(2)
ikini Islanders Lose Again to Radi
years after President Johnson's announcement that Bikini was safe.
From the front porch of his con-
crete block house overlooking Bikini
lagoon, the old man recalled the long
"years between departure and return.
There was near starvation, much privation. There was shuttling from one
alien island to another and another
and yet another. There was scattering
of family and friends, dislocation,
nearly total disruption of a hitherto
_ quiet, untroubled wayoflife.
“Maybe there were some times
when | was not unhappy,” he admt-
ted. “But... every day | remembered Bikini. And every day J wanted
to come back because it is my home-
land, because Bikini is a beautiful
place.”
He was quiet, deferentially polite.
Butat last, in reply to the stranger's
question, Andrew dropped the emo-
onal veil slightly.
How, the stranger asked, will he
react when he leaves Bikini once
again and forever?
“I will weep,” he said. “I will feel
anger. ... 1 will not go. I will sit
at
ote.
dt
a
o
yor
id
b.
r
War II had been exploded in the New
Mexico desert and over the Jananese
historian
then numbered 162, could be moved
to anotheratoil.”
(Most other sources say the popuJation then was 166. Since then there
has Leen a population explosion, To-
here. They will have to carry me
away.”
He said he also believed some of
the others would do the same as he,
feci the sameashe.
~ And how, after all that had happened to him and his people since
1946, did he feel now about the
Americans?
. The old man laughed, perhaps embarrassed by the question and by the
fact that the questioner was an
American.
Then he leaned clos staring
through thick green-tinted gtasses
that made his dark eyes seem enor-
mous.
:
~ “The American is a liar-man,” he
Said. “His promise is not kept.”
- The first American promise to the
Bikini people was made by the U.S.
Navy after President Harry S$ Truman had, on Jan. 10, 1946, at the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, given the go-ahead for Operation Crossroads, the first post-World
y
day 860 persons claim tand rights in
Bikini Atoll—140 now living on-Bikini
Island, 450 on Kili, and the others
scattered throughout the Marshalls.)
There was concern on the part of
the U.S.fishing industry that the test
blasts might hurt the rich commercial
fishing grounds. There also were so
War Il test of nuclear weapons.
_ In simplest terms, the promise went
something like this: We have decided
to use your atoll to test a powerful
new weapon. For your own safety,
that plans to use dogs as test ammals
were canceled. But there is no recorded protest against removing the
Bikinians from their ancestral homedand.
“In retrospect... you’d have to
say the removal was the ‘nght of the
conqueror,’ ” said Jim Winn, a trans-
planted Kansan who 1s district attor-
ney of the Pacific Trust Territory’s
Marshall Islands District.
“Our attitude must have been that
we, at the cost of several thousand
Ameran lives, took the Marshails
. . . took this whole area of the Paci-
fic from the Japanese. Amd... partof it was the attitude, ‘Weil, they (the
Bikimians) are just little brown people
anyway. They don't need their atoll.
We'll just move ‘cm off someplace
else.’ ”
Certainly the Bikinians were in no
position to seriously oppose the Navy
when, on Feb. 10, 1946, Commodore
Ben Wyatt, then the military goverhor, arnved by seaplane and an-
nounced that they must go elsewhere.
In effect, the islanders then and
there adopted the United States as
ther i7voij alap—their paramount
chicf, the power over and beyond
their local island chief, Juda. And.in
Marshallese tradition, this meant that
henceforward the United States was
responsible for the protection and
.
well-being of the Bikini people.
Although to American eyes the
atolis of the Marshalls look much the
same, the removal was deeply painful
tee *
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Many complaints from animal lovers
‘tthe removal was the
‘right of the conqueror.’
oe
\e
batt
conditions of climate and isolation. lt
of Honolulu... but it also was accesmble. ... Its inhabitants, who
.
“se
re
.
Neal Hines, “Bikini fulfilled all the
was... 2,500 miles west southwest
wN .
4 \
to.
cites of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Other sites were considered. But
Crossroads
—
we
oe
atomic bomb would do to a naval
flect. The three A-bombs of World
to
-
h
”
atton Crossroads was to see what the
according
”
rn
more,
the Navy had taken him away, two
GPE
Y
YE
Charter of 1945.
Specifically, it was designated a
“strategic trust,” which permitted the
United States to sct aside certain
areas of the former Japanese mandate
terntory for military sccurily purposes.
Bikini seemed a logical choice
geographically, too. The idea of Oper-
or
Centinoed from First Page
Andrew finally came back about
eight years ago. He was among the
first to return. It was 24 years after
;
Te sn at neat cansGAL
va"yee . f at ae Oo
BeteescypeasShee
‘HOT BREW’ —Jeladrick Jakeo checks sap from coconut palm. He
lets it ferment into jakauru, a midly alcoholic drink. While coconuts
are forbidden, Jokeo says no one has ever banned jakauru.