reprinted with permission from [Myron Mataoa]
Poison Fire, Sacred Earth,
TESTIMONIES, LECTURES, CONCLUSIONS,
THE WORLD URANIUM HEARING, SALZBURG 1992
pages 217-219
Now this island of Moruroa -- you know what Moruroa means?
Moruroa means "the land of secret". The land of secret. And today
that land is really a land of secret where we don't get any
information from the French administration on how bad was their
testings since 1966. They have moved out some of the people living
on some of the islands close to Moruroa, they moved those people
to Tahiti and we, ever since then, the whole health department is
under military control. So you will not find any record, health
record since 1966 till today. This has been kept very secret. But
ever since then we have had a lot of leukemia cases, cancers,
heart problems, handicapped babies born, we have babies born with
one leg, with one arm or with no arms. We have babies born with a
big head like this. I've seen a witness, a family who has a boy of
16 years old, and that boy had a very big head like this with a
short, a tiny body like this. It looks like a baby. A baby's body
with a huge head. And this boy was 16 years old. And this boy, his
family lives on one of the islands, the island called Ahe. And all
of this you will not find on a health record, because, like I
said, this has been kept very secretly under the military control.
So the island, the name of Moruroa, the land of secret, has really
the meaning of it and it makes us sad to see that our land and our
people have to suffer.
And I want to say to the scientists, especially to the Council
of Scientists that are here in this meeting, convince your
colleagues, convince your nuclear scientists to stop! They are
criminals! I hate Einstein because -- not only Einstein but all of
those who have gone too far on their research on making nuclear
weapons. They run too far, too far with the American Indians
because they have uranium on their lands, too far with the
aboriginal people in Australia because of the uranium, too far
with the minority people like us. Why do we have to suffer because
of the so-called intelligence or progress or for the name of
development? And we have to suffer because you people think that
you are too smart.
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Myron Mataoa
Myron Mataoa, Tahiti, Polynesia. Member of Tavini Huiraatiraa
(Polynesian Liberation Front).
My name is Myron Mataoa. I come from Tahiti and I represent the
only independence movement in Tahiti called the Tavini
Huiraatiraa, and also the strongest antinuclear movement in
Tahiti. Our movement was organized in 1977, and we have been
travelling all over the world to get international support for the
movement, and we also work throughout our people on the islands.
We had a lot of hard time at the beginning because we were facing
the great superpower of France and to alter our people that was
under colonization for over 150 years. In 1842, on the 9th of
September, the first treaty was signed by our Queen, Pomere IV(?),
and the French representative which was the Admiral Dipetitua(?),
and I think that was the first trick that our people went through
because we had no guarantee at all. Our land was taken, our mana
was taken and our people, our people's right was also taken away.
I have here this transparency to show you, because I was
surprised when I got here in Austria to find out that a lot of you
people don't know where Tahiti is. Some of you told me Tahiti is
over in the Atlantic Sea or in the Mediterranean Ocean. It is not
there. Tahiti is in the South Pacific, the last paradise on earth,
nuclear paradise. On the transparency here, Tahiti is there, an
island -- with all these groups of islands -- about 200,000
people. And out of those 200,000 people, something like 20 to 40
percent are people from outside of Tahiti, meaning from Europe,
from elsewhere, that live in Tahiti. And then for you that do not
know where Moruroa is -- I'm asking my friend to point out the
island of Moruroa. Okay. That's Moruroa. Moruroa is where France
is having their nuclear testing, and that since 1966. 1966 they
blew up their first atmospheric bomb. They called it the bomb H,
the hydrogen bomb. The first one in Moruroa and the second one in
the island of Fangataufa which is an island close to Moruroa. And
they reckoned that those two bombs there were exploded of the
force of a 150 bombs equal to those who were dropped in Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. So you can see the superpowers of France are working
out on the nuclear set-up.
Since 1966 to 1991, there were about 44 atmospheric testings
and over a 120, 130 underground testings. I'll show you the map of
Moruroa with the different testing sites. This is the atoll of
Moruroa. It's made of coral reef. You see, all these are coral
reefs. And the inside is the lagoon, it's ocean here and ocean
outside. And all of these black dots that you see on the map, it
shows the many testings, nuclear testings that France has had in
Moruroa. And there you see these, there are several of these signs
on the map, that means the island has cracks in the coral reef
from the top down under the ocean. And this was proved by
Jacques-Yves Cousteau. I think, everybody knows who is Cousteau.
Cousteau is a well-known man in France and I think in the whole
world of the research that he has done throughout the ocean.
Now this island of Moruroa -- you know what Moruroa means?
Moruroa means "the land of secret". The land of secret. And today
that land is really a land of secret where we don't get any
information from the French administration on how bad was their
testings since 1966. They have moved out some of the people living
on some of the islands close to Moruroa, they moved those people
to Tahiti and we, ever since then, the whole health department is
under military control. So you will not find any record, health
record since 1966 till today. This has been kept very secret. But
ever since then we have had a lot of leukemia cases, cancers,
heart problems, handicapped babies born, we have babies born with
one leg, with one arm or with no arms. We have babies born with a
big head like this. I've seen a witness, a family who has a boy of
16 years old, and that boy had a very big head like this with a
short, a tiny body like this. It looks like a baby. A baby's body
with a huge head. And this boy was 16 years old. And this boy, his
family lives on one of the islands, the island called Ahe. And all
of this you will not find on a health record, because, like I
said, this has been kept very secretly under the military control.
So the island, the name of Moruroa, the land of secret, has really
the meaning of it and it makes us sad to see that our land and our
people have to suffer.
And I want to say to the scientists, especially to the Council
of Scientists that are here in this meeting, convince your
colleagues, convince your nuclear scientists to stop! They are
criminals! I hate Einstein because -- not only Einstein but all of
those who have gone too far on their research on making nuclear
weapons. They run too far, too far with the American Indians
because they have uranium on their lands, too far with the
aboriginal people in Australia because of the uranium, too far
with the minority people like us. Why do we have to suffer because
of the so-called intelligence or progress or for the name of
development? And we have to suffer because you people think that
you are too smart. So get the message through to these people.
Because the way it looks now, if we take France, America, China
and all of those big countries that have bombs, one of these days
they will blow up the whole planet. Not only that we're going to
disappear, but they will disappear, too. So convince them to stop!
Because if they were not there, I don't think the government will
ever make any bomb. But because of the scientists, because of
their research, then the government, a lot of governments utilize
them, post them to make the bombs. And we have to suffer.
I don't know if you know how it looks, a bomb, but this is to
give you an idea of what is a bomb, explosion of a bomb. This has
been done in Moruroa, one of the first atmospheric testing in
Mururoa. I said to these people, why are they doing this on our
back ground, on our back yard, in our mother's stomach, in our
ocean? I like the theme of today. Theme of the day is the Day of
Waters. Waters, we live on waters. The islanders live on waters,
we live out of the sea, we live out of the land, but this is going
to kill us, to exterminate us because we get our food from there,
we get our strength from there.
What else to say? Our struggles as a political movement -- we
said it is a political matter and it has to be brought out to the
political level. And we said only independence of our country, of
our islands, of Tahiti. Only the independence, the political
independence, then we can get this damned thing out. Because as
long as we remain a French territory, France will never cease to
do this in Moruroa. Of course, they stopped this year and it looks
like France is the good one. But they will start back next year. I
want to inform you that on Sunday, this coming Sunday, the 20th of
September, France is having a referendum on a national level in
France, in its territories, its departments on the Maastricht
treaty. And what is the Maastricht treaty, do you know it? Do you
Germans know what's the Maastricht treaty? That means a free
circulation for you people to come to our islands and live there
and possess our lands and be part of this. You know that? Because
you are creating a new community, it's called the European
Community, and Germany will be part of this. Austria maybe will be
part of this. Belgium will be part of this. Holland will be part
of this, so we are multiplying our problem by twelve instead of by
one. We're not facing any more, and we will not be facing anymore
to one nation, we'll be facing to twelve big nations from Europe!
And do you think it's fair? Do you think that is fair for us? Now,
I want to hear from you, do you think that is fair?
Audience:
No!
Okay. take the message back to your governments!
Look at this transparency. It shows you the island of Moruroa.
It shows you here when they blow up, up, the nuclear testing, the
bombs, and it shows here the radioactivity that goes in and where
fish go there and eat on the coral reef, because they get their
food from the coral reef, and it comes to this and here our people
go out and fish and get the fish and eat them and they get
poisoned and they die. This is a sort of genocide to our people.
What do you think about it? I'm asking this conference, The World
Hearing, to think about that small island of Tahiti, 20,000
kilometers from here, maybe you will never hear about, I mean, I
think you never hear about Tahiti. But it's 20,000 kilometers out
there, and by looking up the great ocean that surrounds our
islands, there are about five million square kilometers of ocean
area that we have. We can put the whole of Europe in. The great
waters, the Day of Waters, that's us.
I'm getting too emotional, so I'll finish up with my
presentation of the day. I'd like to bring up the case of the
Kanak people too, because we feel that the Kanak also has a long
way to go. If you don't know where the Kanaki people are, they're
in New Caledonia. New Caledonia, another French territory, they've
gone through a lot of struggles, they've gone through fights,
they've gone through wars. Some of their people died, killed, and
they are considered as rebels in their own countries. And my heart
goes with them and their struggle. And my heart goes, too, to the
West Papua people; they are struggling, too, very heavily. They
are having guerrilla wars over there in their countries. They are
having genocide in the West Papua. And nobody cares about. No
nation will look after their cases. Why? Because Indonesia has a
lot of interest in West Papua. And that nobody wants to speak out.
We, as natives of the South Pacific, we would like to support the
West Papua case and I'm asking this conference to look up, to take
up the West Papua case, make a resolution that they also need to
survive, they also need the self-determination. They also need to
get their lands back. My heart also goes to all of my Indian
brothers and sisters. The suffering they have gone through since
500 years ago, until today. And I'm happy to hear from them that
they will never cease, that they will never stop their struggles.
My heart goes with them. And I'd like to congratulate the
organization of The World Uranium Hearing for bringing us here --
it took us 35 hours to come from Tahiti to your place. And thank
you for giving us the time to speak up, to share our troubles, our
problems with you.
God bless you!