AS President of French Polynesia Moetai Brotherson attends the 54th Pacific Islands Forum in Solomon Islands this week, he has spoken about the legacies of French nuclear testing in his country, and called for strengthening the South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone.
Delivering a keynote address to a side event on self-determination this week, Brotherson said: “The world has recognised that nuclear weapons are not only a matter of strategic security. They are a matter of human rights and humanitarian law.”
“Our vision is not one of bases, fleets or weapons, but of dialogue, talanoa and consensus – an Ocean of Peace. We must reassert the Pacific Way as the true security architecture for our region – one rooted in cooperation, inclusion and mutual respect.”
Last month, 6 August was the 80th anniversary of the atomic attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States. It was also the 40th anniversary of the Pacific Islands Forum in Cook Islands, where regional leaders signed the Rarotonga Treaty for a South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone (SPNFZ).
Today, forty years after the SPNFZ treaty was first adopted in Rarotonga, President Brotherson said it should be enhanced.
“I was lucky enough to participate in the 40th anniversary of the signing of the treaty, along with the 60th anniversary of the constitution of Cook Islands, in Rarotonga a few weeks ago” he said.
“The Rarotonga Treaty gave us the framework. Now we must give it new political energy. Our shared vision is that of an Ocean of Peace – a Pacific that rejects nuclear weapons and nuclear waste, and that embodies the values of humanity, dignity and respect for life.”
Brotherson also endorsed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which entered into force in January 2021. This global nuclear ban treaty includes unprecedented provisions requiring parties to assist nuclear survivors and contribute to environmental remediation in Pacific countries that suffered five decades of US, British and French nuclear testing between 1946-96.
“The Pacific has contributed profoundly to global awareness because we live with those consequences every day,” Brotherson explained. “It is for this reason that we must reconfirm our commitment to a nuclear free Pacific. This was clearly affirmed in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which highlights the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons use and testing.”
As the Pacific Islands Forum issued an “Ocean of Peace” declaration this week in Honiara, Aotearoa-New Zealand and ten Forum island states have already signed and ratified TPNW. Unlike most members of the Forum and ASEAN, the Albanese government in Australia is yet to sign TPNW, even though indigenous communities in South Australia bore the brunt of British atomic testing in the 1950s.
As it modernises its nuclear arsenal, the French government joins other nuclear weapons states in refusing to sign the treaty. The administering power of French Polynesia, France still controls the defence and security policy of its colonial dependency. Despite this, the local legislature in Tahiti sees TPNW as setting a new norm in international law.
In September 2023, the Assembly of French Polynesia unanimously passed a resolution endorsing TPNW. It encouraged “the participation of France as an observer state at the next TPNW Meeting of the States Parties” and “calls on the French government to “work towards France’s adherence to this new international norm.”
Since adopting TPNW, Pacific governments have been working to promote concrete steps to address the environmental, social and health legacies of nuclear weapons. At the United Nations General Assembly, Kiribati and Kazakhstan—both states that were used for nuclear testing—have led a TPNW initiative to develop a funding mechanism to assist nuclear survivors around the world.
Despite its pledge of partnership with Forum island countries, France repeatedly votes No on United Nations disarmament resolutions advanced by Kiribati and other Pacific nations. In 2023 and 2024, for example, Paris joined Moscow and Pyongyang to vote against UN General Assembly resolutions supporting assistance to nuclear survivors.
Even though nuclear testing in Mā’ohi Nui ended nearly thirty years ago, President Brotherson and the Assembly of French Polynesia continue to call on France to address impacts from the 193 atmospheric and underground tests at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls, conducted between 1966 and 1996.
In July, the French National Assembly released a 730-page report with 45 recommendations to address these economic, environmental, health and cultural legacies. Initiated by Mereana Reid-Arbelot, a member of the independence party Tavini Huira’atira no Te Ao Mā’ohi who is a deputy in the French legislature, the report recommends assessment of the economic costs and benefits of activities by the South Pacific testing site, the Centre d’expérimentation du Pacifique (CEP).
The report proposes initiatives to educate a new generation of Polynesians on the nuclear history of their nation. It also calls for the release to the public of data from all meteorological and radiation measurement stations in French Polynesia from 1966 to 1996.
In Tahiti, the largest Christian denomination in the country, the Ètārētia porotetani mā’ohi, has joined community groups like Association 193 and Moruroa e Tatou (the association of Maohi workers who staffed the nuclear tests sites), to prepare activities to commemorate next year’s 60th anniversary of the first French nuclear test at Moruroa on 2 July 1966.