The Coming War on China Page #3

---

to study how human beings absorb radiation

from their foods and environment.

(guitar music)

- [John Narrating] These

people are guinea pigs.

They are part of the

experiment Project 4.1.

They're being returned to Rongelap,

an island 100 miles from

Bikini by the US Navy.

They were told repeatedly,

it was safe to go home.

This happy couple believed

they were going home to safety.

The man is John Anjain,

the mayor of Rongelap.

The "happy savage" from

the iron room in Chicago.

His wife is Madura, and this

is their baby son Lekage.

They had no idea of the

horror that lay ahead.

They are being returned to an island

described by a US atomic energy official

"as by far the most

contaminated place on earth."

He added, "it will be

interesting to get a measure

"of human uptake when people

"live in a contaminated environment."

The people of Rongelap

remained on their poison island

for 28 years as guinea pigs.

The objects of regular,

scientific examination.

(bell rings)

The islanders pleaded

with the US authorities

to move them to safety as evidence emerged

of the second generation,

the children were also poisoned.

Desperate to leave, the islanders

called on Greenpeace to rescue them.

This ship, the Rainbow Warrior,

moved the entire population

to an uncontaminated island.

They called it Operation Exodus.

(native music)

(eerie music)

This is Doctor Robert Conard,

a leading medical scientist

of Brookhaven National Laboratories.

Conard devoted his distinguished career

to examining the islanders.

He wrote, "the habitation of

these people on the island

"will afford the most valuable

ecological radiation data

"on human beings.

"The various radio isotopes present

"can be traced from the

soil to the food chain

"and into human beings."

Doctor Conard gained the

trust of whole communities

when he brought the islanders

to New York to be examined,

he showed them the sights

and had them over for a barbecue.

When John Anjain's son

Lekage died aged 18,

Doctor Conard sent the

man they called a savage

a sympathy card.

From your friend, Bob.

In 1957, Madura Anjain was

the smiling young woman

seen here on her way back to Rongelap,

unaware of the danger

she and her family faced.

This is Madura 28 years later,

grieving the death of her son

Lekage from radiation poisoning.

Like her son and her husband,

Madura died from a virulent cancer.

- I don't see any great

clinics that have been

established by, if not

the Department of Energy,

certainly not by the US government.

- There's a clinic downtown in Majuro.

There's also a Whole Body Counter.

You can have the plutonium in

your body measured as well.

Anyone can, for free.

- [John Narrating] This is

the plutonium measuring shop

where they'll tell you

how radioactive you are.

People waiting to be tested

are welcomed with a video

showing their islands being blown up.

And this reassuring commentary.

(speaks foreign language)

This is Rinok, a refugee from

the poisoned island of Rongelap,

whose family owned land and

lived a secure, prosperous life.

Now she lives in a shack

in the capital, Majuro,

with her children and grandchildren.

She has no water, no sanitation.

- [John] And power, she has electricity?

- [John Narrating] In

1986, the United States

granted limited independence

to the Marshall Islanders

on condition that they accepted a mere

150 million dollars compensation

for the damage caused by nuclear testing.

A claims tribunal was set up

and soon ran out of money

and appealed to the US Congress

more than a decade ago,

still awaits a reply.

Darlene Keju-Johnson was

a young health worker

who became the champion of her people

after she discovered the full

extent of their suffering

caused by nuclear testing that

many more islands were poisoned

than the Americans claimed.

(applause)

This remarkable speech in

1983 broke the silence.

- I bring greetings from

the Marshall Islands

and throughout Micronesia.

We have hundreds of women

who have miscarriages.

We have leukemia cancers.

We have thyroid cancers.

We have stillborn babies.

We have nowadays, I

just got back from home

and I've talked to many women

and men in the population,

is that we have babies

we call jellyfish babies.

A baby is born on a labor table

and it moves up and down like this.

It's a colorful, ugly thing

and it is not shaped like a human being.

It moves up and down like

this on a labor table

because that thing is breathing.

That is a baby.

- [John Narrating] In 1982,

Darlene married Giff Johnson,

the author of this tribute to his wife.

- Darlene was one of the liveliest,

most entertaining individuals that

I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.

She was a voice for the voiceless.

- [John Narrating] Like so

many Marshall Islanders,

Darlene died of cancer, age 45.

This is the largest of

the islands, Kwajalein,

occupied by one of

America's most important

and secretive bases.

Known as the Ronald Reagan Test Site,

it's a missile launch pad that commands

the Pacific Ocean all the

way to Asia and China.

(waves crash)

Here, the people of the Marshall Islands

are once again being

subjected to the testing

of weapons of mass destruction

designed for a coming war.

The base is part of a remarkable plan

known as Vision 2020.

Devised in the 1990's,

its aim is described

officially as full-spectrum dominance.

This means control of all land, sea, air,

cyberspace, and space.

- [Radio] Five, four, three, two, one,

ignition.

- [John Narrating] From

California, almost 5000 miles away,

the US Air Force tests it's

intercontinental missiles

by firing them at the Marshall Islands.

- Imagine a missile coming

screaming out of the sky.

It's absolutely terrifying.

I think that there's really

nothing that I can imagine

that would be more terrifying than this.

And we're talking about devices that

any one of them could go off course.

- [John Narrating] None of

this disturbs life on the base,

where small town America

has been recreated,

a wonderland of the suburban good life.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music)

- Fabulous.

There's nothing better than

living on a tropical island.

- I pretty much have

beachfront property, you know?

It's great, I love it here.

- [John Narrating] Just across

the bay is Ebeye Island.

Known as the slum of the Pacific,

more than 12,000 people live here

on a strip of land less than a mile long.

Many of them refugees from

what is now the missile base

and from islands poisoned

by nuclear testing.

Every day, people from Ebeye are

brought to work on the missile base

to water the gardens and the golf course

then they are ferried

back to their poverty.

This is apartheid in the Pacific.

(flies buzz)

- Ebeye needs a lot of things.

Medicine, education, and jobs.

Vegetables and fruits.

- Vegetables and fruits.

- Yes.

- Here we are, it's a tropical island,

and you need vegetables and fruits.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes