[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 99 (Friday, June 16, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H6076-H6078]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 IN OPPOSITION TO FRANCE'S RESUMPTION OF NUCLEAR TESTING IN THE SOUTH 
                                PACIFIC

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from American Samoa [Mr. Faleomavaega] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, as a Member from the Pacific Islands, 
I rise again in strong protest of France's decision to resume 
detonating nuclear bombs in the South Pacific on French Polynesia's 
Moruroa Atoll.
  French President Jacques Chirac claims that the eight atomic bomb 
explosions planned--about one a month between this September and next 
May--are completely safe to the environment. I am not persuaded.
  The people of the Pacific know from firsthand experience the horrors 
associated with nuclear bomb explosions and testing. As an American, I 
am not proud of the legacy of the United States testing program of the 
1940's, the 1950's, and the 1960's on Bikini and Rongelap Atolls in the 
Marshall Islands. Even now, a half-century later, that bitter legacy is 
still being felt in the Marshall Islands.
  In particular, I have long believed that when the United States 
detonated the ``Bravo Shot'' on Bikini Atoll--a 15-megaton 
thermonuclear bomb, a 1,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima 
bomb--the Marshall Islanders residing on nearby Rongelap and Utirik 
Atolls were deemed expendable. These Pacific islanders justifiably 
believe they were used as ``guinea pigs'' and test subjects for nuclear 
radiation experiments conducted by our Nation. People there have not 
forgotten memories of the offspring of Pacific islander women infected 
by radiation from the nuclear explosions--where babies were born dead 
and didn't look human and were sometimes called ``jelly babies.''
  Although our country, decades ago, stopped its nuclear testing in the 
Pacific, our Nation is still mired in the process of facing 
responsibility and making financial reparations for the devastating 
impact that our nuclear bomb explosions had on the Pacific people of 
the Marshall islands.
  France has detonated over 200 nuclear bombs already, with almost all 
of those nuclear explosions taking place 

[[Page H6077]]
in the South Pacific. After sustaining the incomprehensible destructive 
energy unleashed by these bombs, French Polynesia's Moruroa Atoll has 
been described by scientific researchers as a ``Swiss cheese of 
fractured rock.'' Leakage of radioactive waste from the underground 
test sites to the surrounding waters and air has been predicted and is 
inevitable; this embodies the environmental nightmare that the people 
of the South Pacific have long dreaded.
  According to the international physicians for the prevention of 
nuclear war, underground nuclear tests, such as those at Moruroa Atoll, 
cause radioactivity to leak out into the sea and reach human beings 
through the food chain. Previous nuclear explosives in the South 
Pacific have resulted in a number of epidemic-like outbreaks in 
surrounding communities, where symptoms included damage to the nervous 
system, paralysis, impaired vision, nausea and diarrhoea. I do not find 
it surprising that reports of increased cancer rates among Tahitians 
have surfaced. The damage to the marine environment can only be 
imagined.
  Political leaders in French Polynesia, including French Polynesia's 
President Gaston Flosse, have registered strong objection to resume 
nuclear testing in their homeland. A hostile reaction from the Tahitian 
public is generating and efforts to discourage violence are being 
undertaken. Understandably, the people of French Polynesia are greatly 
disturbed by the rebirth of the nuclear monster in their midst and the 
nuclear poison to be spawned.
  I and many other Pacific islanders have the greatest respect for 
French oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who over the years came to 
the shores of many South Pacific islands for research and while there 
gained a special sensitivity for the pacific lifestyle and our vital 
dependence on the sea. Jacques Cousteau, in my mind, is the leading 
international spokesman for protection of the environment and 
conservation of all forms of marine life.
  I am gratified to learn that Jacques Cousteau has condemned his 
Government's decision to resume exploding nuclear bombs in the South 
Pacific. In a statement from Paris, Cousteau stated his regret that 
France has given in to outdated arguments, as great wars are of the 
past. Cousteau declared that today's wisdom makes it necessary to 
outlaw atomic arms.
  With French opinion polls documenting Jacques Cousteau as the leading 
popular figure in France, I would urge him to take up the fight with 
the good people of France to stop their Government's resumption of 
nuclear bomb detonations in French Polynesia. Jacques Cousteau, perhaps 
more than anyone else, has a unique and keen appreciation of how 
nuclear bomb explosions constitute the ultimate rape of the South 
Pacific's fragile marine environment.

                              {time}  1430

  Mr. Speaker, I say to the good people of France, your Government has 
already exploded over 200 nuclear bombs and yet it seeks to further 
pollute the South Pacific with eight more nuclear bomb detonations. 
With the world moving toward agreement that nuclear weapons should be 
outlawed, France's action encourages the exact opposite. By dismissing 
criticism of additional tests with the excuse that France has tested 
less than other nuclear powers, France opens a Pandora's box that may 
undermine negotiation of a comprehensive test ban treaty. This also 
leaves the door open to justify China's nuclear testing program and the 
fact that China has only tested 34 nuclear detonations, so by this 
reason let us allow China to test 174 times or explode 174 more nuclear 
bombs, and then in addition to that let us allow China to explode 900 
more nuclear bombs to catch up with the United States.
  What madness, Mr. Speaker. What madness.
  Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record the following article:

                [From the New York Times, Mar. 21, 1995]

               Chirac, the Old Neo-Gaullist, in the Lead

                         (By Craig R. Whitney)

       Tours, France, March 21.--Jacques Chirac, the Mayor of 
     Paris, who has run for the French presidency and lost twice, 
     now looks set to win on his third attempt, unless every 
     public opinion poll is wrong or some surprise turns up before 
     the runoff on May 7.
       Mr. Chirac surged past his fellow conservative, Prime 
     Minister Edouard Balladur, a month ago to become the favorite 
     to succeed President Francois Mitterrand, a Socialist, who 
     has been in office 14 years.
       How Mr. Chirac, a 62-year-old conservative politician, has 
     managed to make himself the image of change incarnate is the 
     phenomenon of the 1995 presidential campaign.
       His supporters say he has done it by patiently cultivating 
     the grass roots since the summer of 1993 and listening hard 
     to what voters say they want. With unemployment stuck at over 
     12 percent and French industries struggling under the burdens 
     of an expansive welfare state, what many voters want is 
     change, and Mr. Chirac has convinced a lot of them that he 
     can deliver.
       Although himself a graduate of the elite School of National 
     Administration, Mr. Chirac says he wants to free France from 
     technocrats and restore the egalitarian values that have 
     given the country vitality for 200 years. He has promised job 
     creation by making it less costly for businesses to hire new 
     employees.
       By now, Mr. Chirac is greeted by big crowds wherever he 
     goes. Five thousands people--students and pensioners, farmers 
     and workers--packed a fairgrounds hall outside Tours on 
     Tuesday night to hear him explain how he would restore hope 
     and unity to a country that he says is troubled by a lack 
     of self-confidence.
       ``What I expect from him if he wins is a big reduction in 
     unemployment,'' said Jean-Charles Paronnaud, a 28-year-old 
     unemployed supermarket clerk.
       Another supporter, Marie-Jeanne Avril, said: ``I'm here 
     because I'm an old Gaullist. For 45 years I've been voting 
     for the general, even though he left us long ago, and this 
     time I'll vote for Chirac.''
       Mr. Chirac founded his and Mr. Balladur's party, Rally for 
     the Republic, in 1976 to perpetuate the legacy of President 
     Charles de Gaulle, the founder of the Fifth Republic. He 
     often shares the general's stubborn vision of France's 
     destiny in a Europe of proudly separate countries rather than 
     as part of a federal United States of Europe.
       Given France's economic and financial problems, if he does 
     win this spring Mr. Chirac may also need de Gaulle's ability 
     to convince people that he knows what they want and then to 
     carry through on it, whether they like it or not.
       ''Politicians all make promises, but this is the first time 
     I've met one who actually seemed interested in listening to 
     me,'' said Jacques Maurice, a 47-year-old homeless man from 
     Pithiviers whom Mr. Chirac met on the way to Tours. ``He'll 
     get my vote,'' Mr. Maurice said.
       Part of Mr. Chirac's appeal has been that, unlike the stiff 
     Mr. Balladur, Mr. Chirac seems to enjoy rubbing elbows with 
     voters and to be at ease with himself. On his campaign tour, 
     he wore a dark green top coat over his suit, and his slicked-
     back hair looked almost as much in need of a trim as Mr. 
     Maurice's.
       But Mr. Chirac's personal image is carefully thought out, 
     as is the impassioned delivery of his campaign speech--a 
     crooning baritone that always recites a prepared text. 
     Nonetheless, his hourlong stump speech here was often drowned 
     out by cheers. ``I refuse the idea that one France, more and 
     more people all the time, is doomed to be left behind while 
     the other is more and more heavily taxed to come to its aid 
     with welfare instead of jobs,'' he told the crowd. ``We have 
     to break this vicious circle.''
       Audiences have also taken to his pro-Main Street, anti-Wall 
     Street style. Capital should be at the service of the people 
     it employs, he tells them, not parked in high-yield bonds.
       More and more people are obviously convinced that he has 
     the right answers. Two public opinion polls published on 
     Tuesday showed Mr. Chirac pulling farther ahead of both his 
     Socialist opponent, Lionel Jospin, and Mr. Balladur.
       With at least four other candidates expected to be in the 
     race, Mr. Chirac could win about 29 percent of the vote in 
     the election's first round on April 23, the two surveys 
     indicated, with as much as 22 percent for Mr. Jospin and 17 
     percent for the Prime Minister. A poll for the weekly 
     magazine Express showed Mr. Chirac could handily defeat 
     either candidate in the runoff between the two top vote-
     getters on May 7.
       Though he served as Prime Minister under Mr. Mitterrand 
     between 1986 and 1988, Mr. Chirac seldom mentions him by 
     name. He ran against Mr. Mitterrand in 1988 for the 
     presidency, and lost.
       When the conservatives won the parliamentary elections in 
     March 1993, Mr. Chirac chose to stay in city hall and let Mr. 
     Balladur find out the hard way what it was like to be Prime 
     Minister and run for President at the same time.
       If he has been vindicated by that choice, Mr. Chirac also 
     has some things to live down. One of them is what critics 
     characterized as a chauvinist appeal to the nation made at 
     the end of 1978, when he called for a disavowal of Mr. 
     Giscard d'Estaing's pro-European policies, and spoke darkly 
     of the menace of ``the foreigners' party.'' Ever since, some 
     politicians in Germany have questioned what relations with 
     France would be like if Mr. Chirac became President.
       German prowess remains very much on Mr. Chirac's mind. 
     Speaking of the possibility of establishing a common European 
     currency by the end of the decade, Mr. Chirac said he might 
     call for a referendum to be sure France wanted to merge the 
     franc with the German mark and other bills.
     
[[Page H6078]]

       ``The core of the problem, as General de Gaulle often said, 
     is not whether we surrender this or that bit of sovereignty, 
     but whether we do so on the same terms as Germany does,'' he 
     said.

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