By Anthony Brown
In October 1995, Brisbane indigenous health worker Noritta Morseu-Diop went to Tahiti, the chief island of French Polynesia, along with five other Aboriginal people. They went to protest at the resumption of French nuclear testing in the South Pacific and to offer solidarity and support to the local indigenous Maohi people.
While there, Noritta became good friends with a local indigenous anti-nuclear activist, Leilah Tahutini. Noritta promised Leilah that she would try to get her out to Australia so that she could tell people here about what was happening in Tahiti.
Earlier this year, after two long years trying to get the funds together and with the help of the Quakers, Noritta finally managed to get Leilah to Australia.
Leilah spent about a month here. Much of that time she went around talking to community organisations around Brisbane.
She told people about the effects French nuclear testing was having on the environment. She spoke of the terrible sicknesses that now affect the Maohi people.
She spoke of French government secrecy surrounding the tests. She said that the French had bought off many Maohi people to stop them protesting, and this was contributing to the spiritual and cultural decay of her people. She spoke of the aftermath of the testing and what lay ahead for the Maohi people.
After 204 nuclear explosions on Moruroa and Fangatufa atolls since 1966, the French military is pulling out. It is demolishing its nuclear test facilities on the atolls and sending its military personnel on Tahiti back to France.
But the end of nuclear testing does not mean that now everything is fine for the Maohi people. According to Leilah, it's anything but.
The French military continues to maintain that its 30-year testing program has had no negative effects on the ocean environment around the two atolls. Last October, Jean Eric-Winkler, the head of the French army's press office, told New Scientist magazine, "Nothing is contaminated at Mururoa"
Noritta and Leilah disagree. Noritta says that when renowned French scientist Jacques Costeau explored the bomb sites in 1985, he found cracks in the atolls, something the French military continues to deny.
The cracks mean that radioactive waste can seep from the underground test areas into the surrounding seas. Leilah said that her people are afraid to eat fish in case it is contaminated.
"There is a lot of food in the ocean we can't eat any more. If people eat fish now, they get sick", she says.
According to a report in a Japanese newspaper in January 1996 and based on information disclosed by a French Nuclear Energy Agency specialist at an unofficial meeting in Washington in September 1995, the French military detected iodine 131 near Moruroa after its nuclear test on September 5, 1995.
When absorbed into the human body, iodine 131 concentrates in the thyroid gland, causing cancer in the worst cases. Humans can end up with iodine 131 in their bodies after eating contaminated fish.
According to Leilah, many Tahitians have thyroid problems.
"Hundreds of women go overseas to get treatment. Many end up going to military hospitals in France. But the French won't tell us what's going on.
"People are afraid in Tahiti. People are afraid to talk about what's happening. When you go to a doctor there and have a checkup, the doctor won't tell you what you have."
Leilah said there are a lot of birth defects in Tahiti, leukaemia is widespread and the island is plagued with "all other sorts of cancers that we never had before".
"Long ago the people there were very healthy. They ate healthy food they caught or grew themselves. Now many are sick", Leilah says.
There have never been proper medical studies on how the nuclear testing may have affected the health of the Maohi people, mainly because the French authorities refuse to allow access to medical records.
According to a report in the British Guardian Weekly in January 1996, "The biggest secret was never the tests, but their consequences. Greenpeace has documented dozens of cases of illnesses. Fifty-six former test-site workers recently signed a letter alleging a French colonial cover-up."
The French military has also clammed up on the environmental impact of the testing.
According to a paper put together by Australian scientists for the South Pacific environment ministers' meeting in Brisbane in August 1995, the French military would have good information on how its testing has affected the environment on, beneath and around the atolls, because their scientists would have been studying all aspects of the explosions.
The problem, according to these Australian scientists, is that the French military won't release that information, making an independent assessment of the environmental impact near to impossible.
"Everywhere we go to try to get an answer, to try to find out the truth, what's happening to our environment and to the health of our people, the doors are closed", Leilah says.
One of the greatest problems Leilah and other anti-nuclear and pro-independence activists face is that some Maohi people have either given the French a free hand or ignored what's been happening to them and their environment.
During the last tests, the colony's president, Gaston Flosse, a close friend of Jacques Chirac, said: "The one thing that is clear is that the tests are not dangerous either for the environment or the population".
Leilah says the reason so many of her people have ignored what's been happening is because the French government has bought them off.
During the testing, the French government poured about A$2 billion a year into French Polynesia.
According to Leilah, this has led to widespread corruption.
Flosse has twice being forced to resign from office because of corruption allegations. But in the last elections in 1996, he was elected again.
Besides, as Leilah points out, the colonial government is the territory's major employer. About 40% of the work force is employed by the government.
"Who's going to kick up a stink if they work for the government? You might lose your nice job if you do."
The problem, according to Leilah, is that 30 years of French government handouts have devastated the local traditional economy and created a culture of dependency.
Before the French started exploding their bombs, the Maohi depended on fishing and farming for their livelihood.
"They have put in so much money that the people are forgetting about farming and fishing. They don't know how to do it any more. They all work for the military and the French government. They depend too much on the French."
Now that the French military is packing up and going home, the money is drying up.
The French have agreed to a 10-year aid package for the colony. But once the 10 years are over, according to Leilah, the people will be left with nothing, and they won't have the skills or abilities to help themselves.
Leilah believes that it's important for her people to kick the French out once and for all and become an independent state.
Leilah expects much pain ahead, but out of this she sees hope that her people will wake up and see what's happened to them under French rule, hope that one day her people will decide they've had enough.