Sunday Star Times October 11, 2009

Deadly Fallout

Mururoa Atoll's poisoned legacy lives on - but there is finally hope that French victims will receive the compensation they deserve. Adrienne Bourgeon reports from France.

HALIMA LORILLERE takes out an old-fashioned photo album and points to a faded image of her husband, then aged 20, standing next to a helicopter.

Dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, Rene was a mechanic who hosed down the helicopters flying back to Mururoa Atoll after measuring radiation levels in the atmosphere immediately following a nuclear bomb blast.

The water drained directly into the lagoon where Rene often went swimming and fishing with his colleagues. They freely ate the fish and drank the water, which was purified by tablets his wife says.

Thirty years after her husband's military service at Mururoa Atoll and five years since he died of an aggressive and rare form of lung cancer, Lorillere was recently awarded a ($NZ1000) monthly pension by the Military Court in the Var, southern France.

It took a five-year court battle to obtain compensation for her husband's death - and the French widow has vowed to keep fighting for her children's sake.

Her victory signals a major ground shift in France's treatment of compensation claims for veterans of the nuclear testing programme in Algeria's Shara Desert, and in French Polynesia, because it is the first time a favourable judgement has not been systematically appealed by the Ministry of Defence. In the past, the French government as consistently obstructed compensation claims and stubbornly refused to accept and link between illnesses suffered by veterans and contamination from radioactive fallout.

"My husband and I decided to take legal action when he was still alive and I carried on the fight in his memory, but also for our children," she told the Sunday Star-Times  in an interview in her apartment in the southern French town of Draguignan.

Their younger daughter suffers from thyroid problems and repeated ovarian cysts, while her son was born with severe allergies and immune deficiency disorders, Lorillere believes their poor health results from the radioactive contamination her husband received during the time he spent at Mururoa between August 1973 and May 1974. During his nine months on the atoll, French scientists conducted four atmospheric tests, including the ill-fated Parthenope which the Atomic Energy Authority admitted in 1995 as causing the "beginning of contamination".

"They were taken out by boat and given protective glasses." Lorillere recalls. "When the bomb was detonated they were simply told to turn their backs. No one ever told him that there was any risk. They were told that the bombs were clean."

Two years after Rene returned to France, doctors removed his left kidney, which was no longer functioning. In 2003 he was diagnosed with lung cancer and he died a year later.

"He was such a good man, he just worked all his life but he never had the chance to take advantage of his retirement," she says, shaking her head sadly. When her initial request for compensation was turned down by a military court, Lorillere joined forces with the French Nuclear Veterans' Association (AVEN), which has engaged Paris-based militant lawyer Jean-Paul Tessionniere to represent the victims or the families of those who have already died.

According to the final judgement. "a body of determining evidence demonstrated a non-presumed link between work carried out by Rene during his national military service and his unexpected death.

"Asa he was required to clean the helicopters patrolling in flight during the nuclear explosions, he could not have avoided being exposed to radioactive particles that could not be removed because of long-lasting radiation."

While Lorillere says her compensation is a step forward, sh is highly critical of the draft law currently before the French parliament, which aims to recognise and compensate veterans suffering illnesses caused by exposure to radiation during the  testing programme.

The proposed legislation, which was approved by the National Assembly in June, makes no provision for the care of veterans' children, many of whom are suffering second-generation illnesses caused by radiation, she says.

"These children must be taken care of and their medical conditions acknowledged."

A $20 million fund will be set aside for the first year and Defence Minister Herve Morin said the new law would enable France to peacefully close a chapter of its history by offering a solution to the veterans who had lived with a profound sense of injustice arising from the lack of response to their claims.

Morin defended the testing programme, backed by General de Gaulle, whose vision of grandeur enabled France to guarantee the protection of its vital interests and play a major role with the other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.

It was not a question of repentance - "how can one repent for having wanted peace and security for one's country?" - but it was proof that France is ready to turn the page.

An estimated 150,000 people took part in the programme, in which France tested a total of 210 bombs between 1960 and 1966. Four atmospheric and 13 underground tests were carried out in the Sahara before the experiments transferred to Mururoa and Fangataufa atolls, where 46 atmospheric and 147 underground blasts took place.

Despite the strictest safety measures, certain contamination resulted, including 10 atmospheric tests in French Polynesia which caused "significant radioactive fallout".

The proposed legislation is to be debated by the senate on Wednesday. If the majority votes in favour, it will be the "first hole in a wall of denial" that has prevailed ever since testing began, according to the AVEN president, Michel Verger.

"There was always such a culture of secrecy and omerta surrounding the danger of the tests and finally the real facts are coming to light," said Verger, recalling his own experience in the Sahara in 1960 when he watched the "Blue Desert Rat" bomb explode.

Today he suffers only minor cardiovascular problems, but said he is fighting on behalf of the 4700 members of the association to get the legislation amended, as it is deemed unfair and too restrictive.

One of the main problems is the lack of presumption of a causal link between a list drawn up of 18 cancers and the presence of victims in the zones of radioactive fallout. "Because the minister of defence is not tied to this double condition of illness and a presence in an affected zone, cases can be rejected on the flimsiest pretext."

The association is also unhappy that each victim is to be judged on a case-by-case basis by a compensation committee made up of scientists and doctors selected by the government, and subjected to medical and defence secrecy.

The absence of AVEN or other interest groups such as its sister organisation, Mururoa E Tatou in Tahiti, from the compensation committee is unacceptable.

"The veterans are the only people who really know what the conditions were like when the tests were carried out and our opinion must be sought in judgement."

The final decision will rest with the minister of defence, which means the government will be both "judge and jury", entirely lacking impartiality.

Verger rejected as "wildly inaccurate" and estimate by the government that the law would apply to only a "few hundred cases".

He referred to results from a medical questionnaire answered by 1800 of the association's members which revealed that 30% suffered from some form of cancer and 20% had cardiovascular disease. Skin,eye and thyroid problems were also common. Reproductive difficulties were widespread as 25% of the veterans reported that they were sterile and 18% mentioned that their wife had suffered at least one miscarriage.

The New Zealand situation

 Earlier this year, the Mururoa Veterans' Society wrote to Prime Minister John Key to call for intervention in the long-running case for compensation for Mururoa naval veterans and their families. The letter, from society president Peter Mitchell, pointed out that "successive governments have, for 36 years, failed to officially acknowledge the effects on our people".

The society represents surviving members of the crews of HMNZS Otago and HMNZS Canterbury, and their dependants. The vessels were dispatched to Mururoa from June to August in 1973, to draw international attention to the French nuclear testing, and had crews totalling nearly 500.

They estimate that 90% of returned sailors, and many of their dependants, have complained of health consequences as a result of exposure to the nuclear tests.

Mitchell believes the French government has set a precedent which the New Zealand government should follow.

The society proposed that a review group be established, with a broad group of representatives, to see if there was sufficient evidence of a link between nuclear testing and cancer or cancer-related diseases, and to propose a course of action for the government to consider.