U.S. government-provided compensation is nearly exhausted and Tribunal Chairman Gregory Danz announced Monday he is halting the small 5 percent “initial payments” as the Majuro-based agency winds down its operation in the face of dwindling funds.
In an order, Danz ruled that there will be no “initial payments” — the first time this has happened since the Tribunal began issuing award payments in 1991 to Marshall Islanders who have any of about three dozen cancers and other illnesses presumed caused by radioactive fallout.
The Nuclear Claims Fund was down to $120,852.87 at the end of May, according to Danz. The fund provided by the U.S. Congress through a Compact of Free Association with the Marshall Islands started out in 1986 at $150 million, producing over $300 million in interest. Of that amount, $182 million went directly to the four most heavily exposed atolls, about $50 million paid for a health care program, and the Tribunal has provided about $73 million in compensation, the largest share for personal injury and token payments to communities from the Bikini and Enewetak nuclear test sites for land damage and suffering.
But Bikini Atoll Local Government official Jack Niedenthal called the Compact of Free Association’s compensation for the Nuclear Claims Tribunal “a total failure.”
“I would go as far as to say that with respect to the nuclear victims of the Marshall Islands, the first Compact of Free Association was a total ripoff,” said Niedenthal, who works for islanders removed by the U.S. Navy in 1946 to start the first post-World War II nuclear weapons test. “The blame for this failure goes equally to the U.S. and Marshall Islands governments for negotiating without carefully considering the magnitude of the compensation issues facing these victims.”
The Tribunal’s Public Advocate Bill Graham, who represents claimants before the agency, said more than $23 million in personal injury awards remain unpaid together with $2.2 billion in land damage and nuclear clean up awards.
Because of limited funds, the Tribunal since 1991 has provided an “initial payment” when approving a personal injury award ranging from five to 25 percent of the award, and each year it has provided an annual payment to awardees. Beginning in 2006, all annual payments were halted, and now the five percent initial payment is history, ending all compensation payments to nuclear tests victims in the country.
The Tribunal will “continue to function with a significantly reduced budget for such time that is necessary to complete an administrative scheme to address outstanding property claims and provide a means to address future personal injuries resulting from the nuclear testing program with at least a minimal level of initial payment for a limited period of time,” Danz said in November. But he warned that the Tribunal would “not be able to continue with its limited level of operations for an additional year.”
The Marshall Islands government asked the U.S. Congress to provide additional compensation to pay off all Tribunal awards, but there has been no official reply except for a Bush Administration report in 2005 that stated the U.S. government is under no legal obligation to provide additional compensation. But a 2004 U.S. National Cancer Institute study of health effects of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands said more than 530 cancers could be directly linked to fallout from the testing, and more than half of these cancers had yet to occur in the population.
