By Giff Johnson
For Variety

MAJURO — Several hundred Marshall Islands nuclear test victims and their supporters gathered in Majuro Thursday to mark the 53rd anniversary of the “Bravo” hydrogen bomb — the largest American nuclear weapon ever tested that spewed radioactive fallout on unsuspecting islanders.
The nuclear test victims, who have filed claims in a U.S. court seeking multi-billion dollar compensation payments from the U.S. government, received encouragement from an unexpected source when U.S. congressman and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, commended their “bravery” in working to “right an injustice to their communities.”
A letter from the six-term American congressman was read to the gathering in Majuro. “Bravo is perhaps the worst of many examples of fallout exposure from the U.S. nuclear testing program,” he said. Naming the ground zeroes for the 67 American nuclear tests — Bikini and Enewetak atolls — and other islands exposed to fallout, Kucinich said their experience provides “tangible evidence” why the world needs to prevent nuclear proliferation.
“The United States got what it wanted from the nuclear testing here during the Cold War,” said traditional chief and Senator Michael Kabua at the ceremony in Majuro. “But we gained nothing except for radiation that has a half life of a thousand years.”
Many speakers talked about a litany of cancers, thyroid problems and other health problems that have resulted from the tests, as well as the displacement of islanders from Bikini and Rongelap.
Kabua and others expressed disappointment that the Bush administration has refused to entertain Marshall Islands appeals for additional compensation. The U.S. government has said that $270 million provided from 1986-2003 to nuclear test victims was a “full and final” settlement of all nuclear claims. But islanders say this money, and health care funding has been woefully inadequate.
The change in the U.S. Congress from Republican to Democratic control offers the Marshall Islands a new opportunity to get consideration of nuclear test compensation petition that has languished under the Republicans for six years, Kabua said.
Carol Brown, president of the United Black Christians of the United Church of Christ in the U.S. flew to the Marshall Islands to join the ceremony on March 1, and recognized Marshall Islanders for their “persistence and boldness” in continuing to press for justice on nuclear testing problems.
“The UCC is the justice church,” she said. “I pledge I will return to my church and I will not only speak on your behalf but I will encourage other UCC bodies to join me.”
James Matayoshi, the mayor of Rongelap Atoll that was the most heavily contaminated atoll by the 1954 Bravo test, criticized the U.S. Congress for never formally responding to a nuclear test compensation petition that the Marshall Islands filed with it in 2000 seeking additional compensation and health care funding. The United States “still owes the Marshall Islands, as a steadfast ally, the simple fairness of a formal response that recognizes our shared sacrifice in the past and present,” Matayoshi said. This is why, he said, that islanders from Bikini and Enewetak have filed suit in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims seeking enforcement of judgments from a Majuro-based Nuclear Claims Tribunal awarding them over $1 billion in compensation that it cannot pay because the U.S. government did not provide adequate funding.
Rongelap is expected to file a similar suit in U.S. courts shortly.
The U.S., Matayoshi said, has failed to provide “adequate and just compensation” to nuclear test victims in the Marshall Islands.