Bikini Islanders Lose Again to Radia Continued from First Page Andrew finally came back about eight years ago. He was among the first to return. [t was 24 years after the Navy had taken him away, two years after President Johnson's announcement that Bikint was safe. From the front porch of hus concrete block house overlooking Bikim lagoon, the old man recalicd the jong years bewween departure and return There was near starvation. much prvation. There was shuttling from one alien island to another and another and yet another. There was scattenng of family and fends, atsiocauon, nearly totai disruption of a hitherto mnet, untroubled way of lle, “Maybe there were some times when I was not ushappy,” he admitfed “But... every day | rememdered Bikini And every day [ wanted to come back because it is my homeland, because Bikini is a beautiful place.” He was quit, deferentially polite. But at last, in reply lo the stranger's question, Andrew dropped lhe emouonal verl suightly. Row, the stranger asked, will he react when he leaves Gikims once again and forever? “Tt wall weep,” he said. “I wif feel anger... . 1 will not go. I will sit SERRERCOAGEAIO ’ ‘You'd have to say the removal was the right of the conqueror. SSS here. They will have to carry me away.” He said he also believed some of the others would do the same as he, fecl the same as he. ~ And how, after ail that had happened to him and his people since 1946, did he feel now aboul the Amencans? The old man taughed, perhaps embarrassed by the question and by the fact that the questioner was an Amencan. Then he leaned clow stamng through thick green-lnted glasses that made hus dark eyes seem enormous, “ “The Amencan is a liar-man,.” he taid. “His promise is not kept.” Charter of 1945. Specilically, tt was designated a “strategic crust.” which permitted the United States Wo set ase certain areas of ihe former Japanese mandate lerntory for military sccurity pur$c$, Bikim seemed a logical choice gecsraphically, too. The wea of Operation Crossrcads was to see what the atomic bomb would do to a naval Ticet. The three A-bombs of World War Il had been expicded in the New Mexico desert and over tne Jananese emes of Faroshima and Nagusaku Other sites were considered. But aecording to Crossroads historian teal Hines, “Bikini fulfdled all the conditions of climate and isolation. It was... 2,500 miles west southwest of Honolulu... but it also was accessible, ... Its inhabitants, who then numbered 162, could be moved to another atoll” (Most other sources say the popuJalon then was 166 Since then there has Leen a population exciasion, Today 860 pe-sons clam iand rights in Bikini Atoll—140 now living on Bikint Island, 450 on Kilt, and the others scattered Unroughoul the Marshails. ) There was concer on the part of the US. fishing industry that the lest blasts might hurt the mech commercial fishing grounds. There also were so many complaints from animal lovers that pians to use dogs as test anunals were canceled. But there is no recorded protest against removing the Bikimans from thew ancestral homeland. “In retrospect ... you'd have to gay the removal was the ‘right of the conqueror,’said Jim Wirn. a transplanted Kansan who ts aisimetattorney of the Pacific Trust Territory's MarshallIslands District. “Qur atutude must have been that we, at the cost of several thousand Ameréan lives, took the Marsnails . . . took this wnole area of the Pacific from the Japanese. Ara... part of tl was the attitude, ‘Weil, they (the Bulunians) 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 postion to semously oppose the Navy when, on Feb. 10, 1946. Commodore Ben Wyatt, then the military goverfor, ammved by seaplane and announced that they must go clsewhere. + The first Amencan promise to the Bilani peopic was made by the U.S. Navy after President Harry $ Truman had, on Jan. 10, 1946, at the recommendauon of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, given Lhe go-ahead for Operation Crossroads, the first past-World War Il test of nuctear weapons In simplest terms, the promise went something like this: We have decided to use your atoll to test a powerful few weapon. For your own safcty, ou will be moved lo another place. e will take care of you there When We're through using your atoll, we wall bring you back. Few now question that the Navy had the [egal rizht to appropriate BikanAtoll for mintary purposes. Bikini) ts part of the Marshall Lslands which as part of Micronesa, In effect, the islanders then and there adopted the United States as thew irey aap—their paramount chief, the power aver and beyond their local isiand chief, Juda. And, in Marshallese tradiuon, this meant that henecforward the United States was responsible for the proicection and well-being of the Bikini people. Aithough to American eyes the Molls of the Marshalls look much the UN. Trust fart ry uncer US ade minisurauon by lerms of tie UN. vicw that the ret iden inp between a which on Gira wos eslubl hed as a en enPa 19AteAerie= = eae SSa same, the remaval was deeply painful and culturally destructive lo the Bi- kimans. For. as many anthropologists have observed, there ss among Micronesian peoples a profound, mystical attachment to the particular, uny piots of tand owned by their familics or clans. Anthropologist Robert Kiste, author of “fhe iikinans A Study in Forent Miereuon " aud un an interPlease Tuca to Page 8, Coit ‘ poe a , 20 r “ , ta * . “ t 7 , \ ' y : :- ; 7 ‘m,‘ ' ‘: y a x + t as / “. r ( — ams ‘ r - yy oF ‘ ~ 3 v . “ ' ' Ft 4 i nm . ~ : ~ we we mya “ .. - i: ‘HOT BREW’ —Jeladrick Jakeo checks sap fr lets it ferment into jakauru, a midtly alconolic are forbidden, Jokeo says no one has e