Abacca Anjain-Maddison is a former Senator in the Marshall Islands and is now the Deputy Chief Secretary of the country. She is known as a campaigner against nuclear weapons and nuclear testing and in support of greater efforts by the United States to clean up islands it used for nuclear testing.
Abacca Anjain-Maddison was elected to the Marshall Islands senate as a representative of the people of Rongelap Atoll, a coral atoll of 61 islands. Most Rongelapese are now in exile. A total of 67 bombs were exploded in or over what is now the Republic of the Marshall Islands under the U.S. nuclear testing program from 1946 to 1958. Rongelap was particularly devastated by the Castle Bravo test in 1954. According to Anjain-Maddison, the people were used as "guinea pigs". [1] [2]
Anjain-Maddison was defeated in the 2007 Senate election. [3] Since then she has been appointed Deputy Chief Secretary of the country and has been an active campaigner on behalf of the people of Rongelap and other Marshall Islanders. She supported the filing of claims to the Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal, which effectively ran out of funds in 2011 when the USA declined to provide further funding. She has also campaigned for a Rongelap Peace Museum to be established. [2] [4]
In December 2014, Anjain-Maddison spoke at the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons. [5] In April 2016, she joined three indigenous Australians on a speaking tour of four Australian cities in four days, called the Black Mist White Rain Speaking Tour, to protest against the ongoing impact of past nuclear testing in Australia and the Pacific. [6] She plays an active role in the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. On 7 July 2017 she delivered ICAN's closing address after the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted at the United Nations. [7] She is also involved with the international organization "Mayors for Peace". [8]
Bikini Atoll, sometimes known as Eschscholtz Atoll between the 1800s and 1946 is a coral reef in the Marshall Islands consisting of 23 islands surrounding a 229.4-square-mile (594.1 km2) central lagoon. After the Second World War, the atoll's inhabitants were forcibly relocated in 1946, after which the islands and lagoon were the site of 23 nuclear tests by the United States until 1958.
Enewetak Atoll is a large coral atoll of 40 islands in the Pacific Ocean and with its 296 people forms a legislative district of the Ralik Chain of the Marshall Islands. With a land area total less than 5.85 square kilometers (2.26 sq mi), it is no higher than 5 meters (16.4 ft) and surrounds a deep central lagoon, 80 kilometers (50 mi) in circumference. It is the second-westernmost atoll of the Ralik Chain and is 305 kilometers (190 mi) west from Bikini Atoll.
Ebeye is the most populous island of Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, as well as the center for Marshallese culture in the Ralik Chain of the archipelago. Settled on 80 acres of land, it has a population of more than 15,000. Over 50% of the population is estimated to be under the age of 18.
Rongelap AtollRONG-gə-lap is a coral atoll of 61 islands in the Pacific Ocean, and forms a legislative district of the Ralik Chain of the Marshall Islands. Its total land area is 8 square miles (21 km2). It encloses a lagoon with an area of 1,000 square miles (2,600 km2). It is historically notable for its close proximity to US hydrogen bomb tests in 1954, and was particularly devastated by fallout from the Castle Bravo test. The population asked the US to move them from Rongelap following the test due to high radiation levels with no success so they asked Greenpeace to help. The Rainbow Warrior made four trips moving the islanders, their possessions and their homes to Majeto 180kms away. However, according to the most recent census in 2011 it has begun to recover with about eighty people living on the atoll.
Utirik Atoll or Utrik Atoll is a coral atoll of 10 islands in the Pacific Ocean, and forms a legislative district of the Ratak Chain of the Marshall Islands. Its total land area is only 2.4 square kilometers (0.94 sq mi), but it encloses a lagoon with an area of 57.7 square kilometers (22.29 sq mi). It is located approximately 47 kilometers (29 mi) east of Ujae Atoll. The population of Utirik Atoll is 300-400 as of 2020. it is one of the northernmost Marshall Islands with permanent habitation.
Ailinginae Atoll is an uninhabited coral atoll of 25 islands in the Pacific Ocean, on the northern end of the Ralik Chain of the Marshall Islands. Its total land area is only 2.8 square kilometers (1.1 sq mi), but it encloses a lagoon of 105.96 square kilometers (40.91 sq mi). It is located approximately 13 kilometers (8.1 mi) west of Rongelap Atoll. The landscape is low-lying with only the top 3 meters (9.8 ft) above sea level. The two entrances into the lagoon are 'Mogiri Pass' and 'Eniibukku Pass'. These are 1.45 and 0.48 kilometers wide respectively.
The Pacific Proving Grounds was the name given by the United States government to a number of sites in the Marshall Islands and a few other sites in the Pacific Ocean at which it conducted nuclear testing between 1946 and 1962. The U.S. tested a nuclear weapon on Bikini Atoll on June 30, 1946. This was followed by Baker on July 24, 1946.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons is a global civil society coalition working to promote adherence to and full implementation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The campaign helped bring about this treaty. ICAN was launched in 2007. In 2022 it counted 652 partner organizations in 107 countries.
Fri, a New Zealand yacht, led a flotilla of yachts in an international protest against atmospheric nuclear tests at Moruroa in French Polynesia in 1973. Fri was an important part of a series of anti-nuclear protest campaigns out of New Zealand which lasted thirty years, from which New Zealand declared itself a nuclear-free zone which was enshrined in legislation in what became the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987. In 1974, coordinated by Greenpeace New Zealand, the Fri embarked on a 3-year epic 40,233-kilometer "Pacific Peace Odyssey" voyage, carrying the peace message to all nuclear states around the world.
In 1984, Prime Minister David Lange banned nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships from using New Zealand ports or entering New Zealand waters. Under the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987, territorial sea, land and airspace of New Zealand became nuclear-free zones. This has since remained a part of New Zealand's foreign policy.
Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? is a four-hour documentary series, broadcast nationally in the United States on PBS in spring 2008, that examines the role of social determinants of health in creating health inequalities/health disparities in the US. Based on extensive research by a wide variety of academics, public health experts and medical practitioners, the seven-part series explores how class and racism can have greater impacts on one's health outcomes than genetics or personal behavior.
Jeton Anjain was a Minister of Health and a senator of the Marshall Islands Parliament. He received the Goldman Environmental Prize in 1992, for his efforts to help people from the Rongelap Atoll, which was subject to nuclear contamination after the test of the Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb in 1954. In 1991, he and the Rongelap People were awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "their steadfast struggle against United States nuclear policy in support of their right to live on an unpolluted Rongelap island."
James Matayoshi is the mayor of Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands. He was appointed as Rongelap's mayor in 1995 and has served as chairman of the Marshall Islands Ports Authority since 2008. As the mayor of Rongelap, Matayoshi was noted for his activism on calling for the United States government to render assistance to Marshall Islanders suffering from radiation sickness as a result of a series of nuclear tests carried out under Operation Castle in the 1950s.
The Baháʼí Faith in the Marshall Islands begins after 1916 with a mention by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, then head of the religion, that Baháʼís should take the religion there. The first Baháʼí to pioneer there arrived in August 1954 however she could only stay until March 1955. Nevertheless, with successive pioneers and converts the first Baháʼí Local Spiritual Assembly in 1967 in Majuro. The community continued to grow and in 1977 elected its first National Spiritual Assembly. Before 1992 the Baháʼís began to operate state schools under contract with the government. Middle estimates of the Baháʼí population are just over 1,000, or 1.50% in 2000.
Lijon Eknilang was a Marshallese activist and nuclear fallout survivor. Eknilang advocated on behalf of residents of Rongelap Atoll, who were victims of nuclear fallout stemming from the Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll in 1954.
Nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll consisted of the detonation of 23 nuclear weapons by the United States between 1946 and 1958 on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Tests occurred at 7 test sites on the reef itself, on the sea, in the air, and underwater. The test weapons produced a combined fission yield of 42.2 Mt of TNT in explosive power.
Darlene Keju, also known as Darlene Keju-Johnson, was a Marshallese activist. She was born on Ebeye Island in the Marshall Islands group in 1951. The Northern Islands where she grew up were downwind from Bikini and Enewetak atolls where the United States tested 67 nuclear weapons. She witnessed the evacuation of Regelap and Utirik Atolls after they were contaminated by radioactive fallout. Keju is credited for bringing to the attention of the world the suffering of the Marshall Islanders as a result of the nuclear testing and that many more people were affected than acknowledged by the U.S. government.
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), or the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty, is the first legally binding international agreement to comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons with the ultimate goal being their total elimination. It was adopted on 7 July 2017, opened for signature on 20 September 2017, and entered into force on 22 January 2021.
The 2017 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) "for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition on such weapons," according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee announcement on October 6, 2017. The award announcement acknowledged the fact that "the world's nine nuclear-armed powers and their allies" neither signed nor supported the treaty-based prohibition known as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons or nuclear ban treaty, yet in an interview Committee Chair Berit Reiss-Andersen told reporters that the award was intended to give "encouragement to all players in the field" to disarm. The award was hailed by civil society as well as governmental and intergovernmental representatives who support the nuclear ban treaty, but drew criticism from those opposed. At the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony held in Oslo City Hall on December 10, 2017, Setsuko Thurlow, an 85-year-old woman Who survived the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and ICAN Executive Director Beatrice Fihn jointly received a medal and diploma of the award on behalf of ICAN and delivered the Nobel lecture.
Vanessa Griffen is a Fijian academic and writer who campaigns against the use and proliferation of nuclear weapons.