Nuclear workers union unhappy with offer of French compensation
Updated
The organisation which represents former workers at France's nuclear testing site in the Pacific says it does not believe the French government is sincere when it offers compensation. Between 1966 and 1996 France exploded nearly 200 nuclear bombs in its Pacific Territory, mostly on Mururoa Atoll. Previously France has denied anyone who worked on the tests was affected by radiation, but this week it announced it's drafting legislation to provide compensation. That announcement comes just weeks before the court in French Polynesia begins hearing a compensation case for eight former workers.
Presenter Campbell Cooney
Speaker: Association Moruroa E Tatou President Roland Oldham
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ROLAND OLDHAM: For the very first time the French Government will be in a tribunal, in front of its own tribunal, that because of the action of the victims of our own people, and we have been working for two years and a half, there has been report from report, and the 27 April and for us is a historical date for many, many years the French Government has been talking about clean nuclear test and there's no victim, so this is very, very important thing for us.
CAMPBELL COONEY: How many defendants or how many people will be represented in court?
ROLAND OLDHAM: Yes, well at the beginning we started with 10 people, but on this 10 people only eight on this file had been, how do you call it, the tribunal have...
CAMPBELL COONEY: ..have decided that they have a case?
ROLAND OLDHAM: Yeah, on these eight files, all the people are dead today, only three survivor. The French Government delaying, delaying as much as they can.
CAMPBELL COONEY: How many people in French Polynesia actually worked - how many survivors are there who did work on Moruroa and the other places where testing was done?
ROLAND OLDHAM: We don't have the exact account because even that's supposed to be secret defence.
CAMPBELL COONEY: Well, your organisation represents many of those who did. How many members do you have?
ROLAND COONEY: Our organisation, we have 4,400 - 4,600 people in our organisation, but we do think there's probably about, I don't know, 15,000 or 30,000 of our own people that had work on the nuclear site.
CAMPBELL COONEY: And of those people who worked there, Roland, how many of them are sick like many of these defendants who are appearing in this case here?
ROLAND OLDHAM: In our organisation, about 80% of people that come and resisting our organisation have health problem that goes from cancer to other kind of health problem. Normally cancer, thyroid, all this sort of thing.
CAMPBELL COONEY: The French Government has announced that it has drafted legislation to provide compensation for people who have been affected by their tests. Does this help?
ROLAND OLDHAM: We don't trust French Government very much. We do think that it's only strategy.
CAMPBELL COONEY: The French Government has named a figure for their first payments for compensation, which is around US$13.5 million. So when you think of the number of people who you know are affected is that enough?
ROLAND OLDHAM: I think it is a joke, it's a bad joke, it really is. I mean for 30 years of nuclear testings, for the thousand and thousand of people that had been working there, for the many people that have had cancer, it is a real bad joke.
