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Some of the new settlers
are suing the United States island, its drinking water and have been drinking water from
and consuming vegGovernment to safeguard the plant life were still contaminat- the
etables on the island for nearreturn to their’ island home.
Fearful that the long-awaited ly three years, it was noted.
In a suit filed in Federal
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away by the 23 atomic and is to examine urine speciBy JON NORDHEIMER
hydrogen devices exploded ‘at|mens of those on the island,
Specta! to The New York Tinses
HONOLULU, Oct. 16—Twen- the atoll. between 1946 and according to lawyers of the
1958.
Micronesian
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29 Years AfterU.S.1Moved Them,
Bikini Natives Sue for ReturnofAtoll
ty-nine years after they were
rethoved ftom ther Pacific atoll
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District Court here, the Biki-/retum wap Ggein being indefi-
“We hadalready startedto
The New York Timen/Oct. 17, 1975
nians charged that agencies of|nitely podty
theislartdets worry whenthe palm seedlings
the Government had failed in|—most of Whom live in poverty ‘we planted turned orange,”
have lived on Kili for years
Islanders
Bikini
Many
ther obligationio protect the on a small, ‘remote island else- said one of the Bikini leaders
natives who
already re- where in the Marshall Islands in Honolulu to file the suit.
chain—decided to go to court The bulk of the Bikinians small islands forming a circle| trees off Bikini, and the island
turned to the istand.
The islanders contended that for the first time to protect and their dependents live on with a 24-mile-wide lagoon in is covered today by a scru
" the remote island of Kili, about
in addition to
inadequate measurements of their interests.
the center. The island of Bikini, vegetation,
seedlings recently planted. Th
the levels of radioactivity on Their suit calls first for a 450 miles southeast of the atoll,
Bikini might have endangered complete scientific survey of spending most of the years on the eastern side of the ring, toxic nature of sea life inside
about 75 persons now living the
island of Bikini to of exile in isolation and despair. is two miles long, but has a the lagoon is not entirel
determine finally if it is fit Lore Kessibuki, the magis- total area of only two-thirds known, Mr. Allen said, but ong
_ there.
change has been the introduc
aS,
Is a larger sense, the suit for human life. So far, the trate at Kili, sald that the 163 of a square mile.
Nuclear testing {n thé.
post- tion of large sharks that enter
seeks to resolve the entire re- suit maintained, the Govern- natives of Bikini had no option
of from the new underwater pas
settlement issue, and reflects ment has approached the prob- but to comply when the Navy war period sank thousards
med in the reefs.
a loss of confidence that the lem in an uneverr, slip shod “temporarily” nelocated them tons of World War II warships sageway
» Government will ever allow .all way,refusing to employ highly in 1946 so that the atomic test- moored itt thé lagoon,‘and de-{ Mr. AlleO said that Govern‘the islanders to return to the sophisticated technical equip- ing program calfed
Opetation stroyed sévérdl wlands
ment to measure radiation Crossroads could be conducted western ring, openin: ‘ofthe Press Intelligence, Inc.
nuclear-wasted atoll.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
deep channel] from the ocean
into the lagoon.
Front
Edit
Other
The twisted wreckage on the
Poge
Page
Page
bottom of the lagoon is the
largest single source of pluto-;
dropped
according to eorge M. Allen TIMES
legal counsel for e islanders.:
Mr. Allen, 32 years old, quit!
ident Johnson announced that
tadiation Tévels at Bikini had
beneath the danger
point for habitation.
The first move toward reset-
tlement began. in 1972 when
three families and workers returned to Biking to build homes
and replant vegetation blasted
et the atoll.
“They had all the pdwer,”
Mr. Kessibuki said in Marshallese, the language of the islands. “We were in fear.”
to relocate temporarily the men Until American forces landed
and women living at present in Bikini in 1944, the island
on Bikini, and to use the best had been under Japanese conmethods available to check trol since 1914. Before that,
them. for harmful effects of it had been run by German
radiation.
colonialists
who. marketed
So far, despite the nuclear dried copra produced from tich
agency's warning, all Govern- Bikini coconut palm groves.
ment physicians have done The atoll was a ring of 26
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
nium pollution in the world,
a lucrative Denver law practice: M
to do antipoverty work in Mi-| S$
cronesia.
ew
The nuclear explosions at:
the
atoll
stripped
all
the
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BEST COPY AVAILABLE
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there,
Promised Return in 1968
Radiation Checks Asked
The Bikinians, 816 in number,
had been promised a permanent The Bikinians also asked the
return since 1968, when Pres- court to order the Government