Should Obama Visit Marshall Islands?
Residents of the Pacific nation used by the U.S. as a nuclear test site call聽for a visit in wake聽of Hiroshima聽visit.
President Obama just聽became the first U.S. president to visit Hiroshima, site of the first nuclear bomb used to kill聽people.
Now some in the Marshall Islands want Obama to visit their country, which was the location for scores of nuclear tests in the 1940s and 1950s.
鈥淚 question Obama鈥檚 trip to Japan. Can he come and visit me as I was there during the Bravo incident and got injured,鈥 said Nerje Joseph, 68, a survivor of the 1954 Bravo Test on Bikini Atoll.
The story is reported in The Japan Times.
“In a recent interview facilitated by the Radiation Exposure Awareness Crusaders for Humanity-Marshall Islands (REACH-MI), a group focused on the nuclear weapons testing legacy in the islands, Joseph lamented the lack of interest in a trip to the tiny nation,” the article explains.
鈥淭he bomb in Hiroshima was smaller than the bomb that affected Rongelap in terms of strength,鈥 Joseph said of the atoll where he once lived. 鈥淏ut why (is Obama visiting) Hiroshima and not the Marshall Islands?”
In related news, U.S. military personnel that helped clean up the damage to the Marshalls after the tests to obtain just聽compensation from the Veterans Administration for their exposure to radiation.
Read Civil Beat’s related reporting:
“A Journey That Has No Ending”
Nuclear Victims: Will We Help Vets Who Cleaned Up After Atomic Blasts?
