[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 166 (Wednesday, October 25, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H10843-H10846]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           FRENCH NUCLEAR TESTINGS A DANGER TO MORUROA ATOLL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Weldon of Florida). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of May 12, 1995, the gentleman from American Samoa 

[[Page H10844]]
[Mr. Faleomavaega] is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
minority leader.
  Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, I rise again to share with my 
colleagues and the American people a very serious problem with France's 
resumption of nuclear testing in the South Pacific, which started last 
month despite near universal condemnation by the Nations of the world.
  Mr. Speaker, the first Sunday of this month France detonated a 110-
kiloton nuclear device more destructive than seven Hiroshima bombs that 
were dropped in Japan about 50 years ago. It was the second in a series 
of nuclear explosions to take place in France's test facilities in 
French Polynesia.
  Mr. Speaker, over three decades, France has detonated in excess of 
200 nuclear bombs, almost all of them taking place in the South 
Pacific. Yet this is still not enough to satisfy France's ambitions to 
become a nuclear power.
  French President Chirac boldly claims that their nuclear tests have 
no ecological consequences and that they have nothing to fear nor to 
hide. President Chirac has even invited scientists from the 
international community to come to their testing facilities to see for 
themselves.
  When the countries of Europe recently took Chirac up on his offer for 
an ``open door'' inspection, however, it is interesting to note the 
results of this so-called open door policy.
  The European Union team of scientists sent to examine Moruroa Atoll 
has now returned to Brussels, stating that they were denied full access 
to test sites and radioactivity monitoring facilities. Moreover, the 
French authorities failed to supply necessary health and safety data 
requested by the European Union scientists.
  Not surprisingly, the European Union team has not been able to issue 
conclusive findings regarding France's testing program, as they were 
prevented by the French government from conducting a true study.

                              {time}  2145

  While the French Government claims they have nothing to hide and 
welcome international scrutiny of their nuclear testing program, Mr. 
Speaker, President Chirac's actions reveal nothing more than sheer 
hypocrisy not only to the good citizens of France, but to the world as 
well.
  Mr. Speaker, I would also note that Reuters News Agency last week 
reported from Brussels that a French scientist states that France's 
South Pacific weapons test site is unstable. There is a risk of 
landslides and tidal waves which could submerge islands in French 
Polynesia. Dr. Pierre Vincent, a volcanologist and professor at the 
University of Clermont-Ferrand, testified at a European Parliament 
hearing on France's South Pacific nuclear testing, and he said this is 
an unstable atoll. He was referring to the Mururoa atoll, Mr. Speaker. 
I would say this situation constitutes a high risk.
  All the factors which we know now favor destabilization in volcanoes 
are gathered together at Mururoa, Dr. Vincent testified, pointing to 
the atoll's steep sides, fissuring in the atoll and alterations of 
substructure by previous tests.
  Dr. Vincent further states the shock wave from a new explosion could 
be the trigger that would cause detachment of previously disturbed 
sections of rock. He said such landslides could cause tsunamis, which 
means tidal waves, seismic waves from undersea earthquakes or 
landslides which could submerge the whole of certain islands of 
Polynesia.
  Mr. Speaker, Professor Vincent concluded it was high time to stop the 
nuclear testing program France is conducting now in the Pacific, but 
even an immediate halt to France's current series of tests in the 
region would not remove the risk. He said if we stop tomorrow, if that 
could happen, we could certainly have to continue to monitor this atoll 
for decades and probably a lot longer than that.
  Mr. Speaker, France's resumed nuclear tests on Mururoa and Fangataufa 
atolls, which are actually dormant volcanic formations below sea level, 
has also initiated an investigation by the European Parliament and the 
New Zealand Government into possible connections with the recent 
eruptions of New Zealand's Mt. Ruapehu, a volcano dormant for the past 
50 years.
  Internationally Mr. Speaker, the movement against France's nuclear 
testing in the South Pacific is growing stronger and stronger. Over 100 
nations adopted in Vienna an international Atomic Energy Agency 
resolution condemning nuclear testing. The United Nations General 
Assembly in New York is soon to pass a resolution opposing all nuclear 
testing, while in London the British Commonwealth is pressuring France 
about its insensitivity in conducting nuclear tests in the South 
Pacific.

  Mr. Speaker, I would hope all of our colleagues in the Congress would 
join us in sending an urgent message to Paris to stop their nuclear 
nightmare in the Pacific. Mr. Speaker, I want to share with my 
colleagues, this is what a French nuclear bomb explosion looks like on 
this atoll, the Mururoa atoll in French Polynesia. I have also made an 
illustration of exactly what the concerns have been for the nations of 
the Pacific for all of these years and for many scientists.
  As you can see, Mr. Speaker, this is the Mururoa atoll from the 
vertical as seen from an airplane. This is what the atoll looks like, 
and by the way, this illustration was gotten from documents of the 
French Government showing areas that were completely contaminated in 
the aftermath of the French nuclear program and the testing for the 
past 20 years.
  This is the profile of what the Mururoa atoll, which is this green 
strip, which is right on sea level; Mururoa atoll is only about 3 feet 
above sea level, and below this whole atoll is this volcanic formation. 
As you can see, Mr. Speaker, these dots, these red dots are 165 atomic 
explosions that have taken place on that atoll for the last 20 years.
  In addition to this, France has also exploded 12 nuclear bombs above 
sea level, which is basically in the atmosphere. I submit, Mr. Speaker, 
who is going to clean up this mess if this atoll ever, ever should 
leak, come out of this, because of what has happened inside this atoll?
  Now some people might say, well, let us not be concerned about it, 
because it is thousands of miles away from the State of Hawaii as well 
as along the Pacific Coast States. Mr. Speaker, I submit if this atoll 
every breaks or starts to leak and all the nuclear contamination that 
is contained here after France conducting 165 nuclear explosions inside 
this volcanic formation that supports this atoll, I submit, Mr. 
Speaker, who is going to clean up this mess?
  I submit also that France does not have the capability to clean up 
this mess if it ever does come to this within the next 10, perhaps even 
50 years that this will transpire.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a sad occasion, given the fact that over 60 
percent of the French people themselves do not want France or President 
Chirac to conduct this nuclear testing nightmare, as we see it, in the 
Pacific. And yet the French Government persists that they do this in 
the name of its national interest.
  Mr. Speaker, I am very concerned in the fact that President Chirac 
does not take into account the fact that 28 million men, women, and 
children, live in this Pacific region, let alone there are some 200,000 
French citizens who are of Tahitian ancestry that live also in these 
islands, and yet we hear nothing but absolute stubbornness, and I would 
also submit, Mr. Speaker, perhaps you could even say arrogance on the 
part of the French Government, not the goodness of the French people, 
but the French Government to continue doing this despite the 
condemnation of over 160 countries throughout the world.
  Why are we doing this?
  Is it not ironic, Mr. Speaker, that while we condemn germ warfare, 
while we outlaw chemical and biological warfare, we continue to allow 
not only industrial countries but the fact that we have got nuclear 
bombs all over the place that cause just as much, if not more, harm and 
damage not only to the environment but to human beings, and yet we 
continue to allow this.
  I stated earlier that the nuclear bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima 
50 years ago, Mr. Speaker, killed, maimed approximately 200,000 men, 
women, and children. In addition to that, 90,000 men, women, and 
children were also killed with the bomb that we dropped on Nagasaki. In 
the aftermath of this, and I would make a personal 

[[Page H10845]]
appeal to the American people, we have got to send a strong message to 
President Chirac and the only way to do this, perhaps not necessarily 
through governmental channels, but the conscience of the American 
people and the conscience of the people in Japan and even in Germany to 
voluntarily not purchase French products, French wine, French goods, to 
send a strong message to the French Government that this policy of 
continuing to explode nuclear bombs in the South Pacific, not only is 
it insane but it is an outright shame for the Government of France to 
continue to do this in the aftermath, at least at the expense of the 
health and safety and the lives of those people who live in that part 
of the world.
  The information referred to follows:

            [From the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Oct. 11, 1995]

           French Paper Runs a Photo of Mururoa Coral Cracks

       Paris.--Raising new questions about the safety of French 
     nuclear tests, a newspaper published photographs today that 
     it says show cracks in one of the South Pacific atolls where 
     the underground explosions took place.
       Ouest-France said the photographs contradict government 
     claims that the tests caused no damage to Mururoa Atoll in 
     French Polynesia.
       Critics say the nuclear tests could cause the atoll to 
     break apart, spewing radioactivity into the water and air in 
     what many consider to be one of the world's last paradises.
       The government denied a similar report last week in the 
     respected daily Le Monde. It had no immediate comment on 
     Ouest-France's claims.
       Ouest-France said the photos were taken in 1987 and 1988 by 
     a diver several dozen yards under the Mururoa Lagoon.
       The cracks are about 9 to 10\1/2\ feet wide and several 
     miles long, the newspaper said.
       Normally only military personnel and scientists working on 
     the French nuclear program have access to the isolated atoll, 
     about 750 miles southeast of Tahiti.
       After the Le Monde report, French Foreign Minister Herve de 
     Charette told the National Assembly that ``no crack of any 
     sort has ever been discovered'' on the atoll.
       Experts at the French Atomic Energy Commission said some 
     fractures were created by the first tests carried out 
     directly under Mururoa's reef.
       But they said there had been no further cracks since tests 
     were moved to the middle of the lagoon.
       European Commission President Jacques Santer demanded 
     Wednesday that France supply more information about the 
     nuclear tests ``without delay.''
                                                                    ____


              [From the Honolulu Advertiser, Oct. 5, 1995]

           French Deny Report That N-Test Site Full of Cracks

       Paris.--A report that a South Pacific island used for 
     France's nuclear tests is full of cracks put the government 
     back on the defensive yesterday over its underground testing 
     program.
       The Defense Ministry dismissed the report as ``trivial and 
     whimsical,'' and said it has the situation at Mururoa Atoll 
     under ``perfect scientific and ecological control.''
       The Paris newspaper Le Monde reported Tuesday that a 1980 
     French army map shows that years of nuclear pounding had 
     cracked the atoll, site of a 20-kiloton nuclear test blast on 
     Sept. 5.
       Some scientists have warned that the atoll could break open 
     under the force of continued test blasts or a natural 
     disaster, releasing radioactivity and poisoning an area known 
     for its coral reefs and crystal waters.
       Gen. Raymond Germanos denied the newspaper report and 
     accused the environmental group Greenpeace of twisting 
     decade-old unofficial data about the atoll. He said the 
     newspaper's map misplaced key features of the island and the 
     test facility.
                                                                    ____


            [From the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Oct. 9, 1995]

                 Suspicion Clouds French Nuclear Tests

                          (By Gary T. Kubota)

       Papeete, Tahiti.--Three of his babies were stillborn.
       An infant son lived for a year before dying of leukemia.
       His 1-year-old daughter died from a painful disease that 
     blackened her skin.
       Edwin Haoa, 57, believes his five children died from 
     illnesses related to a change in his body that produced 
     defective sperm, a result of radioactive contamination while 
     he worked at nuclear testing sites in French Polynesia.
       Haoa said he can't prove he was contaminated, nor confirm 
     his suspicions about his children's causes of death, because 
     the French have refused to release his medical records for 
     his period of work from 1963 through 1977.
       While the French government claims the radioactive fallout 
     was too little to harm workers or islanders, some experts say 
     the lack of medical information tells them France has no 
     proof the nuclear testing is safe.
       Critics say the failure to provide answers to workers such 
     as Haoa undermines the government's credibility in French 
     Polynesia, where more than 80 percent of the 212,000 
     residents are Polynesian or part-Polynesian. It has also 
     contributed to growing worldwide opposition to the current 
     underground testing, which began with a first test Sept. 5 at 
     Mururoa atoll, 750 miles southeast of Tahiti. A second test 
     was done beneath Fangataufa atoll Oct. 1. The French plan up 
     to eight tests through next spring.
       More than 10,000 civilians and military personnel worked at 
     Mururoa and Fangataufa atolls, the site of 41 nuclear 
     atmospheric tests between 1966 and 1974. But bound by a code 
     of silence they signed while applying for jobs, most have 
     avoided publicity.
       Haoa and 53 other former workers who witnessed the nuclear 
     tests stepped forward recently, when France announced its 
     resumption of nuclear tests in French Polynesia.
       ``Some of them have seen their friends die of unknown 
     causes,'' said Oscar Temaru, mayor of the poor working-class 
     district Faaa.


                          cancer rates higher

       A report by the group ``Centre de Documentation & Recheche 
     sur la Paix et les Conflits,'' which translates center of 
     documentation and research on peace and conflict, indicates 
     leukemia and thyroid cancer rates were significantly higher 
     in French Polynesia than other Pacific island nations.
       The group's facts come from compiling cancer incidence 
     rates from the South Pacific Commission. Among French 
     Polynesian women the incidence of thyroid cancer was 17.6 
     cases per 100,000 population in 1989-90, compared with 8.6 
     for Fijian women in 1990 and 10.5 for Hawaii women from 1978-
     1982.
       Maire Masson, 38, a Tahitian woman who had a thyroid 
     operation at 19, wants to know if her illness and similar 
     health problems in her family are hereditary or a result of 
     nuclear fallout.
       ``When I ask one doctor, he says, `It's hereditary.' When I 
     ask another, he says, `No, it's not hereditary,''' Masson 
     said.
       Haoa said the doctors at the French government hospital did 
     not list the cause of deaths for his five children--and when 
     he told them he thought it was due to his work at the nuclear 
     sites, they told him he was crazy.
       But he recalled one physician taking him aside and saying 
     that if he wanted the real answers, he would have to get them 
     at medical facilities in a different country.


                       record-keeping criticized

       While France has spent millions of dollars on nuclear 
     tests, its gathering of health statistics in French Polynesia 
     during the early years of nuclear testing has been sorely 
     lacking, critics say.
       The official cancer registry of French Polynesia has 
     existed only since 1985. As late as 1988, only 60 percent of 
     cancers were being recorded in French Polynesia, critics say.
       Death certificates became compulsory after 1981 but the 
     cause of death is not always listed.
       ``The statistics are very badly gathered and very badly 
     used,'' said Marie-Therese Danielsson, author of the book 
     ``Poisoned Reign,'' published in 1986.
       Until 1985, the main hospital in French Polynesia was 
     controlled by the military. Patients who had major medical 
     problems were flown to France.
       The physicians group Medecins Sans Frontieres, has charged 
     that the French government failed to fulfill its ethical 
     responsibility toward those potentially at risk from 
     atmospheric testing.
       The group, in its review of information this year, said no 
     reliable health statistics were available to see if people 
     were adversely affected as a result of 41 atmospheric tests.
       ``If such data do exist, they are not available in the 
     public domain,'' the group said.
       The group in July recommended French Polynesia improve its 
     registry of cancer patients, publish all available facts 
     on the health of French nuclear workers, and track the 
     health of the general population.
       It also called for improving health care access for 
     residents of Gambier and Tureia, islands close to Mururoa.
       Roger Ducousso, director of radiological protection for the 
     French defense department, said he doesn't think medical 
     tests for the people in French Polynesia are necessary.
       Ducousso said the radioactive fallout was so low in dosage 
     that there is no possibility of chromosome damage.
       Ducousso said the high rate of thyroid cancer among 
     Polynesians in French Polynesia is an ethnic characteristic 
     and is common among Polynesians in Hawaii, New Caledonia and 
     New Zealand. He said during the years of testing at Mururoa 
     and Fangataufa, no one died or got sick from radioactivity.


                       case may be hard to prove

       Haoa disagrees but doesn't know if he'll ever be able to 
     prove it. He knows information about his health was recorded 
     while he was working at the nuclear test sites. He said he 
     took a physical every three weeks, including a blood test.
       Haoa, who claims he witnessed more than 30 atmospheric 
     tests, recalled viewing one from about 45 miles away that 
     produced a mushroom cloud rising more than 1,300 feet.
       He and other workers would return to the test sites a few 
     hours to a few days later, depending on the wind direction. 
     He wore a special suit to shovel sand over contaminated 
     areas. Later, he and other workers built walls and bunkers 
     over the sandy areas.
       At Fangataufa, employees who arrived by air went into an 
     enclosure and entered a bus 

[[Page H10846]]
     to travel to parts of the atoll. Signs outside warned workers not to 
     walk across the lagoon. One day, a friend did. That night, 
     his friend died, Haoa recalled.
                                                                    ____


            [From the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Oct. 9, 1995]

             France Claims No Radiation Increase From Test

       Paris.--France said today that its recent test of a nuclear 
     warhead with the explosive force of just below 110,000 tons 
     of TNT had not raised radiation levels at its Fangataufa 
     atoll testing site in the South Pacific.
       Measurements taken at the site in French Polynesia found 
     the same low ``background'' level of radioactivity after the 
     Oct. 1 test as before the blast, European Affairs Minister 
     Michel Barnier wrote to EU Environment Commissioner Ritt 
     Bjerregaard.
       The level of radioactivity on the atoll corresponds to weak 
     natural background levels, Barnier said in his letter to 
     Bjerregaard, which was sent on Friday.
       A copy of the letter has been released by the French 
     Foreign Ministry.
       Bjerregarrd has complained that France prevented European 
     Commission experts from visiting Fangataufa and refused to 
     turn over data on radioactivity in the water and marine life 
     around the Mururoa atoll, where the first French nuclear test 
     in the current series took place on Sept. 5.
       Barnier, in his letter, dismissed her complaints, saying 
     the commission experts were allowed to visit more sites than 
     had initially been planned and were given all the data they 
     sought.
                                                                    ____


  [From the Congressional Research Service, the Library of Congress, 
                            Washington, DC]

                 Source: Le Monde, August 2, 1995, n.p.

            Paris Publishes First List of Its Nuclear Tests

       Francois Mitterrand was the first French President to 
     authorize a greater number. More than two hundred shots since 
     1960, three caused initial contamination.
       France has just published for the first time a complete and 
     detailed list of her nuclear tests since 1960, the date of 
     the first test in the Sahara. This list, which contains the 
     code name for each operation, the hour of the explosion, 
     place and explosive power released has been published in a 
     general survey (three volumes and a fourth in preparation) of 
     nearly 670 pages published jointly by the Administration of 
     Military Applications (DAM) for the Atomic Energy Commission 
     (AEC) and the management of the Centers for Nuclear 
     Experimentation (DIRCEN). It appears that in toto France has 
     had 240 launches, of which 12 are classified. It was Francois 
     Mitterrand who was the one of all the heads of state during 
     the Fifth Republic to order the--by far--the greatest number 
     of tests.
       In the Sahara between February 1960 and February 1966, 
     France initiated 17 launches in all (four atmospheric tests 
     and 13 underground tests at the bottom of a mine in a 
     mountain. In Polynesia, between July 1966 and July 1991, 
     France undertook 175 tests (41 in the atmosphere and 78 
     underground ones in shafts dug in the crown of coral atolls 
     and 56 underground ones in shafts sunk into the lagoon.) The 
     Mururoa Atoll was used for the greatest number of shots 
     (163). There were also 12 tests carried out on Fangataufa, 
     about 40 kilometers away.


                       twelve ``security'' shots

       Of all the tests three were of the same kind: It concerned 
     dropping a life-size weapon from a plane (a Mirage IV, a 
     Mirage III-E, and a Jaguar) in July 1966, in August of 1973, 
     and in July, 1974 several dozen kilometers away from Mururoa 
     Atoll. These gravitational weapons were the NA-22 (60 
     kilotons) and the AN-52 (20 kilotons) then in use in the 
     French Air Force. There were replaced by the ASMO missile, 
     weighing 300 kilotons.
       To the above total must be added 12 security experiments on 
     Mururoa between July 1966 and November 1989. The security 
     shots were intended to verify whether the weapon was safe, 
     i.e., that it would not explode inopportunely when 
     subjected to external pressures of shock, uncontrolled 
     vibrations, or fire. Security bolts are thought to be able 
     to stop the launching of the weapon. These bolts also have 
     a more political purpose, as the head of the government is 
     the one who in the last resort would be the one to start 
     the nuclear conflagration--if need be--by raising the 
     bolts by remote control.
       Most of the tests, including the Sahara ones, were 
     moderate- or low-energy ones. So, just to stay with 
     Polynesia, 63 tests (18 atmospheric tests and 45 underground 
     ones) developed a force of between 5 to 20 kilotons (the 
     energy emitted at Hiroshima was about 18 kilotons). Likewise 
     56 tests (11 atmospheric and 45 underground) were between 20 
     and 200 kilotons. Finally 54 tests (10 atmospheric and 44 
     underground) emitted energy between 150 and 1000 kilotons. 
     Only three atmospheric shots (the first in May of 1968 on 
     Fangautafa, and the second in August of the same year on 
     Mururoa) developed very high energy, higher than a megaton.
       The tests, according to AEC engineers caused initial 
     contamination. The first, named ``Ganymede'' was an 
     atmospheric shot under a balloon on Mururoa in July 1966. The 
     second, called ``Rigel'' was an atmospheric (the bomb was put 
     on a barge) in September 1966 on Fangataufa. The third one, 
     called ``Parthenope'' was an atmospheric shot under a ballon 
     [sous ballon] in August 1973 on Mururoa. The areas had to be 
     decontaminated, i.e., surface sediments freed from 
     radioactivity.
       The comparisons undertaken afterwards by French technicians 
     with the news being broadcast at the time by the New 
     Zealanders--at the time France issued no statements 
     concerning the testing--show that the method of detection 
     using seismic sensors at a distance from the explosion is not 
     reliable.


                    three times more than de gaulle

       If the error in assessing energy is greater than 100 
     percent in 20 percent of cases, which means that the 
     detection by New Zealand stations of the shock caused by the 
     underground test overestimated by a factor of two the actual 
     power of the bomb tested in Polynesia. This method of 
     oversight is, at present, the only one available, if you 
     exclude direct espionage on test sites themselves or in the 
     laboratories which subsequently use the results obtained. Its 
     non-reliability could prove to be disturbing in the long run 
     during discussions on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in Geneva, 
     in dealing with countries likely to carry out clandestine 
     low-energy tests in areas difficult to reach or prohibited 
     from any one site control.
       A final observation may be made from this information, 
     published for the first time from an official French source. 
     Between February of 1960 and August of 1968 (there were no 
     tests in 1969), General De Gaulle authorized 30 shots: the 17 
     recorded in the Sahara and 13 more in Polynesia. Between July 
     1981 and July 1991 (the moratorium was declared in April 
     1992), Francois Mitterrand ordered 86 tests. During a period 
     of time comparable enough for the two men, give or take a few 
     months--Mitterrand undertook roughly three times the number 
     of tests than did the founder of the Fifth Republic and 
     theoretician of dissuasion.
       However, despite this pronuclear zeal, history will no 
     doubt remember that in 1992, Mitterrand decreed without prior 
     consultation with the administration, chiefs of staff or AEC 
     officials a unilateral suspension of French tests, which 
     General de Gaulle defied the international community by 
     deciding in 1960 to launch the first French tests in the 
     Sahara, while the United States (and hence Great Britain, 
     which tested on American territory) and the ex-Soviet Union 
     were observing a joint moratorium.

                          ____________________