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Wednesday, April 9.1975
~—_
After:20.Years -
“
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—-
ll
OUT
~
-
we
Honolulu Stor-Bulletin
<
=
~
-—
ww
ey
oy ae
Fallout.Effects .
moe
Norry ‘Islanders
““From generation to.
* generation we. went-without worrying about anything,”’ said the mayorof
tiny Rongelap Island: in
- Micronesia.
:
Then in 1954 the Dnited
%' States set dff H-bomb
‘ Bravo on Bikini, and the
: Fadioactive fallout drifted
and fell 4ike snow on Ron’ gelap and its 86 residents.
Since then, said Mayor
nd all‘those’ still in the’
—Qualified doctors be
womb -at:
the time of the ~ based on Rongelap to pro- - ay
* ‘fallout.”
. et
Xx HE SAID the United
vide daily medical service.
:
’
States deported a-Japa--_ —Radiation experts ‘and
doctors,
prefernese. medical?team that.’ medical]
(
)
“had been “invited by the . ably including some from
~ people to conduct physical ~Hiroshima, survey Ron-- gelap and issue individual .
‘examinations:
:
diagnoses.
would like to
- send four or five of his
-—The Atomic Commispeople to Japanese docsion no longer be permit%
. “We ters in Hiroshima to be - ted to use the people of
oe.
‘Rongelap and adjacent
- worry all the time. We -- examined.
Utirik as ‘‘guinea pigs"’
. are worried about our
In.a petition to the
for their bomb-related re«. lives and we don't know
Secretary General of the
¢ what is happening.”’
search.
United Nations and the
said his people
United Nations Trustee- ONLY .35 of those ex€ -have appealed time and ship Council,
is
posed to the radiation sur¢ again to the United States
asking that:
for adequate medical.
~~
‘; Care. American doctors
~_ Visit the island and exam-
‘ine the people twice a
~
vive today,
said.
’’ Be said the population
‘of Rongelap is now 200,
-and that they want to stay
with the current adminis-
< tration of the Trust Terri-
« year now rather than
- tory.
.
He said ‘money on Ron.
gelap is no problem. ‘In
€.
*
once.
“THEY TELL usto eat
, coconut crab only three
‘L times a week,’’ he said,
but do not explain why it ©
7 cannot be eaten every
< day.
“We don’t eat it at all
« Tow. We are afraid,” he
.
:
said.
.
“They say don’t worry.
Don't question the doctor,” he said, ‘‘and they
give the people pills. We |
don’t know what for or
. why.”
said 19 persons
_ have died in Mainland
hospitals of leukemia,
. “but ‘we dgp’t know why
- they die onRongelap.”
‘Many of the people -of
« his island have. had sur_ Bery for thyroid tumors,
he said, including al}
¢ those that were children”
three months we :can
make 20 to 25‘tons:‘of
- copra. “From the sale of
copra, the people buy imported rice, flour, sugar
.' and kerosene.’’ They eat
,coconut,~ breadfruit,
“, pandanus,-fish and shell-
« dish, he said.
He said he has 9 chil. dren, and earns about
$1,000 a year, which is
. enough to support his wife
and family.
.
-For 27 years he worked
on Kwajalein as a carpen-
“ter, and returned to his
« native island a little over
a year ago.
“Don't talk to me about
a money,’ he said.
_.
“Money is nothing. My
“life is important.
’
‘
“The ife of my people
is important.”’
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