reprinted with permission from
Poison Fire, Sacred Earth,
TESTIMONIES, LECTURES, CONCLUSIONS,
THE WORLD URANIUM HEARING, SALZBURG 1992
pages 215-216

There is another reason, a biological one, for this refusal to listen to each manifestation led by our churches, political parties, young people movements. I am convinced about one thing, and that is that the French political class of the last 30 years belongs to the kind of human race without an organ, this organ being two ears. . . .
Why does this country have no qualms at all in keeping secret all medical information about atomic sites of the last 25 years? This information would help to know about the actual state of health of the island's communities living in the peripheric zone of Moruroa and of all those people who had to work out there. Hiding behind the national defense secret service, France prohibits civil and independent laboratories to check the radioactivity level referring to samples taken personally in the atoll of Moruroa and in the forbidden zones. . . .
. . . This is a meeting, but, in fact, I see it as a cultural prophecy. As you are sitting in front of me, I would like to compare you to the left and to the right side of a long, double pirogue, like those that helped our ancestors to spread out over these thousands of kilometers of grains of sand in the Pacific. I would like to put a mat in here, and a sail, I would like us to wave this sail together as a symbol of solidarity between all of us, between representatives of aboriginal and native peoples that came from all over the world to support. This sail will have a picture with all the posters we made and its symbol will be the boomerang of the Australian Aborigines, a boomerang that should send back to Europe and to every other big nation the economic, social and cultural pollution. The laces of this sail will be strong enough to stand the most violent wind, because they are made of hair of all those indigenous women struggling for peace. The aboriginal victims will sit on one side while those who are not victims but show their solidarity to the indigenous will sit on the other side of the pirogue. At that moment, we will compose the crew of our pirogue. The stars above us in the galaxy will show us the way for reconciliation with the planet earth, and this is my last word.

---

Gabriel Tetiarah

Gabriel Tetiarahi, Tahiti, Polynesia. Delegate of Te Hui Tiama (Ligue Polynésienne Indépendante des Droits de L'Homme), President of the Human Rights League.
(This speech was held originally in French)

"I can see the sense of events changing. The glorious children of the trunk of God will come and see these trees here at Tabutabubatea. They will look different from us and yet, they are like us. They'll come from the trunk and take our homeland. It will be the end of our habits, and the holy birds of sea and earth will come here and cry over what we have learned from this decapitated tree."

This is not from me. One of my ancestors said it more than four centuries ago. His name was Waita, and he was right. The white man came to our land in the 18th century, disorganizing completely our society based on traditions. In the fight he lead against us, he distinguished the low corallic islands from the high volcanic ones while we, the children of these trees, the children of Waita, have always thought that both the 110 atolls and 30 high islands have always been together in a symbiosis.

The Pacific Islands are our Original Mother and we are the fruit from this tree and this Original Mother, we are Ma and Ohi. We are tree-men, but, after 1966, the other Original Mother, the colonialistic France, is committing the biggest crime in history. She experiments with her atomic dead-engine in Moruroa and Fangataufa. By planting it in the womb of our Original Mother and in that of our mothers here, she kills the soul of all Maohi children even before they are born. After 175 tests in the atmosphere and under the earth, France had relapsed 174 times committing the crime it committed towards the Original Mother. Nowadays, our Original Mother is lacerated, split into thousands of clefts, from which one day will flow out the radioactive substances.

The genocide has started and we begin to notice its effects. I wonder why that nation, having invented human rights in 1789, is just keeping to this idea of going on with the tree, with the disaster. There are mainly four reasons for that: First, the principle of the French Constitution recognizes the right of each individual, but there is only one French, this French being defined according to the French principles of nationality. There are no Maohi people here and no Kanakes in New Caledonia!

The second reason is, and we are the living example to prove that, that France knows how to exalt human rights in eastern countries or during fights between Croats and Serbs and vice-versa. But for its strategic and military affairs in the South Pacific point, France ignores the native people of the territories it once colonized. After having 1993 been declared the International Year for the Indigenous Peoples' Rights by the organization of the United Nations, the French behaviour is for us nothing but backward and insulting.

There is another reason, a biological one, for this refusal to listen to each manifestation led by our churches, political parties, young people movements. I am convinced about one thing, and that is that the French political class of the last 30 years belongs to the kind of human race without an organ, this organ being two ears.

France still shows colonialist reflexes, though. A late poet, Henri Hirot, said once to one of his French friends: "Why should I invite you to stay at my place when it is nothing but your place?" If things are like they are, there is no reason to wonder about the fact that France, the medium world-power dreaming of a place in the international chess-game, does not have any scruples implanting military camps for the protection of nuclear spots on land that has been stolen from our indigenous chiefs, cowardly murdered 150 years ago. Why does this country have no qualms at all in keeping secret all medical information about atomic sites of the last 25 years? This information would help to know about the actual state of health of the island's communities living in the peripheric zone of Moruroa and of all those people who had to work out there. Hiding behind the national defense secret service, France prohibits civil and independent laboratories to check the radioactivity level referring to samples taken personally in the atoll of Moruroa and in the forbidden zones. I would like Mr. Vladimir, one of the witnesses and of Russian origin, who proposed the creation of a new international institute, to remember that this institute will only work out with aboriginal people if it shows solidarity towards all little peoples throughout the Pacific.

In my opinion, the French army would be more useful in Yugoslavia now, and they still would like us to believe that this violent increase of cancer cases, leukemia and other diseases are absolutely not related to the nuclear experiments. They just may take it back to Paris, to the Champs-Elysées, their bloody atomic-bomb, their decadence, their shit!

There is no time left to tell you about the economic consequences of the small financial compensation that our people get in return for these killing tests. But in this little time left, I want to assure you that the resistance of the Non-Governmental Organizations in our liquid continent to the atomic experiments is a part of the inalienable and indescriptive right of my people, and only of my people, to dispose of its political, economical, social and cultural space. France has no right at all to refuse this evidence. France does not promote human rights, it just insults them. Referring to what I've been told by my friends of the Pacific that are here today and by all aboriginal peoples, I think that we have the right to protest. Our dreams and the aboriginal vision of our Pacific, our Original Mother, our women, our children, tell us to take both juridic and prophetic initiatives.

This French nation of nuclear experiments that is persecuting our traditions and religious ideas must be judged by the Court of Peoples in Brussels, managed by the association Lelio Bassot, because of crime towards humanity, state terrorism and nuclear racism.

On the other hand, all important nations that are responsible for these or similar crimes in the Pacific, as for instance in Australia, the Marshall Islands, Benaout or Johnston must be judged by the same Court for the same reasons: crime against humanity, state terrorism and nuclear racism.

I would like to finish now by telling you about the dream I had two days ago. After that, I immediately started writing a poem and I want you to sing it with me later. This is a meeting, but, in fact, I see it as a cultural prophecy. As you are sitting in front of me, I would like to compare you to the left and to the right side of a long, double pirogue, like those that helped our ancestors to spread out over these thousands of kilometers of grains of sand in the Pacific. I would like to put a mat in here, and a sail, I would like us to wave this sail together as a symbol of solidarity between all of us, between representatives of aboriginal and native peoples that came from all over the world to support. This sail will have a picture with all the posters we made and its symbol will be the boomerang of the Australian Aborigines, a boomerang that should send back to Europe and to every other big nation the economic, social and cultural pollution. The laces of this sail will be strong enough to stand the most violent wind, because they are made of hair of all those indigenous women struggling for peace. The aboriginal victims will sit on one side while those who are not victims but show their solidarity to the indigenous will sit on the other side of the pirogue. At that moment, we will compose the crew of our pirogue. The stars above us in the galaxy will show us the way for reconciliation with the planet earth, and this is my last word.

My name is Gabriel Tetiarahi, I'm president of the Human Rights League and vice-president of a non-governmental organization that covers more than 300 non-governmental organizations in the Pacific.

I thank you for your attention.