{"id":3353,"date":"2026-03-21T09:57:34","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T09:57:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/03\/21\/from-nuclear-to-climate-crisis-survivors-unfinished-business-in-the-pacific-greenpeace-org\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T09:57:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T09:57:34","slug":"from-nuclear-to-climate-crisis-survivors-unfinished-business-in-the-pacific-greenpeace-org","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/03\/21\/from-nuclear-to-climate-crisis-survivors-unfinished-business-in-the-pacific-greenpeace-org\/","title":{"rendered":"From nuclear to climate crisis survivors: unfinished business in the Pacific – greenpeace.org"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was written by “Eyes of Fire” author David Robie. <\/strong>
On the anniversary of the Castle Bravo thermonuclear test on Bikini Atoll on 1 March 1954, a devasting bomb that dusted Rongelap with radioactive fallout,
David Robie reflects on the nuclear-free struggle in the Pacific.<\/em>
Early in 2015, a judge upheld prosecution against three men accused of a kidnapping that led to the death of journalist Jean-Pascal Couraud, known as \u201cJK\u201d, in Tahiti in 1997.
More than a decade earlier, JK’s family lodged an allegation of murder with the police following claims that he had been assassinated by a (now disbanded) local presidential militia. An investigating commission had alleged that three men, Rere Puputauki, Tino Mara and Tutu Manate, had abducted JK and dumped his body at sea.
Twenty two years later, the family are still waiting for justice, and fed up with France\u2019s \u201cinvestigation\u201d. When the Rainbow Warrior bombing on 10 July 1985 is set against its broader political context in the Pacific, it can be seen that this event was much more than the dramatic, isolated episode against the Greenpeace flagship as portrayed by most New Zealand media.
An “Eyes of Fire<\/a>” video project in 2015, which included more than 40 student journalists, also demonstrated the importance of a continuing interpretation of these events for the future of Aotearoa New Zealand and its citizens. The students looked back at the past, but were asking questions relevant to the present and future when they interrogated me and my Greenpeace colleagues involved in the Rongelap voyage.
My own baptism in French nuclear arrogance and perfidy was thanks to the late Swedish activist, researcher, and writer Bengt Danielsson, who was awarded the 1991 Right Livelihood Award for \u201cexposing the tragic results… of French colonialism\u201d. He and his wife Marie-Th\u00e9r\u00e8se Danielsson wrote the classic and chilling books Moruroa, Mon Amour<\/em> and Poisoned Reign<\/em>. 
In 2021, a French investigation team published a book and website that introduced new revelations about the nuclear testing programme and its health and environmental harm inflicted on Tahitians. The book, Toxique: Enqu\u00eate sur les essais nucl\u00e9aires fran\u00e7ais en Polyn\u00e9sie<\/em>, by S\u00e9bastien Philippe and Tomas Statius, and the associated website Moruroa Files<\/em>, were a forensic analysis of about 2,000 French government documents declassified in 2013.
According to former Auckland University of Technology scholar Ena Manuireva, who was born in Mangareva (an atoll near the French nuclear testing sites of Moruroa and Fangataufa), these publications confirmed what Tahitian people already knew: \u201cThat since 1966, the French government has consistently lied about and concealed the deadly consequences of their nuclear tests, which they now seem to acknowledge, to the health of the populations and their environment.\u201d
Following the third test after French nuclear bombs began in the Pacific, on 7 September 1966, local Tahitian lawmaker John Teariki challenged then French president Charles de Gaulle by saying: “No government has ever had the honesty or the cynical frankness to admit that its nuclear tests might be dangerous. No government has ever hesitated to make other peoples \u2014 preferably small, defenseless ones \u2014 bear the burden.”
“May you, Mr President, take back your troops, your bombs, and your planes.\u201d 
De Gaulle ignored the advice. And it took another 30 years and 190 further tests before France stopped its ruthless nuclear pollution in the Pacific.
France\u2019s Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) was reported in early 2025 to have spent 90,000 euros in a big public relations campaign in a vain attempt to discredit the research in Toxique<\/em> and the Moruroa Files<\/em>, according to documents obtained by the investigative outlet Disclose<\/em>. 
The CEA published 5000 copies of its booklet, titled \u2018Nuclear tests in French Polynesia: why, how and with what consequences\u2019 and distributed them across Oceania.
The Rainbow Warrior <\/em>bombing, with the death of photographer Fernando Pereira, was a terrible tragedy. But a greater tragedy remains in the horrendous legacy of Pacific nuclear testing for the people of Rongelap, the Marshall Islands and \u201cFrench\u201d Polynesia; associated military oppression in Kanaky New Caledonia; and lingering secrecy.
More than eight decades on, the \u201cPacific\u201d nuclear powers have still failed to take full responsibility for the region and adequately compensate victims and survivors for the injustices of the past.<\/p>\n

The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), Melanesian Spearhead Group, other pan-Pacific agencies, and the Australian and New Zealand governments still have much work ahead. New Zealand and the PIF states should have vigorously supported the lawsuits of the Republic of the Marshall Islands in the International Court of Justice and the United States Federal Court last year. This was an opportunity lost.
New Zealand and the PIF states should now require full investigation of nuclear testing in French Polynesia and seek a more robust compensation programme than currently exists. New Zealand and the PIF states also need to take a less ambiguous position on decolonisation in the Pacific, give greater priority to that issue and seek a \u201cre-energising\u201d of the activities of the UN Special Committee on Decolonisation. 
This is especially important in relation to \u201cFrench\u201d Polynesia, Kanaky New Caledonia and the end of the Bougainville transitional political autonomy period with a unilateral declaration of independence slated for 1 September 2027.
Decolonisation is also a critical issue that has a bearing on New Zealand\u2019s relations with Indonesia, particularly over the six Melanesian provinces that make up the region known in the Pacific as \u201cWest Papua\u201d and Indonesia\u2019s growing politically motivated role in the region over climate change aid.
A massive new transmigration programme under current President Prabowo Subianto is taking place at the same time as Jakarta\u2019s \u201cecocidal\u201d deforestation regime intensifies in the Melanesian region with the destruction of millions of hectares of tropical rainforest.
\u201cThe wealth of West Papua \u2013 gas from Bintuni Bay, copper and gold from the Grasberg mine. Palm oil from Merauke \u2013 has been sucked out of our land for six decades, while our people are replaced with Javanese settlers loyal to Jakarta,\u201d says a West Papuan leader, Benny Wenda.
It is critically important that New Zealand and the PIF states take a lead from the Melanesian Spearhead Group \u2013 at least those states other than Fiji and Papua New Guinea, which have both been co-opted by Indonesian bribery through economic aid. 
They should take a more pro-active stance on West Papuan human rights and socio-political development, with a view to encouraging a process of political self-determination and a new, more credible United Nations supervised vote replacing the 1968 \u201cAct of No Choice\u201d.
With regard to climate change issues, it is essential to address the lack of an officially recognised category for \u201cclimate refugee\u201d under international law. It is also important to seek an international framework, convention, protocol and specific guidelines that can provide protection and assistance for people crossing international borders because of climate change. 
The existing rights guaranteed refugees \u2013 specifically the right to international humanitarian assistance and the right of return \u2013 must be extended to \u201cclimate refugees\u201d or climate migrants. 
This issue should be acted on systematically and with a practical vision by the PIF with the Australian and New Zealand governments. Australia and New Zealand need to respond to Pacific Island States\u2019 (PIS) concerns over climate change and global warming with a greater sense of urgency and resolve. 
Regional and country specific climate change plans and policies are needed to deal with large numbers of Pacific refugees or climate-forced migrants, in the event of worsening climate-change scenarios in the future. 
This is especially important for New Zealand, as a country with a significant Pacific population (442,632 \u2013 8.9 percent, 2023 NZ Census) with island communities well integrated into the national infrastructure and as a country that is well placed to welcome more Pacific Islanders. 
In April 2025, the New Zealand government announced plans to double defence spending as a share of GDP over the next eight years under its long-awaited Defence Capability Plan. 
However, the priority appeared to be New Zealand joining a new Donald Trump-inspired global arms race while the country faced no threat, at the expense of the climate crisis, nuclear free and Pacific peace-making capacity that have forged the country\u2019s global reputation. 
Speculation was also rife about the possibility of New Zealand joining a second tier of the controversial AUKUS security pact between Australia, the UK and the US, which would raise geopolitical tensions with little benefit for the Pacific region.
As Marshall Islands Journal<\/em> editor Giff Johnson has remarked, the people of Rongelap changed the course of history for Pacific nuclear justice by taking control of their destiny with the help of Greenpeace\u2019s Rainbow Warrior<\/em>. 
However, the relocation of the islanders four decades ago has revealed that the legacy of nuclear tests remains unfinished business. 
\u201cIn the current global turbulence, New Zealand needs to reemphasise the principles and values which drove its nuclear-free legislation and its advocacy for a nuclear-free South Pacific and global nuclear disarmament,\u201d says former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark. 
\u201cNew Zealanders were clear \u2013 we did not want to be defended by nuclear weapons. We wanted our country to be a force for diplomacy and for dialogue, not for warmongering.\u201d
\u2018On the fateful last voyage,\u2019 reflects Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director Dr Russel Norman, \u2018the crew of the Rainbow Warrior<\/em>, look at us in black and white through the lens of time, and lay down the wero \u2013 the challenge. They faced down a nuclear threat to the habitability of the Pacific. 
\u201cDo we have the courage and wits to face down the biodiversity and climate crises facing humanity, crises that threaten the habitability of planet Earth?\u2019 
To Ng\u0101ti Kura kaumatua Dover Samuels, the Rainbow Warrior<\/em> was \u201cprobably the biggest battleship that ever traversed the oceans of the world. But she wasn\u2019t armed with guns, she was armed with peace\u201d.
An edited extract from the final chapter of New Zealand journalist Dr David Robie\u2019s recent book <\/em>Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior<\/em><\/a> marking the 40th anniversary of the bombing. He sailed with the Greenpeace crew to Rongelap Atoll for the evacuation of the nuclear health-damaged community and remained on board for 11 weeks.<\/em><\/p>\n

His Rainbow Warrior resource website is at:  <\/em>https:\/\/eyes-of-fire.littleisland.co.nz\/<\/em><\/a>
The world poured a\u00a0record US$ 2.7 trillion into military spending\u00a0in 2024, with global spending rising every year for the past decade.
Greenpeace says a new partnership between Ireland and New Zealand is nothing but a ‘Greenwash Alliance’ to cover up agricultural methane emissions.
The war in Iran and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz have sent oil prices past US$100 a barrel \u2013 and Kiwis flocking to fill up.
You must be logged in<\/a> to post a comment.<\/p>\n

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This article was written by “Eyes of Fire” author David Robie. On the anniversary of the Castle Bravo thermonuclear test on Bikini Atoll on 1 March 1954, a devasting bomb that dusted Rongelap with radioactive fallout,David Robie reflects on the nuclear-free struggle in the Pacific.Early in 2015, a judge upheld prosecution against three men accused […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3353","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}