A History of Nuclear Testing in the Pacific: colonialism at its worst

I was living in Tonga in 1963 when the French exploded their first nuclear device. I remember the occasion clearly. We were walking home after a camera club meeting when the sky turned into a startling  display of colour, as if a rainbow has disintegrated. We didn't know what it was, and we din't have our camera with us.

Click on this video to watch and listen to "Trouble in Paradise."

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"......the calm of French Polynesia's Mururoa atoll was shattered by an explosion of unbelievable force. Within a second, the azure tropical sky flashed bright orange, and was ruptured by a towering radioactive cloud that mushroomed into the atmosphere; the placid lagoon was stirred into a tempestuous cauldron, while the coconut trees on the white sand islets were bent by the sheer force of the nuclear explosion.

"It's beautiful," said President Charles de Gaulle at the sight of the first of France's 193 nuclear tests in the South Pacific. But for French Polynesia and many of its people, the fallout from decades of nuclear weapons testing is still being dealt with 50 years after the first test."

The British as well

From the late 1950s the British were also testing nuclear devices, first in Western Australia, then on Christmas Island which is now part of Kiribati.  They claimed the explosions were safe. Besides the British, some 550 NZ sailors, two frigates and 276 Fijian soldiers were involved.

This was colonialism at its worst. Destroy parts of another country and harm its people, while keeping your own people safe 18,000 kilometres away.

--ACW