ANTINUCLEAR SOLIDARITY MARCH 2022
Tuesday, March 1st 2022, marked the 68th anniversary of Castle Bravo, the largest thermonuclear bomb detonated in the Pacific that is said to have been 1000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.
As tribute to the Marshallese people, UNA Fiji joined the Marshall Islands Student Association (MISA), various national and regional organisations, student associations and interested individuals in a solidarity march for nuclear justice, in remembrance of the nuclear victims and survivors in the Marshall Islands, the Pacific region and across the globe.
The annual marches began in 2019 as an initiative to raise awareness of the impacts of the Marshallese nuclear tests and since then has become a momentous occasion for people to strongly advocate for a nuclear free Pacific. The theme for 2022’s march was Kōñe Jubar – meaning: “strongly rooted as iron wood”.
In the last century, over 300 nuclear tests had been conducted in the Pacific region, with remnants of these nuclear devices still being detected across the region, particularly in the Marshall Islands. People remain displaced in the atolls, suffer due to the geographical reach of nuclear disasters created decades ago and are faced with increasing health risks caused by radiation.
Nuclear waste remains stored (and yet to be removed) in the Radioactive Runit Dome located on Enewetak atoll with the dome said to be leaking. In addition to the growing concern that is climate change, if nothing is done to remove this nuclear waste it could lead to a nuclear disaster in the Pacific and threaten the livelihoods of many Islanders in the region.
Hence, we firmly stand with our fellow brothers and sisters as advocates in the fight for a nuclear free Pacific. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and survivors of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands, Pacific region and across the globe, as well as the victims and survivors of nuclear warfare.
Let us continue to strive towards a world free of nuclear activity that is safer for future generations and the present.
With Class, Dignity and Elegance –
#Antinuclear
#NuclearFreePacific
#MyFishIsYourFish
