Activist/author ZOHL de ISHTAR was the only Australian to sail 483 kilometres with the New Zealand peace flotilla to the French nuclear test sites at Moruroa and Fangataufa. She joined the Maohi campaign for independence while researching her next book Moruroa — Land of the Maohi. When, in 1842, France seized control of Tahiti Island from the Maohi Queen Pomare IV it promised to bring "peace and civilisation". A 1880 treaty reiterated the promise to protect the peoples, their lands and cultures in exchange for the right to administer a government. The Maohi people claim that France has broken the treaty by testing over 180 nuclear bombs (1966-92) on their islands. They are moving to reassert their inalienable right to sovereignty as the indigenous people of the land. It is not an easy task. The world, responding in outrage to Chirac's resumption of nuclear testing, has kept significantly silent on the issue of independence. But for the Maohi, nuclear testing cannot be separated from colonisation. Radio Tefana's director Vito Maamaatua explains: "We cannot separate the fight for nuclear-free and independence because we are still a colony. In our statute for internal autonomy under article 3 it says that the French have sovereignty of the air, the soil, under the soil and all the sea. They can do what they want here. We just have to sit down and shut our mouth." The Maohi have no illusions about the costs of colonisation. President of the Women's Association of Tavini Huiraatira, Marguerite Tetuanui's story is just one among countless others: "I am not a scientific person but I am sure that all the population of Polynesia will die from the cancer. My mother is dead from cancer of the stomach. My brother Paulo is dead from general cancer. My sister Celistine is dead from cancer of the lungs. My sister Leonie is dead from cancer of the lungs. My sister Liliane is dead from cancer of the breast and lungs. My sister Madeleine and myself have had cancer of the breast." While in Papeete I listened to personal stories of the carnage. I nursed a baby deformed by the tests while I listened to her mother talk of her all too numerous miscarriages. Roti Tehaevra of Vahine To'a (Women Warriors) told me: "We have deformed babies here. Maybe we have babies like in the Marshall Islands — "jelly fish babies". We don't know. Why? Because we don't have scientific people here to tell us the truth. Never the French government give us official records. I know some women who [gave birth] to children with no hands, no ear[s], the feet are not fully-made ... It is a crime against humanity." Clarisa Lucas of the nuclear victim support organisation Kura Ora insists that the number of Tahitians seeking cancer treatment is alarming: "I know that every month we have almost 40 persons who fly to France to be operated for cancers and other maladies associated with nuclear. And some of them they come back they die." The French ministry of health's records tend to support Clarisa's figure. It reported that in 1987, 285 Tahitians accessed foreign hospitals (94% going to France) — 24 per month — but, given that according to the ministry's own Dr Laudon only 70% of cancers diagnosed at Mamao Hospital in Papeete in 1988 were recorded, the figure is probably much higher.
Health statistics
A representative of the French High Commissioner in Papeete admitted that France had neglected to keep adequate health statistics since testing began in 1966, but asserted that there had been no harmful impact from the detonations. When I asked how France could be so certain, given the absence of a comprehensive radiological survey, of the test site workers and the peoples and lands of the Tuamotus I was told that they had undisputable evidence: no-one had taken up the government's offer to attend a clinic if they believed their health had been affected by nuclear testing. I had no difficulty finding people affected by the tests. I sat with men who had worked on Moruroa only now finding the courage to speak out after years of fearful silence. Clarisa Lucas described the difficulty of documenting the violations: "People are afraid because of the pressure of the French government. Most victims are dead or they are dying and even those who are dying don't want to speak. My friend work on Moruroa and he was contaminated. He was almost dead. I say to him, "What happened?" He says, "No. I can't talk. I am in a military hospital. Maybe they can kill me." "I was with some doctors. They saw an old man. He had a scar on his neck — thyroid — and his legs are all blistered and scarred but he keep the silence. The doctor ask, "Can I write this?" "Oh, no. No. Don't do this. I don't want to go to jail." It is crazy. He's dying! Some people are very afraid."Colonialism
The so-called "riots" following the resumption of nuclear tests were an expression of the pain of the Maohi people felt under this regime. Roti Tehaevra voiced her outrage at French nuclear colonisation. "They don't have human feelings for those people who live there. Nuclear tests is not respect for human life. Only the bomb is the important thing. If people die of cancer it doesn't matter because you need rats, guinea pigs. We are the experiment for France. They say to the people that there is no danger. Bullshit!" Renewed nuclear testing has convinced the majority of Maohi that they must demand the departure of France. Clarisa Lucas is one voice among many: "Polynesians are beginning to talk big for France to go. I believe in that. I am French from my father, but I hate French now. I do. I hate them. The French are saying, 'You Polynesians can't govern your country. We French know how to do that.' So now I say, 'Go away French! Go away!' We have other countries in the Pacific, we are friendly with. We don't need French. They can go back. If they want to think French, eat French, do French, then they can go back — quickly. If they say that this is a free country, that this is Polynesia, then they can stay. But we need to decide what we need for our country." But France's deliberate policy of dependency has created and fed a fear that political sovereignty will result in economic and social disaster. According to Marguerite Tetuanui: "Many people think we will die if we have independence. They say, 'If no French here we cannot live'. It is not true. Not true at all." It is a belief that contrasts starkly with the socioeconomic situation that the majority of Maohi face. Living in slums they struggle daily to feed and care for their children, while their youth, having dropped out of school and unable to get jobs reserved for French-settlers, roam the streets. Meanwhile the French live in traditional thatched houses along the beautiful beaches in comparative luxury. France pours millions of francs into Tahiti-Polynesia every year, in the form of aid with very distinct political strings attached (such as the right to test nuclear weapons), but the Maohi do not benefit according to Oscar Temaru, leader of Tavini Huiraatira: "All the money that the French government is putting into this country goes towards the French administration, the French military presence, French enterprises. They are taking the money back to France." Independence parties, preparing for the inevitable, are striving to create sustainable strategies for the future. Areas of possible development are tourism, plantations and fishing and pearl farming. But there is growing concern that these economic projects will not be viable in a Tahiti-Polynesia contaminated by nuclear testing. Oscar Temaru is worried: "We have our own resources, we can live without the French, but who can assure us that our children will be able to continue to eat our fish? Who can assure us that in 20 years' time we will be able to sell our produce to different buyers throughout the world? Who can guarantee that?" Although, as the so-called "riots" indicate, the Maohi people are prepared to fight for their freedom they are attempting to regain their human rights through peaceful means. But, as Marguerite Tetuanui warns, France may not allow this to happen. "For every country France gives back there is always war before freedom. I am from a political party that says, 'no war'. We don't want war. Our Queen Pomare IV [in 1842] said she will never want Tahitian blood, never, and we want to keep that. No blood. Maybe they will kill us. We don't know. We try for peace." We can stand beside our indigenous sisters and brothers by calling on the government to: lobby for the re-establishment of the United Nation's Committee for Decolonisation and for Tahiti-Polynesia to be re-included on the list; stop exporting uranium to France and stop mining uranium on Aboriginal land; and join the international boycott of French goods.[Zohl de Ishtar's book, Daughters of the Pacific (Spinifex Press, 1994), can be ordered through bookshops for $24.95.]