned resources, loss of land represents the loss of the means to sustain social institutions, to reinforce kinships systems, and to survive and thrive as a self-sufficient entity.  And, while Marshallese generally refer to inherited rights as “land rights” – land includes the lagoon, reefs, clam beds, and broader atoll ecosystem, as well as the marine, arboreal and terrestrial life within.  Thus, assessment of damage and compensatory actions need to reflect the contamination and consequential damages resulting from the loss of “natural capital” that sustained a way of life.

The RMI Nuclear Claims Tribunal has established an approach for compensating for loss of land based on dry land acreage estimates and “market” assessments of lease value.  This valuation represents one portion of the economic value of damaged and destroyed atoll ecosystems.  In the cases of Enewetak and Bikini, the Tribunal ruled that land value awards include compensation for the loss of access and use of natural resources contained within (palm trees, pandanus, and so forth).  Missing from the equation are marine resources, cultural resources, and the sociocultural consequences resulting from the loss of land.

To adequately compensate for damage and loss of marine resources, acreage estimates for loss of land could be expanded to include lagoon and surrounding reef acreage, with damage awards paid to the entire community in the form of a trust.  Income from the trust could be used to develop the internal capacity to study, improve, reduce environmental risks, and eventually restore degraded ecosystems.   Subsistence use value has been partially determined via the formula used to calculate lease value in the loss of land. Applying the same formula to include lagoon, reef fringe, and broader marine acreage surrounding the seamount just north of Rongelap would produce a value representing loss of marine resources. 

Calculations for lagoon areas are:
•	Ailinginae lagoon area = 105.96 km2 or 26,183.14 acres
•	Rongerik lagoon area = 143.95 km2 or 35,570.62 acres
•	Rongelap lagoon area = 1004.32 km2 or 248,171. 49 acres

Loss of access to Rongerik and subsequent involuntary relocation from Rongelap and Ailinginae generated significant political consequences by reducing representation of three atolls to one senator, and -- because the community was so dispersed, the atolls did not receive the same level of economic development in subsequent years.  Benefits of representation include increased services provided by the government.  To adequately compensate for this and other damages including the loss of cultural resources and the sociocultural consequences resulting from loss of a healthy way of life, remedial awards should reflect a commitment to restore the community to a self-sufficient and meaningful way of life, with damage awards paid to the community in the form of a trust. Income from the trust could be used to address the sociocultural, job training, economic development, and related needs of the community identified in Part Four of this report.  Such an award could be based on the combined estimated cost of capital infrastructure common to other atolls (electricity, telephones, schools, medical clinics, transportation facilities, public water systems).

Category of Concern #2:  Natural Resource Damage and Related Stigmatization. 
Natural resource damage from the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Testing Program is severe, toxic, and persistent, representing permanent damage that reduces the value and potential future use of Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae.  Contamination from nuclear weapons testing fallout -- including tracer chemicals such as arsenic, cadmium, and other mineral isotopes used to “fingerprint” the fallout from each weapon -- has damaged natural resources and generated socioeconomic stigmatization.  Degenerative and stigmatized conditions that affect current and future resource values and economic development potentials have not been addressed in awards for loss of property and cost to restore. 

It is recommended that compensatory actions incorporate principles of nuclear stewardship and provide sufficient funds, facilities, expertise, and training to allow the people of the Marshall Islands the means and ability to conduct their own intergenerational epidemiological surveys, environmental risk assessments, and develop culturally appropriate environmental risk management strategies (including monitoring contamination levels and decay rates and remediating terrestrial and marine ecosystems).  Shaping an effective program of nuclear stewardship implies local control of funds, and a level of effort that reflects the best practices and strategies currently used to assess, remediate, and/or manage waste sites in the United States.  Fiscal responsibility to initiate and implement a meaningful nuclear stewardship program should lie in the hands of those who transformed the Marshall Islands from a healthy, viable atoll ecosystem to a nation pockmarked with nuclear waste sites.   

A nuclear stewardship program should assess the broad range of environmental hazards persistent in the terrestrial and marine ecosystem, address natural resource damages, and provide some measure of remedy for socioeconomic stigmatization.   

Natural resource damage includes injuries resulting from involuntary resettlement and in the inability to defend commercially significant resources from foreign exploitation, as well as stigma damages associated with the radioactive contamination of the region.  Stigma damages relevant to the nuclear weapons contamination of Rongelap, Rongerik, and Ailinginae atolls include perceptions of hazard with reference to locally produced foods, handicrafts, and locally harvested marine resources, and perceptions of hazard discouraging ecotourism industry growth.

One strategy to determining the value of natural resources is to consider market, nonmarket, and subsistence values for natural resources in similar settings.  A 1997 study of "The Economic Value of Majuro Atoll's Coastal Resources" prepared for the Majuro Atoll Local Government and the Coastal Management Program by economist Philip King provides a proxy example.  King identified a range of market values for coastal zone resources including pelagic and reef fisheries, tourism, handicrafts (shells and pearls), copra, agriculture, sand and gravel mining totaling $161,976,377.25.  The resources of three atolls would be worth considerably more, as would the value of localized resources (giant clam beds, valuable golden cowry shells, and the major source of arrowroot).  Values would need to be adjusted to reflect lost opportunity over the past 50 years, as well as lost future opportunities (for example, 30 years, at which time environmental contamination could be reassessed and projected losses recalculated). 

A relevant case example of assigning a value to nonmarket uses of a beach is contained in the September 1999 final settlement in the Huntington Beach, California oil spill.  In 1997 a jury verdict set legal precedent by awarding a total of close to 13 million in damages for the loss of public recreation.  The award set a $13.19 per capita value of the lost enjoyment for one day at the beach.  Applying this example to the Rongelap claim, and using the California figure as a proxy for "recreational value" damages for the entire Rongelap population for past, current and future loss of” recreational value" can be calculated.  If, for example 100 people lost a total of 1,760,000 days over the past 50 years @$13.19 per day, the total value of lost recreational access comes to $23,214,400.  If 4,000 people will lose 4,224,000 days over the next 30 years @$13.19 per day the total projected value of lost recreational access comes to $557,145,600. 				
					
A "subsistence" value of natural resources was suggested in the 1994 Marshall Islands report “Strengthening of Agricultural Support Services” by Ray Shaw, for the Asian Development Bank. His figures suggest that the average value of household production = approximately $2,585 (1997 values). This subsistence value represents the value of household production to put food on the table.  This value does not incorporate the value of other subsistence activities that provide housing, medicine, household, artisanal and craft supplies including baskets, mats, shell necklaces, toys, nets, boats, and tackle.  

In calculating appropriate awards for stigma damages, it is important to identify the monetary value of the highest and best use of the land.  Possible categories include agrarian and residential use, tourist use, and – given the level of contamination – temporary storage of nuclear waste.

Sustainable subsistence production requires access to multiple locations to survive without overusing the resource base.  Cleanup and resettlement of the main island of Rongelap Atoll is not sustainable without restoration of all of Rongelap's islands and Rongerik and Ailinginae atolls.  However, current scientific knowledge limits the ability to safely decontaminate and restore natural environs.  To address the current and future losses associated with “off-limit” islands, cost to replace atoll islands might be extrapolated from the sale of islands in other parts of the Pacific.   

An alternative approach would be to consider atoll areas, including lagoons, islands and reefs that cannot be restored to pre-testing condition with existing technology as de-facto nuclear waste storage facilities.   Compensation for this de-facto status is warranted.  Several measures of value could be used to determine the appropriate compensatory award.  These measures include
a)	Estimation of the total quantity of contaminated areas designated as too contaminated to restore,
b)	Estimation of the quantity of low-level, mid-level, and high-level radioactive waste.
c)	Rates charged at temporary storage facilities for these types of materials.
d)	Damages to reflect the socioeconomic stigma associated with hosting radioactive storage facilities in the Northern Marshall Islands.

Category of Concern #3:  Consequential Damages of Human Exposure to Radiation. 
“Exposed” people of Rongelap include those living on Rongelap and Ailinginae in 1954 who were exposed to Bravo and contamination from earlier tests; those who were resettled in 1957; those who were born on the contaminated atoll; those who were exposed to materials and food originating from Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae atolls; and, the descendents of people exposed to radioactive contaminants.  Given the synergistic, cumulative and genetic effects of long-term exposure to radioactive isotopes and other environmental contamination from military testing, exposure is of concern to this and future generations.  Psychosocial stigmatization, pain, indignities and other suffering were experienced by these people in the past, present and future as a result of their exposure to radiation and other contaminants from the United States Nuclear Weapons Test program.  Given the synergistic, cumulative (and possibly mutagenic) effects of long term exposure to radioactive isotopes and other environmental contamination from military testing, exposure is of concern to this and future generations.  

The United States Government Nuclear Testing Program effectively took the land, health, and altered the future of the Rongelap people (and other Marshallese) and in doing so, created a severely contaminated environment.  This taking occurred without just compensation.  In returning the Rongelapese to a contaminated setting and failing to notify them of the risks associated with residence in Rongelap the United States Government failed to perform their public duty to protect the health and way of life of their trustees.  At the same time, the United States Government and its citizens benefited from their use of the Marshall Islands as a nuclear testing site, including the development of their national security system and the achievement of nuclear detente.  

Exposure to the environmental hazards generated by the United States Nuclear Testing Program resulted in stigmatization and other psychosocial injuries that adversely affected individuals, the community, and the nation.  Nuclear testing introduced new taboos where certain lands and certain foods were off limits, where marriage to certain people involved new social stigmas, where birthing presented new fears and health risks, and where family life often involved the psychological, social and economic burden of caring for the chronically ill and disabled.  The failure of the United States Government to provide the Rongelap people with adequate and accurate information concerning environmental hazards and risks, coupled with contradictory pronouncements on what is and is not safe, created taboos that were incomprehensible, yet dominated all facets of society and ways of life.  This transformation in the loci of control over “taboos”  undermined rules and the customary power structures that shaped, interpreted, and reproduced strategies for living in the Marshall Islands.  Furthermore, the fear of nuclear contamination and the personal health and intergenerational effects from exposure, color all aspects of social, culture, economic, and psychological well-being.  Nuclear taboos orchestrate people’s behavior and use of their land and resources. 	

This social stigmatization adversely affects the economy, society, family, and individual health and well-being of the people of Rongelap, Ailinginae, and Rongerik, and to varying degrees, the nation as well.  Broadening the recognized categories of “exposed” and the recognized modes of exposure will increase the number of potential claimants for personal injury damage and medical treatment.  Awards for consequential damages of radiation exposure should reflect the experiences, damages, and treatment needs of individuals, households, the community, and the nation.  Damages could be calculated with consideration of the benefits that the United States received from the Nuclear Weapons Testing and subsequent creation of this “nuisance.”

Category of Concern #4:  Negligence, Negligent Misrepresentation, Battery and the Related Consequential Damages of Involuntary Participation in Human Subject Research. 
The complex biophysical, sociocultural, and psychological assaults on the people of Rongelap outlined in this report are problems that no single community can surmount without intensive assistance that is first and foremost focused on the needs and concerns of those who have been harmed.  This report not only documents United States culpability for damages and loss, but also presents evidence in support of the argument that the United States Government was negligent in providing adequate and meaningful remedies.  This negligence includes sponsoring and implementing a biomedical research program involving the purposeful exposure of Rongelapese to radioactive and toxic hazards that further compromised already damaged immune systems and further inhibited individual and community abilities to adapt and adjust.  This research was based on questions of scientific interest and military concern, rather than a holistic approach to individual therapeutic needs of a severely exposed population.

The elements of negligent misrepresentation are: (1) a duty by the defendant to the other party to communicate accurate information; (2) a false statement of material fact or carelessness in ascertaining the falsity of the statement by the party making it; (3) intention to induce the other party to act; (4) action by the other party in reliance of the statement; and (5) damage to the other party from such reliance (546 N.E. 2d at 591).

Negligent misrepresentation occurred with the repeated false assurances by the United States that:
•	The Rongelapese were being returned in 1957 to a safe environment; 
•	Nuclear weapons tests after 1957 represented no danger of additional fallout to the Rongelapese;
•	A subsistence-oriented way of life on Rongelap (1957-1985) did not threaten the health of the population; 
•	Arrowroot, clams, coconut, pandanus, fish and other foods were not contaminated and were safe to consume; 
•	Incidents of poisoning from exposure to contaminated foods were the normal results of inadequate food storage or preparation and not the result of contaminants; 
•	Reproductive health problems, including the high rates of miscarriage and gross birth defects, were not related to radioactive exposure and were normal occurrences for a Marshallese population;
•	Chronic incidents of degenerative disease appearing after 1954, including diabetes, cataracts, and various immune system problems (skin lesions that failed to heal) were not related to initial or cumulative exposure, and thus not the treatment responsibility of the medical survey (and later) 177 health programs;
•	Radioactive exposures produced no genetic effects;
•	Medical survey exams, procedures and various experiments were necessary elements of a therapeutic treatment program and in the best interest of individual patients.

Misrepresentations were made to insure continuation of experiment conditions -- a bounded unit of analysis living in a controlled, isolated, intensively studied setting -- and continued access to valued research subjects. 

Misrepresentations resulted in Rongelapese compliance with the 1957 resettlement and their extended stay on Rongelap until the 1985 evacuation. 

Misrepresentations resulted in the continued involvement of Rongelap subjects in medical “survey” exams, procedures, harvesting of samples, and various human subject research experiments.  

These involvements contributed to an establishment of minimum dose thresholds, furthering understanding of the way radionuclides move through the food chain and through the human body, furthering the understanding of the various human effects of prolonged exposure to radiation. This United States military needed this information during the Cold War so it could ascertain how well troops and its’ citizens would survive in the event of nuclear war.  

Misrepresentations induced significant injury, indignities, and other harm on the people and community of Rongelap, and produced findings of intense scientific interest and value to the U.S. military.

Returning an acutely exposed population to a contaminated setting for the purpose of 
documenting the long-term effects of previous and repeated exposures to
radioactive substances constitute battery – purposeful physical assaults on the people of Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae.  

Using these people in various non-therapeutic human subject experiments that involved exposures to radioisotopes, whole body irradiation and other procedures, constitutes battery – purposeful physical assaults on the people of Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae.  

Conducting research exams, failing to share findings and with-holding medical records, harvesting samples, and subjecting the Rongelapese to various invasive procedures as part of human subject experiments constituted abusive indignities that violated cultural norms and violated individual rights to informed consent.  These assaults constitute physical battery.

Nuclear testing created environmental hazards and health problems that will persist for decades to come.  Remedial actions are needed to address the consequential damages of United States negligence in providing a medical treatment program that adequately and effectively meets the acute, chronic, and degenerative health care needs of the people of Rongelap, and other communities exposed to radiation and other toxic materials produced by nuclear weapons tests.  Compensatory damages for abuses associated with experiments on human subjects should be awarded to provide some measure of remedy for the pain, suffering and indignities endured by the Rongelap community as a result of their
1)	Involvement in long-term human ecology studies on the effects of radiation beginning in 1954 and extending through 1997.
2)	Individual, community, and national injuries resulting from willful misrepresentation of the level of contamination, extent of contamination, and safety of living, eating, and reproducing in a contaminated setting,
3)	Use as human subjects in a range of isolated experiments, including Chromium 51 and other radioisotope experiments and other experiments that had little or nothing to do with individual health and treatment needs,
4)	Inability to exercise their rights to meaningful, informed consent.

6.  Concluding Remarks
The RMI Nuclear Claims Tribunal has established parameters for compensating the hardships and related consequential damages of the United States Nuclear Weapons Testing Program in their Memorandum of Decision and Order in the class action claim for and on behalf of the people of Enewetak, and in their Memorandum of Decision and Order in the class action claim for and on behalf of the people of Bikini.  In these cases consequential damages were awarded for hardships consisting of severe food shortages and hunger, disease, loss of culture, and other types of pain and discomfort, with damages reflecting the cumulative total of individual awards that do not exceed existing bodily injury awards granted by the Tribunal.

This report has presented evidence to support claims of hardship and consequential damage experienced by individuals and the corporate community of Rongelap.  Evidence has been presented to demonstrate a wide range of abuses in addition to the hardships of loss of land and involuntary resettlement (severe food shortages and hunger, disease, loss of culture, and other types of pain and discomfort).  These additional damages include natural resource damage, socioeconomic stigmatization, intergenerational and psychosocial damages of exposure, and the physical and psychological damages accompanying human subject experimentation.  

This report also presents evidence where similar instances of damage and abuse have produced compensatory awards in the United States that far exceed the existing ceiling set by the Tribunal.  In many of these cases, especially those pertaining to human subject experimentation, awards represent remedy for single acts of abuse, as opposed to this case of multiple and cumulative abuses experienced by individuals and the community over the span of many decades.  It is our contention that compensatory actions are warranted for each of the individual incidents and abuses outlined under four general categories of concern, and these damages should reflect the individual as well as corporate experience of:
1.	The hardships, injuries and consequential damages of the loss of a healthy self-sufficient way of life,
2.	Natural resource damage and related socioeconomic stigmatization, 
3.	Consequential damages of human exposure to radiation and fallout from the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Testing Program,
4.	Negligence, negligent misrepresentation, battery and related consequential damages of involuntary participation in human subject research.