Nuclear Justice in Maohi Nui

Hinamoeura Morgant-Cross is a young French Polynesian whose realization that her own leukemia was a legacy of the French atomic tests in the South Pacific led her into activism. She works to ensure that the stories and experiences of the victims and their families will not be forgotten and to pressure the French government to both acknowledge responsibility and provide medical and financial support.

She was elected to the Polynesian Assembly of Representatives in May 2023 and shepherded a unanimous Assembly vote supporting the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Morgant-Cross received the Nuclear-Free Futures Award in 2023 during the 2nd Meeting of the States Parties to the TPNW in New York. Nukewatch will feature the second part of her story in the summer 2024 Quarterly.

By Hinamoeura Morgant-Cross

TAHITI, MAOHI NUI — I was born in 1988 in Tahiti, the main island of French Polynesia. Until I was seven, France continued to explode nuclear bombs on my islands. Growing up, I never learned about the consequences of nuclear bombs at school. I didn’t even know there had been so many bombs, but what I did learn was that “thanks to nuclear power” we are a developed country.

Maohi Nui, known to the Western colonial world as French Polynesia, is a former French colony comprising more than 118 islands spanning almost one million square miles in the South Pacific Ocean. Maohi Nui belongs to France as a French collectivity with shared autonomy between the French government and the collectivity, a status that compromises our sovereignty on nuclear and other issues. France carried out dozens of atmospheric and underground tests in Algeria. But when Algeria gained independence in 1962, France turned to Maohi Nui to continue its nuclear experiments. Between 1966 and 1996 France detonated 193 nuclear bombs — 46 atmospheric and 147 underground — on the islands of Moruroa and Fangataufa and in our lagoons.

The French nuclear experimentation center is located 750 miles from Tahiti, but the nearest populated island to the testing zone, the island of Tureia, is only 75 miles away.

Evacuation occurred only once in the entire 30 years of experimentation. The sole island of Tureia was temporarily evacuated a few weeks before August 24, 1968 when the first French H-bomb test Canopus was dropped, 150 times more powerful than those which destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The French army instructed inhabitants of the island of Mangareva, 250 miles from ground zero, only to shelter from rain. No recommendations were made regarding water or food.

The fight for nuclear justice in Maohi Nui consists of properly educating the population about our nuclear history, which has been concealed by France for too long and downplayed for too long. Internationally, the anti-nuclear movement is denouncing the environmental and health consequences of France’s 193 nuclear bombs.

I’ve been a member of the Assembly of French Polynesia since May 2023, and I’m a fervent anti-nuclear campaigner. In September 2023, I presented a motion for a resolution in support of the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) which was supported unanimously by members of the Assembly.

An extract of the resolution: “Today, it is very regrettable for French Polynesia, its population and its environment, that the French State is not a signatory to this Treaty and does not take part in the meetings of the States Parties to the TPNW. This is why, through this motion for a resolution, it is imperative that, as the territory that hosted the French nuclear testing center (Centre d’expérimentation du Pacifique – CEP), and as the population that was and still is a victim of nuclear fallout, we support the TPNW and solemnly ask the Head of State to: as a first step, encourage France to attend the next meetings of the States Parties to the TPNW as an observer state; secondly, work towards France’s accession to this new international standard.”

Through this resolution, my wish was to send a powerful message to France, but also to the international community and in particular to the countries taking part in the TPNW meetings: as a French collectivity, Maohi Nui has not the ability to sign onto the TPNW, but wants to be part of the meetings and discussions. Thanks to ICAN, representatives of the community of Maohi Nui were able to take part in the two meetings of the TPNW.