International Meeting
2024 World Conference against A and H Bombs
Session 1
Hashimoto Yoichi, Deputy Director
Pacific Nuclear Disaster Assistance Centre
We demand truth about Bikini incident and relief to the victims
Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak to you about the Bikini Incident. I am Hashimoto Yoichi, Deputy Director of the Pacific Nuclear Disaster Assistance Centre.
For 70 years since the Bikini Incident in 1954, former crew members of tuna fishing boats based at Kochi and their bereaved families have been ignored and left unattended by the Japanese government. Today, I am going to speak about the lawsuits they have filed to demand that the truth be completely uncovered and adequate assistance be extended to them.
The United States conducted nuclear tests in the Bikini Atoll and the Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands as many as 67 times from 1946 through 1958. The tests included “Operation Castle,” a series of hydrogen bomb tests carried out six times from March 1 through May 14, 1954. They yielded a total power of 48.2 megatons TNT equivalent or 3,220 times the destructive power of a Hiroshima bomb, equivalent of a Hiroshima bomb detonating every day for more than 8 years and 9 months.
The explosions blew up the coral reefs into pieces. Marshall islanders, tuna fishing boats with their crew members on board and freight ships passing near the test sites were showered with radioactive fallout that spread from the Pacific region eventually to the whole world.
It is well known that the Daigo Fukuryu Maru or Lucky Dragon was exposed to radiation but it is little known that a total of 1,000 tuna fishing boats had to dump their catch because it was contaminated by radiation. One-third of those ships were from Kochi Prefecture, Japan and more than 10,000 affected crew members were left without health checks and did not benefit from any relief measures. The truth about U.S. nuclear testing in the Pacific and radiation exposure has been kept hidden from the public.
In the background, there was the Japanese government’s cover-up policy. At the end of December 1954, the government announced that it would discontinue radiation detection on the catch of tuna and the discard of radioactive fish unloaded at the five government-designated ports, including Tsukiji in Tokyo and Yaizu in Shizuoka. On January 4, 1955, the government accepted a political settlement with the US offering 2 million dollars to Japan in exchange for Japan’s silence on the Bikini tragedy except for the Daigo Fukuryu Maru case.
The crew members and their families, who lived on deep-sea fishing, were obliged to refrain from publicly telling about radiation exposure in the Bikini Incident because they feared that they would not be able to sell the fish they caught if seen as radiation contaminated.
Doors to the uncovered truth about the Bikini Incident were opened by high school students in Hata district, western part of Kochi Prefecture. The students decided to make a study on their parents’ younger days and the history of their hometown “Taking a closer look at what peace means for our local community through our parents’ memories of their younger days”. This is how, in 1985, they came across the stories of two young men affected by the Bikini Incident.
One of them was Fujii Setsuya. He was a Nagasaki A-bomb survivor and he was affected by radiation for the second time when he was working as a crewmember on board of a tuna fishing boat. He suffered severe psychological damage and was hospitalized in Kurihama Hospital. At age 27, he committed suicide by drowning.
The other one was Taniwaki Masayasu. He was a third-year student at Murotomisaki Fisheries High school. During single-rod bonito fishing training, he got sick from aplastic anaemia with white blood cell count dropping to 1,000. He died at the age of 21.
After learning about the death of the two young men, the students decided to launch the Hata High School Seminar Initiative, guided by a former high school teacher Yamashita Masatoshi. The seminar consisted of interviewing about 300 former fishing boat crewmembers and their family members by visiting fishing villages inside and outside Kochi Prefecture.
Fishermen first kept their mouth shut but they soon realized how serious the students were as they were so eager to know the truth. They eventually began to tell their personal experiences in the Bikini Incident. They talked about white ash falling on them, about eating intestines of the fish they caught, and about squall showers. Their stories suggested that they took radioactive substances into their body, resulting in internal radiation exposure. The students investigative work was recorded in a documentary film titled, “We will not forget the sea of Bikini” with a narration by the famous actress Yoshinaga Sayuri.
Mr. Yamashita in 2014 obtained the disclosure of health ministry’s official documents, made at the time of the Bikini Incident, containing information on the fishing boats and the radiation doses found on the crew members. A group of experts was formed to verify the facts about Bikini Incident through these documents. It is led by Hoshi Masaharu, who is now a professor emeritus at Hiroshima University, and Dr. Kikima Hajime in Shizuoka. The group is doing research to scientifically unravel the former crew members’ internal exposure to radiation. Their effort was reported in the documentary program broadcast by NHK Hiroshima station, titled, “The truth about the hydrogen bomb test uncovered 60 years since the test.”
After the discovery of documents that would serve as evidence material confirming the testimonies former fishing boat crew members gave during the interviews with the high school students, as well as literatures and articles that explained scientifically what is “internal radiation exposure”, 23 former crew members of 21 fishing boats and 20 family members of deceased crew members in May 2016 filed a compensation lawsuit with the Kochi District Court against the state.
At the same time, 11 former crew members and their family members submitted to the National Health Insurance Association the application for work-related accident compensation under the seamen’s insurance system. However, the application was turned down on the ground that causal relation was not confirmed between the illnesses and the exposure to radiation.
In the state compensation lawsuit, the plaintiffs insisted that the Bikini Incident was a case of human rights violation that had lasted nearly 70 years with the state being held accountable. Specifically, they accused the government for continuing to conceal the fact of radiation exposure and for doing nothing to help the affected crew members and trying to cover up the incident itself.
The plaintiffs took the district court ruling to the Takamatsu High Court for appeal. However, their appeal was turned down on the ground that the statute of limitation of 20 years had expired and that the government had never intentionally concealed the fact of exposure to radiation. The high court however acknowledged the fact that crew members of tuna fishing boats other than the Daigo Fukuryu Maru were exposed to radiation, and concluded that if there is a need for assistance for the victims as the Hibakusha Aid Law cannot be applied to them, then, there is no choice but to hope that the legislative and executive branches of government will further examine the matter.
Following this high court decision, the plaintiffs gave up appealing to the Supreme Court in a move to change their judiciary fight.
They brought the case to the Tokyo District Court demanding that the earlier rejection of the work-related accident insurance benefit be revoked.
They also brought the case to the Kochi District Court demanding state compensation in accordance with Clause 3 of Article 29 of the Constitution, on the grounds that the crew members were exposed to radiation at the high seas. Trials are now underway.
These judiciary struggles were taken up by NHK TV program “Close-up Today” broadcast on July 18, under the title of “Seventy years since the Bikini Incident — Thinking about concealed radiation victims with Yoshinaga Sayuri.”
“The Bikini Incident is not over.” “The Bikini Incident is little known to the public.”
To inform and educate the younger public, we have produced a picture-story show and a picture book titled “The wishes over the sea of Bikini” for elementary and junior high school students.
I believe that these two lawsuits demanding the establishment of the truth of the Bikini Incident and the relief of the crew members who were exposed to radiation are linked to the effort to pave the way for making Japan ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and for providing assistance to the Hibakusha around the world.
I conclude my statement by asking for your support. Thank you.