Eni Faleomavaega

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning to voice my concerns over the education and job training cuts of $4.5 billion in the majority party's proposed budget. Yes, Mr. Speaker, $4.5 billion taken out of the national education budget to cover the tax breaks for our corporate welfare community. I am a firm believer in education and its role in our society, and I have seen the success of such programs as vocational education, national student loans, and school-to-job training programs. Mr. Speaker, take this away from our children and our dislocated workers, our working families, and we place ourselves back into a recession, an education recession. I honestly believe, Mr. Speaker, that this institution has an obligation to this Nation to make education affordable to everyone. We have an obligation to this Nation to make education accessible to everyone. We need only to examine the benefits of the GI educational law that offered educational opportunities for the hundreds of thousands of GI's, who would not have obtained college education if this program was not provided by the Congress. Mr. Speaker, I believe all Americans should go into the 21st century with every opportunity to succeed. I believe we should give all Americans an opportunity to enhance their skills, further obtain educational knowledge to prepare themselves adequately for the job market. If you take away this opportunity--you cut the chances for anyone to succeed. You make it that much more difficult to the average person to make ends meet. I urge my colleagues to think seriously about the ramifications of this $4.5 billion cut to education and job-training programs and give our children, families a break for the future.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, this may sound like a broken record, but it is not, when it involves the lives of millions of men, women, and children who live in the Pacific region. The crisis may even impact the lives of millions of Americans who live in the State of Hawaii and the Pacific Coast States like Washington, Oregon, and California. Mr. Speaker, some of my colleagues are not aware of the fact that after our Government, that is, the United States Government conducted approximately 106 nuclear bomb explosions in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific region--yes, this was a period when we were at the height of cold war era between our country and the former Soviet Union--yes, our Government proceeded to conduct one of the most comprehensive nuclear testing programs ever recorded in history, and our national security as well as the security of the free nations of the world was at risk--so, we conducted these nuclear bomb explosions so that our nuclear capability would never be undermined by the former Soviet Union. We exploded nuclear bombs in the atmosphere, on the Earth's surface, beneath the Earth's surface, and yes, even on and under the Atoll Islands of the Marshall Islands--we did such a good job we even arranged to destroy one of the islands whereby it just simply disappeared from the face of the Earth--gone, no more in existence. Some of these islands, 60 to 28, Mr. Speaker, to this day are not fit for human resettlement because of the high degree of nuclear contamination still in existence. Now just remember, Mr. Speaker, the former Soviet Union was also aggressively pursuing a nuclear testing program--and the Soviets were also exploding nuclear bombs in the atmosphere and on and below the Earth's surface. Well, something happened Mr. Speaker. Not only protects foreign countries around the world, but the fact was that in some of the nuclear explosions that were conducted in the atmosphere--the winds and cloud formations shifted and carried nuclear contamination to various regions of the world--and in doing so, scientists discovered the presence of strontium 90 in milk and related products--yes, also consumed by Americans. [[Page H 14140]] So at the height of the cold war, the two major superpowers of the world decided to agree not to conduct any more nuclear tests in the atmosphere because of the dangers of nuclear contamination of the food cycle to Americans, Russians--and incidently, to other human beings who live in various regions of the world. Incidently, Mr. Speaker, I do not know if my colleagues are aware of the fact that despite our earnest efforts to advise President de Gaulle of France of the dangers of conducting nuclear explosions in the atmosphere--the French went right ahead and exploded 12 nuclear bombs in the atmosphere in the South Pacific. And is it any wonder, Mr. Speaker, that the thousands of Polynesian Tahitians who were exposed to nuclear contamination in the sixties and throughout the seventies--many are coming forward with stories of retarded and deformed children coming from the same parents, who historically have never experienced such traumatic problems in their lives. It is any wonder, Mr. Speaker, that the French Government either simply threw such records away or just doesn't care about the health of its own citizens--some 200,000 French citizens who live 14,000 miles from Paris and the first to be exposed to nuclear contamination when this atoll breaks open, that is, the Moruroa Atoll in French Polynesia. Mr. Speaker, I'm not much of an artist, but I want to share with my colleagues the potential horrors of Moruroa Atoll. When this atoll leaks radioactive materials, I fear very much that the health and safety of the peoples of the Pacific will be seriously at risk. Mr. Speaker, again I say to the French Government--shame on you for bringing the horrors of nuclear contamination to the peoples of the Pacific.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, I rise again today to express my outrage and dismay with the continuation of France's willful disregard for the millions of human lives that may be seriously at risk because of its nuclear testing program in the South Pacific. France has now exploded four nuclear bombs in addition to 166 nuclear bombs that have already been exploded, filling the landscape in and outside of the Moruroa Atoll in French Polynesia. It may not be now, Mr. Speaker, but within the next 10 years when the French Government is no longer around in this part of the world, when the Moruroa Atoll finally starts to break apart, the horrors of France's nuclear testing contamination will infuse itself into the fish and other living organisms in our Pacific marine environment. If by some accident of nature this atoll starts to break up because of serious volcanic or earthquake disturbances in or around the ocean floor, what then, Mr. Speaker? The French Government certainly does not have the capability to clean up the environmental nightmare sure to result, and perhaps our own country may have to commit resources to clean up the mess. Mr. Speaker, do our colleagues and the American people realize that scientists have verified that the two areas of the Pacific where considerable concentrations of ciguatera poisoning exist are found in the reefs and marine life of the Republic of the Marshall Islands and of French Polynesia? Mr. Speaker, may I remind my colleagues and the American people there is a direct correlation between nuclear tests that were conducted in the Marshall Islands by our own Government and the nuclear tests now being conducted by the French Government in French Polynesia. The point is, Mr. Speaker, ciguatera poisoning is heavily concentrated in the fish and marine life of these two areas of the Pacific, and there is a tremendous need right now to examine this serious by product of nuclear testing which poisons the very food we depend upon from the Pacific Ocean. Mr. Speaker, we do not need to explode more nuclear bombs to see if it does harm to human beings. The two nuclear bombs that were dropped on the residents of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki some 50 years ago killed and vaporized some 290,000 men, women, and children in Japan during World War II. Mr. Speaker, while the international community looks on, France continues to defy the concerns of millions of people around the world, continues to explode their nuclear bombs not in or anywhere near France, but some 14,000 miles away from Paris. Mr. Speaker, I submit here is a classic example of a so-called democracy that so desperately wants and desires respect and preeminence as a superpower in Europe, they are pursuing nuclear weapons development at the expense of the lives and safety of some 200,000 French citizens living in French Polynesia. Mr. Speaker, how does one justify the Chirac government's exploding more nuclear bombs when over 60 percent of France's public is opposed to nuclear testing? How about the 200,000 French citizens who will be directly impacted if nuclear contamination breaks out from the atolls, where the tests now are being conducted? Is it fair, Mr. Speaker, for President Chirac of France to conclude that the lives of 200,000 French citizens living in French Polynesia are deemed expendable for the sake of France to become a preeminent force in Europe? Is it also fair, Mr. Speaker, that President Chirac has now determined that the safety of some 28 million people living in the Pacific region is also deemed expendable so as to promote France's nuclear capabilities? In the name of fairness and equity, Mr. Speaker, what right does President Chirac have to impose the hazards of nuclear contamination on millions of people in the Pacific who are not subject to French control? Mr. Speaker, I am not one to defend China's nuclear testing program, but at least they test within their own backyard. Mr. Speaker, recently the gentleman from Massachusetts, Congressman Edward Markey, and the gentleman from California, Congressman Pete Stark, and myself introduced a bill, H.R. 2529, that places up to an 800-percent duty on all French beaujolais wine imported to this country. With each nuclear explosion, the price of French wine shall escalate. People should not buy French wine to protest France's testing. I ask my colleagues and the American people to support us in this effort, and to send President Chirac a strong message: Nuclear testing and nuclear bomb explosions are no longer relevant in our world today. I submit, Mr. Speaker, when are we going to stop this madness, in that we continue to justify ourselves by saying this is the only way that we are going to defend ourselves, by having a nuclear deterrent capability. Mr. Speaker, this is the height of contradiction. We outlaw germ warfare, we outlaw chemical warfare, but we don't touch nuclear warfare, the most destructive warfare in existence. This the height of hypocrisy, Mr. Speaker. The height of hypocrisy. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record articles on the European Community's reaction to the bombings. [From the Washington Times, Nov. 20, 1995] Test Critics Rile Paris Chirac cancels summits with italy, belgium (By Pierre-Yves Glass) Paris.--French nuclear tests in the Pacific have blown open a rift between France and most of its European partners. For Paris, their criticism of the blasts amounted to betrayal. Angered by their support of a U.N. resolution condemning French nuclear tests, President Jacques Chirac on Friday abruptly canceled planned summits with the leaders of Belgium and Italy. Paris justified its action, saying the positions of those states and eight other European Union members didn't ``correspond to our idea of European solidarity.'' By joining 85 other nations in condemning France, those 10 EU states broke a decades-old tradition of backing a fellow EU member when it deemed its actions essential to its national interests. But their act could be a reminder to Mr. Chirac that the EU has 15 states and isn't just a club run by its most powerful members--France, Germany and Britain. The French have to understand that their partners in the European Union have opinions on an initiative on which they have not been consulted,'' Belgian Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene said Saturday. France has responded to world outrage by insisting its series of six underground nuclear blasts in French Polynesia this fall are essential to ensure the viability of its nuclear arsenal. Government sources said the fourth detonation would take place within the coming days. Paris has pledged to sign a testban treaty next spring after completing the tests. The United States, Britain and Russia all have adhered to a moratorium on nuclear testing. A U.N. commission's resolution Thursday ``strongly deplored'' continued nuclear tests by France and China-- without naming the countries--and demanded the General Assembly call for a stop to them. Among the EU's 15 members, only Britain--the bloc's other nuclear power--voted with France against the resolution. Germany, Spain and Greece--usually staunch French allies-- abstained. [[Page H 13934]] The resolution was supported by all other EU members-- Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Sweden and the Netherlands. Paris wants to offset U.S. domination of NATO by creating a more independent EU defense system. It interpreted the vote by 10 EU countries condemning the French blasts as a slap in the face. The vote of the 10 EU naysayers ``goes counter to [European] solidarity just as everyone proclaims support for a firmer European defense,'' former Premier Edouard Balladur said.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing a simple bill that would amend titles III and IV of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act. Just last Congress and under the aegis of my colleague, Bill Richardson, we amended this act in response to the 6- year refusal of the Departments of the Interior and Health and Human Services to promulgate rules to carry out this act. Through the Indian Self-Determination Act Amendments of 1994, we streamlined the contracting and compacting process, curbed the department's rulemaking authority, and required the departments to negotiate new regulations with the Indian tribes. We also enacted a new title IV to the act, known as the Tribal Self- Governance Act of 1994, which made permanent a demonstration project, the Tribal Self-Governance Demonstration Project Act currently contained in title III of the act. Title IV as enacted, the permanent Self-Governance program applies to functions within the Department of the Interior. Title III, which still remains a demonstration project, now applies to functions within the Department of Health and Human Services. The amendments to title I and title IV of the act proceeded on different tracks in the 103d Congress. It was not until late in the Congress that both were incorporated into a single bill. Since the passage of the 1994 amendments, tribes and tribal organizations, the Indian Health Service, and the Department of the Interior have all worked on implementation of titles I, III, and IV of the act. Unfortunately, the departments' interpretation and implementation of the act has not been in accordance with congressional intent. Specifically, the agencies have taken the position that the provisions of title I, governing Self-Determination Act or ``638'' contracts, that are advantageous to tribes may not be included in Self- Governance compacts and annual funding agreements negotiated under titles III and IV. In addition, the position of the two departments, HHS and Interior, has not always been consistent, so that in certain instances, one department has permitted inclusion of a Self-Governance clause reflective of a title I provision while the other has not. The result has been an inconsistent treatment of Self-Governance issues by the two departments, and the denial to Self-Governance tribes of the substantial advantages afforded to the tribes under title I of the Indian Self-Determination Act. This is particularly puzzling, since it has always been the intent of Congress that the Self-Governance initiative should be at least as broad and favorable to the tribes as the original title I contracting mechanism. [[Page E 2169]] My bill, which has been requested by the tribes and specifically incorporates 31 provisions of title I of the Indian Self-Determination Act into titles III and IV, is designed to remedy this situation.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, on January 25, 1995, I and my good friends, Mr. Bill Richardson, Mr. Pat Williams, Mr. George Miller, and Mr. Peter DeFazio, introduced the Indian Federal Recognition Administrative Procedures Act of 1995, H.R. 671, in an effort to create an efficient and fair procedure for extending Federal recognition to Indian tribes. In my remarks at that time, I stated that introduction of the legislation was only the starting point for further discussion and debate and that I looked forward to the advice and input of colleagues, the agency, and tribes. Mr. Speaker, since January a number of occurrences have provided me with some of the discussion and input that I was looking for. The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs held a hearing in July on S. 479, a bill very similar to the original H.R. 671. Nonrecognized and recognized tribes, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Indian organizations, and experts submitted testimony on the bill and the existing recognition process. In addition, the White House has held a number of meetings with nonrecognized tribes so that they could discuss recognition with administration officials. As a direct result of those meetings, the Department of the Interior set up a task force of administration people and representatives of nonrecognized tribes to assist the Department in formulating a position on whether the recognition criteria could be improved. Further, only this month an administrative law judge, in the first challenge to a decision against recognition, has essentially reversed BIA/BAR. In doing so, the ALJ was critical of BAR's methodology and interpretation of their own criteria. The judge's views of the existing criteria can be considered a suggestion that the criteria could be improved. Mr. Speaker, I have reviewed all of those developments and taken into account the views of the interested parties. As a result, I have modified H.R. 671 to improve both the procedures and the criteria that were in the original bill. The modifications will advance the goals of recognition reform legislation--providing a more objective, consistent, and streamlined standard for acknowledging groups as federally recognized Indian tribes. Mr. Speaker, I have made the following changes to the original H.R. 671. The procedures under which the independent commission would hear and decide petitions for recognition have been slightly modified. Provisions that would have excluded groups from petitioning for recognition or continuing to seek recognition have been removed. Most importantly, the criteria for recognition have been improved. The improvements take into account the almost unanimous view of the experts and affected tribes that the criteria used in the existing administrative process, which were carried into the original H.R. 671, do not really test whether a group should be recognized or not and unnecessarily burden petitioners and decisionmakers. I believe that it is only through these changes that we will enact a process that is both fair and able to resolve the recognition issue in the timeframe anticipated. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this measure.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, it is an honor and privilege for me to share with my colleagues and the American people the recent tragic event that took the life of one of the great leaders of the world and certainly of his native homeland, the state of Israel. Mr. Speaker, for generations to come the name of Yitzhak Rabin will be enshrined in the hearts and minds of the men, women, and children of Israel. He was an outstanding warrior of the highest order, and a great man--because he also was a peacemaker. Truly the Almighty could not have said it better, Mr. Speaker, when he said, ``Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.'' Yitzhak Rabin is honored foremost not for his leadership as a warrior and soldier, but as a peacemaker. On behalf of the American Samoan people we extend our fondest alofa, shalom, peace be with you, to the last Prime Minister Rabin, Mrs. Rabin, their children, and family.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, on January 25, 1995, I and my good friends, Mr. George Miller, Mr. Bill Richardson, Mr. Pat Williams, and Mr. Peter DeFazio, introduced the Indian Federal Recognition Administrative Procedures Act of 1995. H.R. 671, is an effort to create an efficient and fair procedure for extending Federal recognition to Indian tribes. In my remarks at that time, I stated that introduction of the legislation was only the starting point for further discussions and debate and that I looked forward to the advice and input of colleagues, the agency, and tribes. I hope to continue to work with Chairman McCain Cochairman Inouye, and the members of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs to craft a bill which provides a fair and timely procedure to provide Federal recognition to Indian tribes. Mr. Speaker, the current test is not fair, nor is it administered in a timely manner. I have recounted from this floor many times the process we have put Indian tribes through. The current recognition process requires tribes to provide written records of tribal governments during periods when the U.S. Government disbanded the tribes and told them to assimilate into the larger society. Decades after we told them to stop keeping records and assimilate, now we tell them they are not Indian because they do not have written proof of tribal activities during these periods. The poor Lumbee Indians of North Carolina have been seeking recognition for over 100 years, and even though they have been Indians all that time and much longer before that, the Bureau of Indian Affairs thinks the current system of recognizing tribes is just fine as it is. Mr. Speaker, the current system is terrible, and I intend to fix this deplorable mess. I am making every effort to see this bill become law during the 104th Congress so we can replace the current process created by administrative regulation with a system approved by elected officials. Mr. Speaker, I also feel compelled to comment on how repugnant I find the process of having to go through any form of recognition process. The racist 50-percent blood test, the measurement of teeth and head shape is demeaning and meaningless. We need to move forward, and while we should have done so years ago, it does not mean we should not take action now. Mr. Speaker, since January a number of occurrences have provided me with some of the discussion and input that I was looking for on the acknowledgement process. The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs held a hearing in July on S. 479, a bill very similar to H.R. 671. Nonrecognized and recognized tribes, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Indian organizations, and experts submitted testimony on the bill and the existing recognition process. In addition, the White House has held a number of meetings with nonrecognized tribes so that they could discuss recognition with administration officials. As a direct result of those meetings, the Department of the Interior set up a task force of administration people and representatives of nonrecognized tribes to assist the Department in formulating a position on whether the recognition criteria could be improved. Further, only this month an administrative law judge, in the first challenge to a decision against recognition, has essentially reversed the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In doing so, the judge was critical of the Bureau's methodology and interpretation of their own criteria. The judge's views of the existing criteria can be considered a suggestion that the criteria could be improved. Mr. Speaker, I have reviewed all of those developments and taken into account the views of the interested parties. As a result, I have modified H.R. 671 to improve both the procedures and the criteria that were in the original bill. The modifications will advance the goals of recognition reform legislation--providing a more objective, consistent, and streamlined standard for acknowledging groups as federally recognized Indian tribes. Mr. Speaker, I have made the following changes to H.R. 671. The procedures under which the independent commission would hear and decide petitions for recognition have been slightly modified. Provisions that would have excluded groups from petitioning for recognition or continuing to seek recognition have been removed. Most importantly, the criteria for recognition have been improved. The improvements take into account the almost unanimous view of the experts and affected tribes that the criteria used in the existing administrative process, which were carried into H.R. 671, do not really test whether a group should be recognized or not and that it is only through these changes that we will enact a process that is both fair and able to resolve the recognition issue in the time frame anticipated. Mr. Speaker, the changes I have outlined this afternoon and which will be incorporated into legislation I am introducing today are important because there are 545 Indian nations within our country, plus scores of tribes seeking recognition, all of which will be affected in one way or another by this legislation. Mr. Speaker, I also want to take a few minutes to speak out in opposition to the proposed tax on Indian gaming. The history of how this Nation has treated the American Indians is deplorable. We have taken their lands again and again, and we have negotiated treaties and reneged those same treaties again and again. I thought those times had passed, but even as I speak, the assault continues. Last month the House adopted a tax on Indian gaming as part of its budget reconciliation bill. For the first time [[Page H 11785]] the Congress is considering taxing other governmental entities on income which is used for governmental purposes such as building roads, hospitals, medical clinics, and providing education to children. My analysis of why this tax of up to 35 percent of net revenue is being considered only on Indian tribes, and not on the gaming activities of State and local governments, lead me to the conclusion that our new majority believes they can use the Indians yet again as a political punching bag to beat up on and take advantage of. Why is it that the party which comes to this well everyday to decry the ``tax and spend Democrats'' is so anxious to raise a new tax, but only on American Indians? I was not surprised when the Washington Post published an editorial in opposition to this proposed tax, but today even the Washington Times editorialized against the idea. When this action is considered in the context of the 11-percent cut in funding for the Bureau of Indian Affairs contained in the Interior appropriations conference report we will consider later today, it is clear that the assault on America's favorite whipping boy has resumed. This action is especially hard to accept when money which could be used to provide educational opportunities to the poor, the same problem our Speaker spoke so forcefully in favor of last week, will be used to give tax breaks to those making up to $200,000 per year. Mr. Speaker, this is not the course we should be taking, and I urge my colleagues to vote against these attacks on the American Indians. Mr. Speaker, I also urge my colleagues to provide a better procedural format so that Indians could be recognized. Mr. Speaker, we have 545, to my last reading, sovereign Indian tribes as part of our Nation's heritage. Yet, after these processes over the years, our first policy was let us kill off the Indians, then let us assimilate and make them part of the American society; and then after that, no, let us terminate them. Now, Mr. Speaker, we are going through the process of let us recognize them again. Mr. Speaker, it is time we make these changes to better the needs of the first Americans. Mr. Speaker, I submit the following editorial for the Record: [From the Washington Times, Nov. 7, 1995] Taxing the Tribes Given all the hype about gambling on Indian reservations, it's Foxwoods--the wildly successful casino complex run by the Pequot tribe in Connecticut--that probably comes to mind when the subject comes up. But Foxwoods is not representative of all tribal gaming efforts. Most reservations are in remote locations, far from the sort of densely populated cities that provide customers for the Pequots; without the same volume of business enjoyed by the Pequots, most tribes' casinos struggle to produce modest revenues. Even so, conferees on the budget reconciliation bill will be deciding whether to impose a new federal tax on those gaming revenues, a tax that will range from 15 percent to 35 percent of casino income. The Republican Congress should not be in the business of instituting new taxes: The Indian gaming tax should be discarded in conference. House tax writers seem to have fixed on tribal gaming as a convenient source of revenue for the federal Treasury. In political terms it is understandable: At least at Foxwoods and a few other well-placed Native American casinos, there is a lot of money being generated; and Indians are not a potent voting bloc. In other, substantial cash can be had without generating substantial constituent backlash. But in constitutional terms, the tax is dubious at best. The way the tax is written, tribal governments are treated as non-profit organizations, and the gaming revenues are treated as ``unrelated business income.'' It must be news to the tribes that they are mere charities, rather than sovereign governmental entities. On reservations, tribal authorities are the local governments, both in fact and in well-established law. Yet the House would treat these recognized governments differently than every other non- federal governmental entity: That is, there is no proposal to tax the gaming revenues produced by state-sponsored gambling. Tribal governments have been struggling for decades to develop businesses and enterprise on reservations, often with little luck. Conditions are bleak enough on many reservations that alcoholism is high and life expectancy is low. Gambling may not be an economic panacea, but the casino business has helped provide an economic base that many tribes have used for building prosperous communities with diverse industries. When tribal governments use gaming revenues to build housing and infrastructure and employment, they are engaged in legitimate governmental activities, not unlike states that use their lottery proceeds for road construction, prison building or education. The more that tribes are able to build thriving economies in their own territories, the less they will be dependent on funding from Washington. This is not just an issue of whether in the long run the balance sheet will be positive or negative with new Indian gaming taxes, it is an issue of paternalism. Even if Washington were to return to the tribes, in the form of aid, all the money it takes away in taxes-- frankly, an unlikely prospect--the problem would remain that the federal government would be hindering Indian self- sufficiency. Most tribes engaged in federally approved gaming already pay taxes of benefits of one sort or another to the states in which their reservations are located. Foxwoods, for instance, pays the state of Connecticut some $200 million. To add a federal tax to that burden, especially when the state's competing lottery games are not taxed, is simply unfair. The Senate version of the spending bill does not call for the new tax on the tribes. If for no better reason than that Republicans should not be in the business of increasing anybody's taxes, conferees should stick with the version and jettison the House tax on Indian gaming.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to vacate my 5-minute special order.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my deep sense of pride and to share with our colleagues and our great Nation an event of historic importance to the countries of the Pacific region. On Friday, October 20, at the United Nations, the United States, France, and Great Britain formally announced they have decided to join the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty and will complete signing of the protocols to the treaty by mid-1996. The South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, commonly referred to by its acronym ``SPNFZ,'' is known formally as the Treaty of Rarotonga since it was signed by the leaders of the Pacific nations on the island of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. The Treaty of Rarotonga came into force in December 1986 after ratification initially by eight countries, thereby establishing the South Pacific nuclear free zone to combat nuclear weapons proliferation and the reckless disposal of nuclear wastes. Today, 11 Pacific Island nations--Australia, the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, and Western Samoa--are members of the treaty. By banning the testing, stationing, manufacturing, and use of nuclear weapons in the zone, the Treaty of Rarotonga is a symbol for the peoples of the South Pacific, expressing their high level of concern regarding nuclear weapons and the possibility of a nuclear disaster in the region. The treaty also prohibits parties from dumping radioactive waste at sea in the treaty zone, and provides for verification safeguards by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The treaty protocols, in addition to the foregoing, require the nuclear weapon states not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons in the zone or against any South Pacific signatory of the treaty. Mr. Speaker, the South Pacific nuclear free zone covers a vast area extending from the western coast of Australia and the Papua New Guinea- Indonesia border in the west, along the Equator in the north, to the boundaries of the Latin American nuclear free zone in the east, and the Antarctic nuclear free zone in the south. I want to express my deepest appreciation and thanks to President Clinton for his decision to support the South Pacific nations in their desire to keep the region safe from nuclear destruction. The President's global leadership on nuclear nonproliferation, along with international outrage over France's resumption of nuclear testing in the Pacific, no doubt influenced France and Britain to join America in this historic development. Mr. Speaker, the Clinton administration has identified nuclear proliferation as one of the greatest threats to United States and global security. I and many of our colleagues have long argued that to enhance U.S. credibility to build international support for successful extension of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT] and negotiation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty [CTBT], the administration should join the nuclear-free zone in the Pacific. Mr. Speaker, since the Rarotonga Treaty took effect over 8 years ago, the island nations have eagerly sought United States support for a nuclear-weapon-free South Pacific. By refusing to sign the treaty, however, the United States was increasingly perceived as indifferent to the aspirations and concerns of our South Pacific allies--many of whom fought at our side during World War I, World War II, the Korean [[Page H 11755]] war, the Vietnam war, and supported United States operations during the cold war. Ironically, while the democratic nuclear powers failed to act, both Russia and China have long been signatories to the treaty protocols. There was no good reason for America not to support her Pacific allies by joining the Treaty of Raratonga. The treaty advances United States nonproliferation objectives without undermining United States security policy in the South Pacific, as past administrations have conceded while testifying before Congress. The treaty was carefully drafted, with considerable input from the Reagan administration, to accommodate U.S. interests, including our policy to ``neither confirm nor deny'' the presence of nuclear weapons or American warships or aircrafts; and it specifically protects free transit through the zone by U.S. vessels and planes carrying nuclear weapons. The United States already supports nuclear-weapon-free zones around the world, and has signed treaties prohibiting nuclear weapons in Latin America, the Antarctic, the ocean floor, and outer space. Not long ago, the White House lauded Argentina, Chile, and Brazil's entry into the Latin America Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, noting the treaty has been a critical building block for peace and stability in the Western Hemisphere, our backyard, while reinforcing the worldwide nonproliferation movement. With cessation of the cold war, justification for much of our Nation's past reluctance to join the treaty of Rarotonga has evaporated. The Soviet nuclear threat in the Pacific no longer exists. Instead, the United States and Russia are committed to deep reductions in their nuclear arsenals, the United States has removed tactical nuclear weapons from its surface fleet, and the prospects for a comprehensive test ban treaty are good in 1996. Mr. Speaker, in this new postcold-war era of lessened nuclear tension, I commend the Clinton administration for heeding the calls for assistance by our Pacific allies by signing the protocols of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty as part of a comprehensive nuclear nonproliferation policy. Joining the treaty of Rarotonga is visible proof of America's commitment to continued progress with the indefinite extension of the NPT and negotiation of a genuine, zero-yield comprehensive test ban treaty. Mr. Speaker, in welcoming this action we have pursued with three successive administrations, I want to thank and recognize the invaluable bi-partisan support of my esteemed colleagues-- Representatives Jim Leach, Lee Hamilton, Ben Gilman, Gary Ackerman, Chris Smith, Howard Berman, Doug Bereuter, Tom Lantos, Connie Morella, Ron Dellums, Jim McDermott, Pete Stark, Matthew Martinez, Neil Abercrombie, Patsy Mink, and Robert Underwood. In particular, my former colleagues on the House Asia-Pacific Affairs Subcommittee, Chairman Stephen Solarz and Representative Bob Lagomarsino, must be recognized for their early and instrumental role in laying the foundation for these historic developments. I would also thank Dr. Zachary Davis, international nuclear policy analyst with the congressional research service, for his excellent service to Congress which greatly assisted the decision for U.S. accession to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty. Last, I would recognize and give credit to Ambassador Winston Lord, Assistant Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific Affairs, for his considerable involvement in the President's decision. Mr. Speaker, while France has also agreed to accede to the protocols of the Rarotonga Treaty by mid-1996, it is apparent the French Government still intends to carry out its latest series of nuclear bomb detonations in French Polynesia. Clearly, France's accession to SPNFZ is meant to supposedly appease the world communitie's great outrage and condemnation of their nuclear testing program in the Pacific. France should be commended for joining the SPNFZ treaty protocols, which clearly entails permanent closure of their testing facilities in Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls. However, this should not be construed as acceptance of a cheap ``quid pro quo'' that excuses and condones France's continued detonation of nuclear bombs that threaten the welfare of some 28 million men, women, and children of Oceania. If French President Chirac wants to be taken seriously on his commitment to the treaty of Rarotonga, he should terminate immediately all testing. Mr. Speaker, I would call upon our colleagues and the international community to further increase pressure on France to cease this insane and deplorable and reckless nuclear testing in the Pacific which is inconsistent with the spirit of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty. Mr. Speaker, there is a little newspaper article that says, the photos show cracks in the nuclear test site. Well, these photos were taken by he famous oceanographer Jacques Cousteau in the testing program or the study that he conducted in 1987. Mr. Speaker, I submit to my colleagues and to the American people, there are cracks on the Moruroa Atoll and nothing could convince me otherwise. Mr. Speaker, if you have exploded 165 nuclear bombs and there is one atoll in this volcano, something has got to give. The great President Chirac is going to explode six more nuclear bombs on this same atoll and the French are saying, it is OK, everything is all right. Not so, Mr. Speaker. Since 1986 the Jacques Cousteau report indicates cracks of about 9 to 10\1/2\ feet wide and several miles long. Yet, the French military officials continue to deny that this atoll is full of contamination, nuclear contamination, I submit. It has been estimated that this atoll probably has the equivalence of 10 Chernobyls all packed in this volcano. Mr. Speaker, I can just imagine if the leaks and the cracks start coming out of this volcano, it is going to go right into the Pacific Ocean. Not only is it going to affect the health and the lives and the safety of some 200,000 people who live in these islands, the 28 million people that live in the Pacific region are going to be affected. Mr. Speaker, I ask the good people of Japan, in their conscience on a voluntary basis, since we cannot get the governments to agree on this, that on behalf of some 290,000 Japanese men, women, and children who died as a result of nuclear explosions, that maybe they should send a message to France by not purchasing French wine, French products, or goods. That way, President Chirac will get the message that he does not need to explode 6 more nuclear bombs to improve his nuclear mechanism, or whatever trigger he needs to do to provide for his arsenal of nuclear weapons. Mr. Speaker, what hypocrisy, the height of hypocrisy, that here the most industrialized countries, democratic, that we outlaw germ warfare and chemical and biological warfare and yet it is all right to explode nuclear bombs. I am absolutely at a loss on how we are so very much wanting to get rid of this, and yet we have nuclear bombs ready made and available if that crisis ever comes. Thank God, we never had to explode one bomb during the cold war. These weapons are ready made and available to kill not one or two people. No, we want to kill them by the hundreds and thousands at a time. That is what nuclear Holocaust means. Mr. Speaker, the concern these people have living on these islands, all they want to do is live as a people. They would like to fish from the ocean, knowing that the ocean is free of any contamination, especially nuclear at that. That is all they are asking for. I want to express my sincere appreciation to the chairman of our Asia Pacific Subcommittee on the Committee on International Relations, the gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Bereuter] and also the gentleman from California [Mr. Berman] the ranking member. We are going to hold a hearing on this issue next week, and we are going to find out exactly what the situation is, because the United States is also a Pacific State. This is what bears the slight difference that we have here, Mr. Speaker. France is 14,000 miles away from the Pacific. France is not a Pacific State. We have got these States like California, Oregon, and Washington State right along the Pacific coast. Also the State of Hawaii. I sure hope to God [[Page H 11756]] that this will never happen, but there have been estimates made to the effect that if there is to be leakages and contamination coming out of this volcano that the French have been exploding nuclear bombs in for the past 20 years, and if these leakages should come out it would affect the lives of American citizens living in the territories of American Samoa, Guam, and how about the State of Hawaii or California, or maybe even Oregon and Washington? Mr. Speaker, the Humboldt Current does not stand still. It tends to move. We do not live in a stagnant pool of water. The Pacific Ocean is constantly moving. There are earthquakes and tidal waves. Any time there is something going on underneath there, we have these disasters. I would venture to say, Mr. Speaker, that these atomic bomb explosions that the French Government continues to do in the Pacific will definitely have a tremendous impact on the lives of the people that live in the Pacific. So, while President Chirac, as I have said this before and I will say it again, while President Chirac is sitting in his palace in Paris drinking his sweet French wine, we the people in the Pacific are going to be catching hell from this volcano that is the equivalent of several Chernobyls in there. That is not a comforting thought for people of the Pacific who have been given this kind of present from President Chirac who lives 14,000 miles away from the Pacific. Mr. Speaker, I would sincerely hope that our President and the Congress would seriously look at this situation and not take for granted the disaster that we could be facing with this atoll, this volcanic atoll that is already as full of contamination, of nuclear contamination. I know that passively we say it is all right. It is thousands of miles away. Mr. Speaker, I submit that it is not too far away if that volcano does start to crack and there are leakages, contamination coming out of there, and it gets into the life cycle, gets into the plankton, the fish, and all forms of marine life. We are the ones who are going to be the recipients of something that I do not even want to describe. I sincerely hope that President Chirac will seriously look at the seriousness of the problem of exploding six more nuclear bombs. I understand quite imminently President Chirac is going to explode another nuclear bomb in the South Pacific, despite the outrage of 160 countries in the world; despite the fact that 60 percent of the people in France do not want him to conduct nuclear testing. Perhaps he should pay a little more attention to the unemployment problem that he is facing in France. Perhaps he should be paying a little more attention to the problems in Algeria, rather than looking at doing more harm by conducting this insane practice of exploding more nuclear bombs, putting at risk the safety and the lives and the health of the people in the Pacific. I think it is absolute arrogance on the part of President Chirac to do this and I think he should stop. Mr. Speaker, I submit the following for the Record: [From the Honolulu Advertiser, Oct. 12, 1995] Photos Show Cracks Under N-Test Site france denies fissures exist beneath atoll Paris.--Raising new questions about the safety of French nuclear tests, a newspaper published photos yesterday that it says show cracks in one of the South Pacific atolls where the underground explosions took place. Ouest-France said the photos contradict government claims that the tests caused no damage to Mururoa Atoll in French Polynesia. Critics say the nuclear tests could cause the atoll to break apart, spewing radioactivity into the water and air in what many consider to be one of the world's last paradises. The government denied a similar report last week in the respected daily Le Monde. Ouest-France said the photos were taken in 1987 and 1988 by a diver several dozen yards under the Mururoa Lagoon. The cracks are about 9 to 10\1/2\ feet wide and several miles long, the newspaper said. It did not reveal the photographer's identity or say who he was working for. Normally only military personnel and scientists working on the French nuclear program have access to the isolated atoll, 750 miles southeast of Tahiti. After the Le Monde report, French Foreign Minister Herve de Charette told the National Assembly that ``no crack of any sort has ever been discovered'' on the atoll. French Atomic Energy Commission experts said some fractures were created by the first tests carried out directly under Mururoa's reef. But they said there had been no further cracks since tests were moved to the middle of the lagoon. France has exploded two nuclear devices in the South Pacific since President Jacques Chirac announced the resumption of the nuclear testing last June after a three- year moratorium.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] would yield.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, I just want to thank the gentleman for his kind comments. I certainly would like to submit to my colleagues that I could not have found a more perfect gentleman to travel with in the Pacific. The gentleman is so knowledgeable also, not only of our presence there at the time that we were at an international crisis there during World War II, but I would like to say to my good friend from California that I would enjoy the next instance and the opportunity of being with him to see how some of our soldiers and sailors fought bravely, especially during World War II. We visited Guadalcanal and other areas. I want to compliment the gentleman for his kind remarks on the floor.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, I rise again to share with my colleagues and the American people a very serious problem with France's resumption of nuclear testing in the South Pacific, which started last month despite near universal condemnation by the Nations of the world. Mr. Speaker, the first Sunday of this month France detonated a 110- kiloton nuclear device more destructive than seven Hiroshima bombs that were dropped in Japan about 50 years ago. It was the second in a series of nuclear explosions to take place in France's test facilities in French Polynesia. Mr. Speaker, over three decades, France has detonated in excess of 200 nuclear bombs, almost all of them taking place in the South Pacific. Yet this is still not enough to satisfy France's ambitions to become a nuclear power. French President Chirac boldly claims that their nuclear tests have no ecological consequences and that they have nothing to fear nor to hide. President Chirac has even invited scientists from the international community to come to their testing facilities to see for themselves. When the countries of Europe recently took Chirac up on his offer for an ``open door'' inspection, however, it is interesting to note the results of this so-called open door policy. The European Union team of scientists sent to examine Moruroa Atoll has now returned to Brussels, stating that they were denied full access to test sites and radioactivity monitoring facilities. Moreover, the French authorities failed to supply necessary health and safety data requested by the European Union scientists. Not surprisingly, the European Union team has not been able to issue conclusive findings regarding France's testing program, as they were prevented by the French government from conducting a true study. While the French Government claims they have nothing to hide and welcome international scrutiny of their nuclear testing program, Mr. Speaker, President Chirac's actions reveal nothing more than sheer hypocrisy not only to the good citizens of France, but to the world as well. Mr. Speaker, I would also note that Reuters News Agency last week reported from Brussels that a French scientist states that France's South Pacific weapons test site is unstable. There is a risk of landslides and tidal waves which could submerge islands in French Polynesia. Dr. Pierre Vincent, a volcanologist and professor at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, testified at a European Parliament hearing on France's South Pacific nuclear testing, and he said this is an unstable atoll. He was referring to the Mururoa atoll, Mr. Speaker. I would say this situation constitutes a high risk. All the factors which we know now favor destabilization in volcanoes are gathered together at Mururoa, Dr. Vincent testified, pointing to the atoll's steep sides, fissuring in the atoll and alterations of substructure by previous tests. Dr. Vincent further states the shock wave from a new explosion could be the trigger that would cause detachment of previously disturbed sections of rock. He said such landslides could cause tsunamis, which means tidal waves, seismic waves from undersea earthquakes or landslides which could submerge the whole of certain islands of Polynesia. Mr. Speaker, Professor Vincent concluded it was high time to stop the nuclear testing program France is conducting now in the Pacific, but even an immediate halt to France's current series of tests in the region would not remove the risk. He said if we stop tomorrow, if that could happen, we could certainly have to continue to monitor this atoll for decades and probably a lot longer than that. Mr. Speaker, France's resumed nuclear tests on Mururoa and Fangataufa atolls, which are actually dormant volcanic formations below sea level, has also initiated an investigation by the European Parliament and the New Zealand Government into possible connections with the recent eruptions of New Zealand's Mt. Ruapehu, a volcano dormant for the past 50 years. Internationally Mr. Speaker, the movement against France's nuclear testing in the South Pacific is growing stronger and stronger. Over 100 nations adopted in Vienna an international Atomic Energy Agency resolution condemning nuclear testing. The United Nations General Assembly in New York is soon to pass a resolution opposing all nuclear testing, while in London the British Commonwealth is pressuring France about its insensitivity in conducting nuclear tests in the South Pacific. Mr. Speaker, I would hope all of our colleagues in the Congress would join us in sending an urgent message to Paris to stop their nuclear nightmare in the Pacific. Mr. Speaker, I want to share with my colleagues, this is what a French nuclear bomb explosion looks like on this atoll, the Mururoa atoll in French Polynesia. I have also made an illustration of exactly what the concerns have been for the nations of the Pacific for all of these years and for many scientists. As you can see, Mr. Speaker, this is the Mururoa atoll from the vertical as seen from an airplane. This is what the atoll looks like, and by the way, this illustration was gotten from documents of the French Government showing areas that were completely contaminated in the aftermath of the French nuclear program and the testing for the past 20 years. This is the profile of what the Mururoa atoll, which is this green strip, which is right on sea level; Mururoa atoll is only about 3 feet above sea level, and below this whole atoll is this volcanic formation. As you can see, Mr. Speaker, these dots, these red dots are 165 atomic explosions that have taken place on that atoll for the last 20 years. In addition to this, France has also exploded 12 nuclear bombs above sea level, which is basically in the atmosphere. I submit, Mr. Speaker, who is going to clean up this mess if this atoll ever, ever should leak, come out of this, because of what has happened inside this atoll? Now some people might say, well, let us not be concerned about it, because it is thousands of miles away from the State of Hawaii as well as along the Pacific Coast States. Mr. Speaker, I submit if this atoll every breaks or starts to leak and all the nuclear contamination that is contained here after France conducting 165 nuclear explosions inside this volcanic formation that supports this atoll, I submit, Mr. Speaker, who is going to clean up this mess? I submit also that France does not have the capability to clean up this mess if it ever does come to this within the next 10, perhaps even 50 years that this will transpire. Mr. Speaker, this is a sad occasion, given the fact that over 60 percent of the French people themselves do not want France or President Chirac to conduct this nuclear testing nightmare, as we see it, in the Pacific. And yet the French Government persists that they do this in the name of its national interest. Mr. Speaker, I am very concerned in the fact that President Chirac does not take into account the fact that 28 million men, women, and children, live in this Pacific region, let alone there are some 200,000 French citizens who are of Tahitian ancestry that live also in these islands, and yet we hear nothing but absolute stubbornness, and I would also submit, Mr. Speaker, perhaps you could even say arrogance on the part of the French Government, not the goodness of the French people, but the French Government to continue doing this despite the condemnation of over 160 countries throughout the world. Why are we doing this? Is it not ironic, Mr. Speaker, that while we condemn germ warfare, while we outlaw chemical and biological warfare, we continue to allow not only industrial countries but the fact that we have got nuclear bombs all over the place that cause just as much, if not more, harm and damage not only to the environment but to human beings, and yet we continue to allow this. I stated earlier that the nuclear bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima 50 years ago, Mr. Speaker, killed, maimed approximately 200,000 men, women, and children. In addition to that, 90,000 men, women, and children were also killed with the bomb that we dropped on Nagasaki. In the aftermath of this, and I would make a personal appeal to the American people, we have got to send a strong message to President Chirac and the only way to do this, perhaps not necessarily through governmental channels, but the conscience of the American people and the conscience of the people in Japan and even in Germany to voluntarily not purchase French products, French wine, French goods, to send a strong message to the French Government that this policy of continuing to explode nuclear bombs in the South Pacific, not only is it insane but it is an outright shame for the Government of France to continue to do this in the aftermath, at least at the expense of the health and safety and the lives of those people who live in that part of the world. The information referred to follows: [From the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Oct. 11, 1995] French Paper Runs a Photo of Mururoa Coral Cracks Paris.--Raising new questions about the safety of French nuclear tests, a newspaper published photographs today that it says show cracks in one of the South Pacific atolls where the underground explosions took place. Ouest-France said the photographs contradict government claims that the tests caused no damage to Mururoa Atoll in French Polynesia. Critics say the nuclear tests could cause the atoll to break apart, spewing radioactivity into the water and air in what many consider to be one of the world's last paradises. The government denied a similar report last week in the respected daily Le Monde. It had no immediate comment on Ouest-France's claims. Ouest-France said the photos were taken in 1987 and 1988 by a diver several dozen yards under the Mururoa Lagoon. The cracks are about 9 to 10\1/2\ feet wide and several miles long, the newspaper said. Normally only military personnel and scientists working on the French nuclear program have access to the isolated atoll, about 750 miles southeast of Tahiti. After the Le Monde report, French Foreign Minister Herve de Charette told the National Assembly that ``no crack of any sort has ever been discovered'' on the atoll. Experts at the French Atomic Energy Commission said some fractures were created by the first tests carried out directly under Mururoa's reef. But they said there had been no further cracks since tests were moved to the middle of the lagoon. European Commission President Jacques Santer demanded Wednesday that France supply more information about the nuclear tests ``without delay.''

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I rise today in strong support of the Underwood amendment, the Pacific Insular Areas Fisheries Empowerment Act of 1995. Mr. Chairman, the U.S. insular areas have been under fire lately. Early this year, the delegates from the territories and the District of Columbia had their symbolic votes on the floor of the House taken away. Included in the future agenda is a plan to take away the tax coverovers currently in existence, and the possessions tax credit is on the chopping block as part of the budget reconciliation package in both the House and Senate. It is clearly time for the leaders in the insular areas to be more resourceful in attracting new business and new forms of revenue. The Pacific Insular Areas Fisheries Empowerment Act of 1995 is one step in that direction. As has already been stated, in coordination with the U.S. Government, this provision will enable the Pacific U.S. insular areas to charge fees to foreign fishing vessels which wish to fish in the exclusive economic zones surrounding these insular areas. The U.S. Government does not incur any additional expense because of this change in the law, but the insular areas benefit through increased revenue, and the anticipated assistance of permit holders in reporting violations of fishing rights in the local EEZ's. Any revenues collected must be used for fishery conservation and management purposes in waters adjacent to the insular areas. This is a true win-win scenario for all involved. It is my understanding that the administration supports this provision. I want to thank Congressman Underwood for taking the lead on this issue and crafting legislative language acceptable to the leadership in the insular areas, the majority in the House, and the administration. I also want to thank Chairman Young, Chairman Saxton, and Congressmen Miller and Studds, the senior Democratic members on the relevant committee and subcommittee for their support of this provision.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, on the first day of this month, the Government of France exploded another nuclear bomb in the South Pacific, its second detonation in a new series of tests. France's nuclear bomb--involving a 110 kiloton blast--was seven times more destructive than the bomb that we exploded in Hiroshima 50 years ago. Mr. Speaker, as we recall the destructive nuclear fury that was first unleashed in history against the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I think it most appropriate to recognize Mr. Joseph Rotblat, a physicist working on the manhattan nuclear bomb project during WW II who quit in protest because of his convictions, and who was personally devastated when he learned of the bomb's consequences in Japan. Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate Mr. Rotblat, a Polish-born scientist, who has just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Mr. Rotblat, the world's first protester against nuclear weapons, has devoted his entire life to ending the madness of the nuclear arms race. He is the founding member of the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs, as well as the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a leading think tank on security and disarmament issues. Mr. Speaker, at a time France is thumbing its nose at the international community, over 160 nations have officially protested this madness by President Chirac and the Government of France to continued exploding of nuclear bombs in the South Pacific, I find it highly commendable that the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Mr. Rotblat, one of the world's most eminent and vocal opponents of nuclear testing. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Rotbalt has condemned France's resumption of nuclear testing and has written French President Chirac, urging that France immediately cancel its tests. Mr. Rotblat says, ``There is no reason at all in my opinion for President Chirac to resume tests. I can't see any tactical reason at all. I can only see this as an attempt to make their bomb a little better, or develop perhaps a new type.'' That is right, Mr. Speaker, a bomb a little better. To kill more people. The two bombs that we exploded in Japan, Mr. Speaker, accounted for over 290,000 men, women, and children who died as a result of those nuclear explosions. What madness, what madness, Mr. Speaker. We can say that let us get rid of chemical and biological warfare, but let us continue dropping nuclear bombs. Mr. Speaker, again, I commend Mr. Rotblat for his life's work and the Nobel Committee for their selection of Mr. Rotblat as a Nobel recipient. By these actions, the Nobel Committee on behalf of the world community has sent a strong message of protest to the French Government and I would hope that Paris would respond by immediately canceling their nuclear testing in the South Pacific. What arrogance, Mr. Speaker, that President Chirac has the unmitigated gall to do this. For over 30 years they have been exploding nuclear bombs in the South Pacific. The American people do not know the suffering of the some 100,000 or 200,000 people who live in those islands, and, yes, 28 million people who live in that region. We just have not taken a better understanding of the very real serious problem we have there in the Pacific. While President Chirac is drinking his sweet wine in Paris, some 200,000 people's lives are at stake if that Muroroa atoll should break and leak, and there are already indications of leakages because of the 168 nuclear bombs that have been exploded on that atoll alone. What arrogance, Mr. Speaker, what arrogance. [[Page H 10080]] Anti-Bomb Physicist Wins Peace Prize--Nobel ``Protest'' Against Atomic Tests Shared With Arms Control Group (By Fred Barbash) London, October 13.--The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded today to Joseph Rotblat, a British physicist who helped invent atomic weapons in the 1940s, and the organization dedicated to doing away with them that he later formed with Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell. This year's prize stands as a ``protest'' against French and Chinese nuclear testing, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Francis Sejersted, said in Oslo as he announced the award to Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. Rotblat, 86, who walked out of the secret U.S. government laboratory at Los Alamos, N.M., in 1944 after deciding the atomic bomb being developed there was unnecessary, also used the occasion to express his ``outrage'' at France's two recent nuclear tests in the South Pacific. Since 1957, the Pugwash Conferences have been assembling select groups of scientists, including many of the brains behind the American, Russian and British nuclear arsenals, for private exchanges on arms control. They have opened up lines of communication among such scientists, serving as forums for both technical and political issues, and as back channels to top-level policymakers. Subsequently the conferences were broadened beyond the scientific community. Rotblat said today that the organization's goal is, and always has been, to convince governments that ``the genie can be put back in the bottle.'' A French Foreign Ministry spokesman offered congratulations to Rotblat today, the Reuter news agency reported, but Prime Minister Alain Juppe rejected appeals that France end its nuclear testing program and said the award would have no effect on ``policies we have adopted for reasons of national interest.'' While no single treaty or agreement can be traced precisely to Pugwash discussions, according to historians of the nuclear era as well as Rotblat, the conferences have addressed complex problems--such as anti-ballistic missile systems, test ban monitoring and the spread of chemical and biological weapons--long before they reached the formal negotiating tables of world leaders. They are considered to have exercised at the very least a subtle influence on virtually every major contemporary arms accord. More broadly, the organization, which has 10 Nobel laureates among its charter members, was among the first of what are now many such groups designed to encourage scientists to confront--and control--the uses of their science. The group was cited by the Nobel committee for its efforts to ``diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and in the longer run to eliminate such arms.'' It has made scientists ``take responsibility for their inventions,'' it said. Unlike with last year's Peace Prize--awarded jointly to Israeli leaders Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat--names of the recipients of this one were not leaked in advance. Indeed, neither Rotblat nor the Pugwash Conferences, of which he is president, was on any of the speculative ``short lists'' published in the Norwegian press. The Pugwash Conferences, along with philosopher and antiwar activist Bertrand Russell, were viewed with suspicion by some fervent anti-communists during the 1950s and by ardent Cold Warriors afterward. But the organization has been respected for years by arms control professionals. Until today, however, it was relatively unknown to the rest of the world, as was Rotblat, a cheerful, intense man who says he still ``wakes up in a cold sweat'' when he hears about such events as France's nuclear tests. ``Who would expect that a little man like myself and a little-known movement, unknown to the general public,'' would get the Nobel Peace Prize, Rotblat said today as he walked briskly from the organization's grungy office near London's Russell Square to a news conference. ``Who is he?'' bystanders asked reporters as they followed him. Rotblat, a native of Poland, was working on a one-year atom bomb project at the University of Liverpool in 1939 when the British team of which he was a part joined U.S. scientists working on the Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb at Los Alamos. ``I started to work in 1939 on the atom bomb,'' he said in an interview today. ``I was afraid that German scientists would build the weapon and use it to rule the world. I thought that the only way this could be prevented was if we built it too and threatened to retaliate--the classical concept of nuclear deterrence.'' Two new pieces of information gained at Los Alamos persuaded him to leave. First, he said, he learned that a major purpose for the bomb was to threaten the Soviet Union, which was then a World War II ally. Then, he said, ``at the end of 1944 I learned that the Germans had abandoned their project; the purpose of my being on the project was gone.'' When he informed his superiors at Los Alamos that he was leaving, he said they ``accused me of being a spy'' who was planning to turn over atomic secrets to the Russians. After refuting the accusation, and agreeing for security reasons to a fabricated story about why he was leaving, he was allowed to return to Britain, where he switched from nuclear physics to nuclear medicine. When he heard that the United States had dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, he said, he was ``devastated. . . . I did not expect it would be used as soon as it was made. I felt angry, worried and fearful about the future of our civilization.'' ``The world didn't know it, but we knew that scientists were capable of making a bomb a thousand times more powerful--a hydrogen bomb.'' In 1955, he and Russell decided to seek the help of Einstein in warning the world of the danger they foresaw. From that collaboration came the ``Russell-Einstein Manifesto,'' which declared that ``such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind.'' Among the signers were 10 men who were or would become Nobel laureates, including Max Born, Percy W. Bridgman, Einstein, Frederic Joliot-Curie, Hermann J. Muller, Linus Pauling, Cecil F. Powell and Rotblat. From the manifesto emerged the Pugwash Conferences, so named because the first one was financed by American industrialist Cyrus Eaton and held at his retreat in the village of Pugwash, Nova Scotia. The meetings, which were by invitation only, tended to be small--groups of 25--and moved from country to country. While participants often read from prepared papers, they could be and were challenged in open give-and-take sessions, according to accounts of meetings by historians. Invitees have included not only scientists committed to arms control--such as Rotblat--but top-level government scientists guiding the rapid Cold War nuclear arms buildup. Soviet physicists Andrei Sakharov and Igor Tamm and Princeton scientist Frank von Hippel were among the participants. Rotblat said today he has never been able to say with any precision how much the Pugwash discussions influenced the Soviet position on arms limitations. At the very least, he said, they opened channels of communication among scientists on both sides of the arms race. He said he is certain that Pugwash discussions influenced Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's thinking on nuclear issues through the participation of Yevgeny Velikhov, one of the former Soviet leader's key science advisers, who helped persuade Gorbachev not to try to match President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. Experts said today that the Pugwash meetings also have contributed significantly to the nuclear testing moratorium observed by the United States and the Soviet Union; to resolving complex issues involving testing verification and monitoring; to the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty of 1987; and to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968, designed to stop the spread of nuclear weapons to countries that do not already possess them. Indeed, the idea for the treaty was first discussed at a Pugwash meeting in 1958, according to the organization's official history. The peace prize, which will be formally awarded in Oslo in December, carries an award of $1 million. Asked what would be done with the money, Rotblat gestured toward his cramped and cluttered office. ``I haven't really thought about it,'' he said. ``But look around you.''

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, on Sunday, October 1, 1995, France detonated a second nuclear bomb in the South Pacific, thumbing its nose at over 150 nations that have called for France to stop its reckless and irresponsible behavior. I find it deplorable that France, which exploded a 110 kiloton blast, seven times more destructive than the bomb that devastated Hiroshima, is again showing the world that, in the name of national interest, it is more than willing to reopen the global arms race while encouraging nuclear proliferation. Mr. Speaker, I also find it deplorable that while the United States has gone on record as opposing France's resumption of nuclear testing and called for its end, our Government may in fact be in complicity with French President Chirac's decision to explode eight more nuclear bombs in the South Pacific. On this subject, I would recommend to our colleagues and the public an excellent article in the New York Times, September 30, 1995, by Daniel Plesch and Simon Whitby of the British-American Security Information Council. Mr. Plesch and Whitby note the near universal condemnation of France's resurrection of the nuclear nightmare in the South Pacific, and that despite the outcry, the United States continues to support the tests by allowing France to fly its DC-8 supply planes across the United States on their way to the Pacific. According to the State Department, these planes, which are likely carrying nuclear material, are permitted to stop over on the west coast. They further state that, ``the Clinton administration should prohibit these overflights. This ban might not stop the nuclear tests, but it would slow France's ability to supply and thus operate its Mururoa test site. Mr. Speaker, this Mururoa atoll where France has exploded nuclear bombs for the past 30 years, France has now exploded over 168 nuclear bombs on this atoll. This atoll now has probably 10 Chernobyls contained on this Pacific atoll, which is a volcanic formation. If that atoll ever leaks out, I do not know what is going to happen to the 200,000 Polynesian Tahitians living on these islands, let alone the 28 million people who live in the Pacific. What arrogance, Mr. Speaker, that France has done this to the people of the Pacific region and might even be to the Americans living in the State of Hawaii on the Pacific coast States. Mr. Speaker, I find it atrocious and the height of hypocrisy if this and other reports in the press are true that our Nation is acting in complicity with France's testing in the Pacific. Permitting French overflights of the United States with aircraft carrying nuclear materials or bomb components bound for France's South Pacific test site clearly undercuts the administration's policy against French testing. Mr. Speaker--whether the administration is placing the American public at risk with these French nuclear overflights or is covertly supporting France's nuclear testing in the Pacific, I think they owe Members in Congress some answers regarding the extent and detail of U.S. nuclear collaboration with the Government of France. This matter is rife with hypocrisy and should not be kept hidden and secret from the American people. Moreover, Mr. Speaker, if these French planes are carrying plutonium or other fissile materials, these overflights would be in clear violation of U.S. law without certification clearances from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy. For the State Department to merely declare that they don't know what's on board these flights is a travesty. Mr. Speaker, if the Clinton administration is sincere about nuclear disarmament and opposition to French nuclear testing, it should immediately suspend all nuclear cooperation with France until it acts responsibly by stopping their tests in the Pacific. The article follows: [The New York Times, Sept. 30, 1995] France's Bomb, Our Problem (By Daniel Plesch and Simon Whitby) Washington.--The world has looked on in outrage as France has brought the nuclear nightmare back to the South Pacific. To date, 150 countries have criticized the underground weapons tests at the Mururoa Atoll in French Polynesia that resumed early this month after three years and that are to continue into 1996. Despite the outcry, the United States continues to support the tests by allowing France to fly its DC-8 supply planes across the United States on their way to the Pacific. According to the State Department, these planes, which are likely carrying nuclear material, are permitted to stop over on the West Coast. The Clinton Administration should prohibit these overflights. This ban might not stop the nuclear tests, but it would slow France's ability to supply and thus operate its Mururoa test site. State Department officials acknowledge that the French are ferrying military equipment, but they will neither confirm nor deny reports that the planes are carrying nuclear materials. After the international opposition to the Pacific tests spread last summer, France reversed its long-held position at talks in Geneva on a comprehensive treaty that would ban all nuclear weapons tests. It no longer argues for a loophole that would allow the testing of nuclear weapons with under 500 tons of explosive power. But France also said it will not agree to a full test ban until after its tests in the Pacific are completed in 1996. The overflights are only one example of the complex relationship between France and the United States on nuclear weapons. Relations have always been highly secret and have never been subject to Congressional scrutiny. During World War II, France supplied the Manhattan Project--the development of the atomic bomb--with heavy water that it had taken out of the country ahead of the advancing Nazis. In the early 1970's, France helped the United States get around provisions of the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963. President John F. Kennedy had committed to a ban on above- ground nuclear tests. France, however, had not made such a pledge and continued to explode bombs above Mururoa until 1974. American planes were allowed to fly near the blasts to collect data. In return for this privilege and for France's practical support for NATO, even though it had withdrawn from the alliance's military command, the United States has given France considerable help in building its nuclear forces. Experts who are familiar with the arrangement say that this has included assistance for France's work on the neutron bomb, nuclear-warhead components, missile guidance systems and stealth technology for cruise missiles. Today, the United States is reported to be helping France with computer tests of its nuclear stockpile. President Jacques Chirac has said that these tests are needed to determine if the weapons will work properly. But French officials have acknowledged that the main reason is to gather the data needed to develop new warheads. But they do not acknowledge that the United States is helping them. France maintains that it has never relied on foreign support to build its nuclear weapons and that it never will. The secrecy around the program has helped France preserve its image as an independent nuclear state--a keystone of its foreign policy. To undermine this not-so-grand illusion and to stress its opposition to French tests in the Pacific, Congress should insist that the Clinton Administration disclose the details of the American nuclear collaboration with France.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, earlier last week I shared with my colleagues and the American people some observations on the crisis that has occurred on the island of Tahiti in French Polynesia, as a consequence of French President Jacques Chirac's recent decision for the Government of France to resume testing of nuclear bomb explosions on the Pacific island atolls of Moruroa and Faugataufa. Mr. Speaker, despite thousands of petitions and the pleadings from leaders of countries from Europe, from South America, from Asia, and especially from the Pacific island nations, asking France to refrain from conducting nuclear bomb explosions under these Pacific atolls, President Chirac went ahead and pressed the nuclear button 3 weeks ago, exploding a nuclear bomb under Moruroa Atoll with a nuclear punch of 20 kilotons. The nuclear bomb detonated, Mr. Speaker, was more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on the city of Hiroshima, Japan--which, incidentally, Mr. Speaker, killed some 200,000 men, women and children, from the direct explosion as well as the subsequent radioactive contamination of the residents of Hiroshima. Mr. Speaker, I realize that whenever a person calls out the word or name, ``Tahiti,'' immediately many of us think of paradise--the swaying palm trees, the lovely Polynesian maidens--a place where there is much dancing and singing in the air, amongst the festive Polynesian Tahitians. Perhaps, even more vividly, when the American people think of Tahiti, they recall visions from the silver screen classic, ``Mutiny on the Bounty,'' first with Clarke Gable and later starring Marlon Brando. The fact of the matter, Mr. Speaker, is that the Pacific islands of Tahiti, Moorea, Huahine, Raiatea, and Bora Bora, truly are among the most beautiful volcanic islands in the world. The world famous writer and author, James Michener, has described the island of Bora Bora as the most beautiful in the world, and I agree with Mr. Michener. Well, Mr. Speaker, as I stand here in the well describing the magnificent beauty of these islands, something very serious has happened since these islands became a colony of France some 150 years ago. The islands of French Polynesia were what westerners would call colonized by France, after some 500 French soldiers with guns and cannons subdued the Tahitian chiefs and their warriors in the 1840's. Mr. Speaker, after the French were kicked out of their former colony, Algeria, in the early 1960's the late Charles de Gaulle immediately ordered his subordinates to find a new place where the French Government could continue its nuclear testing program. The French Government decided that the two Pacific atolls of Moruroa and Faugataufa in French Polynesia would be the sites for the French nuclear testing program. The Government of France has now exploded well over 180 nuclear bombs on the under these two atolls in the Pacific. The French have been exploding their nuclear bombs in the Pacific for the past 30 years. Mr. Speaker, with the cold war at an end and the Berlin Wall down, there has been a tremendous sense of relief among the leading countries of the world. As a result, a moratorium was called by the leading nuclear powers, including France, 3 years ago to suspend nuclear testing altogether. Mr. Speaker, in June of this year, the newly elected President of France Jacques Chirac, announced that France would explode eight more nuclear bombs--one a month, beginning this month of September until May of next year. And each nuclear bomb explosion, Mr. Speaker, shall be up to 10 times more powerful that the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. Mr. Speaker, despite extensive efforts made by citizens's organizations and government leaders, involving petitions and pleadings from all over the world to persuade President Chirac not to push that nuclear buttom--the Chirac government still went ahead and detonated their nuclear bomb. Mr. Speaker, President Chirac said recently through international wire services that the eight nuclear bomb explosions were absolutely necessary to improve France's nuclear weapons capabilities and that the matter was in the order of the highest national interest of the French Government. However, nuclear physicists contend that the safety and reliability of nuclear weapons could be ensured by non-nuclear tests and have suggested that what France is really pursuing with resumed testing is completion of a new warhead design. This new warhead is supposedly an advanced generation of neutron bombs designed to destroy life, while leaving property intact. Dr. Hutton, a Monash University physicist told the Weekend Australian that what France is not telling the public ``is the kinds of new weapons they are planning to use those simulation techniques to build.'' Why do they want simulation programs? ``So they can go beyond the thresholds which will be defined in the Comprehensive Text Ban Treaty,'' he states. Mr. Speaker, there are some very serious and troubling issues that now need our national attention, and the international attention of other countries, as well. In my opinion, Mr. Speaker, France has now initiated the nuclear arms race again, and I would nominate Mr. Chirac as the world's leading nuclear arms proliferator. Additionally, Mr. Chirac's actions raise another serious probem--if I were Chancellor Kohl or any citizen of German, I would feel very uneasy and uncomfortable about the idea that President Chirac has his finger on a nuclear trigger that he is trying to make more lethal. I would also wonder as a German citizen or as citizens of other European countries what assurances there are that French nuclear-armed missiles shall never be pointed at Bonn, Munich or Berlin, or other cities in Europe? If I were Chancellor Kohl or a German citizen, I would further wonder what absolutely ensures that Mr. Chirac's nuclear forces would be used to defend Germany against in enemy country that might be an ally or a friend of Chirac's government. I believe, Mr. Speaker, we find ourselves in an interesting dilemma, and I am reminded of a Middle Eastern proverb that states that sometimes the friend of my friend is also my enemy. Mr. Speaker, every country in Europe should feel somewhat uneasy about the possibility that France is the only country among the continental European nations with a nuclear trigger that may be pointed against any one of them. Mr. Speaker, this is the kind of tension and uncertainty that Mr. Chirac has raised since the re-opening of its nuclear testing program last week. The implications are obvious, Mr. Speaker, and if Mr. Chirac's motive is to raise fear and apprehension about France's nuclear capabilities among its European allies, I must say, President Chirac has succeeded in this endeavor. Mr. Speaker, the irony of this is that while 62 percent of the people of France do not approve of nuclear testing in the Pacific, the same majority of the people of France also want France to be recognized as a world leader and as a member of the nuclear club like Great Britain, the United States, Russia, and the People's Republic of China. The problem, Mr. Speaker, is that absent among the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and the world's nuclear club are two nations that are considered as having the second and third most powerful economies in the world. Mr. Speaker, I am making reference to Japan and Germany, respectively. Mr. Speaker, if there is ever a time to examine regional and international conflicts as we confront them today, there is no way that we can deny the presence and considerable influence of Japan in the Asia-Pacific region and Germany throughout Europe, and certainly both nations to be directly involved with the affairs of the entire world. [[Page H 9667]] Mr. Speaker, about 3 weeks ago I was in Tahiti in French Polynesia. I was joined with some 40 other parliamentarians from the Pacific, from Japan, from Asia, from South America, and from Europe. Led by the mayor of the town of Fa'aa and the leading Polynesian leader, Mr. Oscar Temaru, we joined together for a demonstration in the streets of Papeete, Tahiti to oppose the resumption of French nuclear testing on Moruroa and Faugataufa atolls. We were also joined by the Minister of Finance Mr. Takemura of Japan, and he also voiced his strong opposition to French nuclear testing. Mr. Speaker, earlier on August 30, 1995, Mr. Temaru and his associates, Mr. Vito Haamatua, and myself traveled to the island of Tureia which is located about 60 miles away from Moruroa where the nuclear bomb had already been placed in a shaft about 3,000 feet under the atoll. We were joined later with the arrival of the Rainbow Warrior II and together we headed for the Moruroa atoll. Mr. Speaker, in anticipation of the French Government's announcement that the first nuclear explosion would take place on September 1, 1995 at about 6 in the morning, the Rainbow Warrior launched about six inflatable zodiacs at about 3 in the morning--in the dark, right under the nose of the French naval warships. What is remarkable about these zodiacs, Mr. Speaker, is that they were manned by young men and women who were from New Zealand, from Italy, from Australia, from the United States, from France, from Portugal--kind of a mini United Nations representation. Mr. Speaker, I commend these young people. They were not commandos or soldiers. They were just ordinary citizens, committed to a nuclear free world. It is no secret that the world is suffering tremendously as a result of man's own carelessness and sheer callousness in destroying the ecological balance between nature and all forms of plant and animal life. Mr. Speaker, I want to share this basic item of fact again with my colleagues and with the American people. The fact is, Mr. Speaker, that the French Government has now exploded 176 nuclear bombs on Moruroa island. One hundred and seventy-six nuclear bombs exploded on one tiny island atoll. And President Chirac has the gall to say that this atoll is ecologically safe? Mr. Speaker, there are reports of hundreds of Tahitians who were subjected to nuclear contamination but were never properly tested after exposure. As a consequence of these explosions, British scientists have confirmed that the atoll underneath Moruroa Atoll is ``becoming a web of vitrified cavities, from which an unknown number of cracks are spreading like spiders' webs.'' Areas of Moruroa atoll have already sunk by one meter or more. In fact, Dr. Roger Clark, a seismologist at England's Leeds University, has said that one more test could trigger the atoll's collapse, leading to huge cracks opening to the sea, threatening the fish and other marine life, and ultimately threatening our marine environment throughout the Pacific. As early as 1987, the world-famous oceanographer and marine environmentalist, Jacques Cousteau, who I personally commend for his opposition to nuclear testings in the Pacific and for the appeals he made to Chirac, also found spectacular cracks and fissures in the atoll, as well as the presence of radioactive isotopes, in the form of iodine 131, plutonium 239, and cesium 134, more commonly known as nuclear leakage. Mr. Speaker, there is also a strong link between ciguatera poisoning and military operations involving nuclear testing in French Polynesia. Ciguatera poisoning occurs when coral reefs are destroyed, releasing toxic marine organisms which are absorbed by plankton that are eaten by fish, that are ultimately consumed by humans. Mr. Speaker, even if France stopped its nuclear testing today, the untold amounts of radioactivity encased in Moruroa Atoll will require scientific monitoring for decades to come. Yet France refuses to allow complete and unhindered scientific studies and health assessments to take place. Another fact remains, Mr. Speaker. As media coverage gave voice to every French diplomat around the world, as well as to France's position that nuclear testing was necessary to its national interest, the senselessness of the testing went untold. What the media failed to tell the world is that France did not need to update its technology via nuclear explosions. The United States had already offered France the technology it sought. Yet American journalists have not given this fact the same amount of airplay that French diplomats have gotten in asserting their insane claim that exploding eight more nuclear bombs in South Pacific waters is necessary to France's national interest. The media in foreign countries, including Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, and others have done a far better job of covering the global implications of France's resumed nuclear testing than has the American media. How ironic that this should be the case, for a country that has zealously protected and promoted the right to free speech and press, and the widespread dissemination of information; and yet there was hardly any media discussion and debate in America concerning French nuclear testing. Just a few editorials here and there and that was it. Mr. Speaker, the irony of it all--while just about every American household has a television tuned in and, following the sequences on the fate of one man--Mr. O.J. Simpson, we have turned a deaf ear to health and welfare and even the lives of some 200,000 men, women, and children who are totally helpless and are not capable of withstanding the military might of the French Navy and the French Foreign Legion--as the French Government has literally forced the Polynesian Tahitians to accept such as awful fate, and a future with no promise to enhance their lives. And, Mr. Speaker, if and when the French colonial power ever does leave these islands, what a sad commentary for writers to state that France's two gifts to these Polynesian Tahitian's are cognac and islands that are contaminated as a result of French nuclear testings for the past 30 years. Mr. Speaker, I would have hoped that the French could have learned from America's experience with nuclear testing in the Pacific. In 1954, on Bikini Atoll, the United States exploded the most famous hydrogen bomb of that time--a 15 megaton bomb, 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The sad part of this story is that before the bomb was exploded, the officials who were conducting this experiment--the ``Bravo Shot''--discovered that the winds had shifted and that the 300 men, women, and children living on the nearby island of Rongelap would be put at risk by the explosion. They exploded the bomb anyway, subjecting 300 innocent people to nuclear contamination. The accounts of their suffering are well-documented. Though our Government is making every effort to resettle this island and offer monetary compensation to these people, the reality is, no amount of money can compensate for one's health. The women of Rongelap gave birth to what many termed ``jelly babies,'' babies that were born dead and did not appear to look human. The people of Rongelap have suffered from cancer, leukemia, and all manners of disease associated with nuclear contamination. Yes, we conducted these tests, but then realized the horrors associated with these tests. We realized how harmful these nuclear tests are to the atolls and to the Pacific Islanders way of life. So the United States stopped its nuclear testing program in the Pacific and moved its testing sites underground in the desert plains of the State of Nevada. Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend President Clinton for his policy on nuclear testing. He has committed the United States to negotiate an absolute ban on all nuclear tests, and has rejected the argument that small-scale testing is necessary to ensure weapons reliability. This decision, serving as a model for the world, is a major step toward stopping nuclear proliferation. On the other hand, Mr. Speaker, I must express my disappointment that our Government did not release a strong statement condemning France after the explosion on Moruroa Atoll on September 1, 1995. While other countries vigorously denounced France's [[Page H 9668]] detonation, the response of the United States was understated and weak. So I stand here in the well today, Mr. Speaker, to declare what our own State Department would not. Chirac's decision to promote nuclear proliferation, at the expense of a peaceful people, is an atrocity, a crime against humanity, not unlike France's decision in World War II to forcibly deport 75,000 of its own citizens, to Nazi concentration camps, where it is said that only 1,000 of those deported survived. In addition, Mr. Speaker, France's resumption of nuclear testing, especially on soil other than its own, is nothing less than a classic example of colonialism in its worst form, and as such, an old ideology politicized by dominant Western cultures as a means to marginalize and oppress. Every enlightened French citizen should be ashamed that such atrocity reigns in the hands of its current leader, and that those Polynesian Tahitians are simply being forced against their will by the French colonial government to accept nuclear testing, like it or not. What President Chirac has done is inexcusable and offends the sensitivities of decent people throughout the world. This madness must stop, Mr. Speaker, and it must stop now, and again I urge any fellow Americans, as a gesture of your support, to oppose this mean-spirited policy by President Chirac--don't purchase French wine and French goods and products--this is the only way President Chirac will get the message. Mr. Speaker, within the coming weeks and months, if there will be more violence and even loss of lives in Tahiti because of nuclear testing, I cannot see how President Chirac can passively take this issue without any concern to the lives of those people who live on those Pacific Islands. Again, Mr. Speaker, I make this appeal to my colleagues and on behalf of thousands of people throughout the world--especially to the citizens of Japan, the citizens of Germany--to my fellow Americans, to show our compassion and concerns for the welfare of the 200,000 Polynesian Tahitians who are being forced to accept French colonial policy to conduct nuclear testings in the Pacific--a world citizenry movement not to purchase French wine, foods, and products as a gesture of support of the 200,000 Polynesian Tahitians who are against nuclear testing in the Pacific. Mr. Speaker, I include newspaper articles on the subject of my special order for the Record, as follows: [From the Associated Press, Sept. 26, 1995] Tahitian Government Leader Asks Chirac To End Tests Before Elections Papeete, Tahiti.--Tahiti has asked France to speed up its South Pacific nuclear tests, which have prompted huge riots and fueled the independence movement on the largest island in French Polynesia. Tahitian Government President Gaston Flosse said he has asked French President Jacques Chirac to complete the tests before March so elections scheduled that month can be held ``in a calmer atmosphere.'' France's first nuclear blast at Mururoa Atoll on Sept. 5 set off two days of riots in Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia. The test was the first in three years anywhere except China. Protesters set fire to buildings, looted shops and torched cars. Many of the rioters were members of Tahiti's pro- independence movement, called out on the streets by a pro- independence radio station after police confronted peaceful protesters. Opponents of the testing have threatened to hit the streets again this week when France is expected to set off a larger nuclear warhead at Fangatufa, another atoll in the South Pacific. Chirac has said he plans to conduct as many as eight tests by the end of May. France says it needs the tests to update its nuclear arsenal and develop computer simulation to replace testing. However France has said it supports an eventual global ban on nuclear testing. Also Tuesday, the European Parliament said it plans to investigate possible links between the first blast and a volcanic eruption more than 3,000 miles away in New Zealand. Some members of the 626-seat legislature suspect that the French underground tests on Mururoa Atoll may have sent shock waves along underwater fault lines and caused the eruption of New Zealand's Mount Ruapehu. That mountain continued to spew ash and boulders Tuesday in what could become New Zealand's biggest volcanic eruption in 50 years.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, in 1921 Congress enacted the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act to preserve and protect a way of life for native people on the Islands of Hawaii. The act put aside approximately 200,000 acres of land for the exclusive use and benefit of native Hawaiians. The purpose was to use these lands as a homesteading program to return native Hawaiians to their lands. Unfortunately, the program was destined to fail from the outset. Between 1921 and 1959 when Hawaii became a State, the program was administered by the Federal Government through a succession of territorial Governors. During Federal control, large portions of the lands were withdrawn. All the best and most productive lands were taken, leaving mostly marginal lands which couldn't support housing or agriculture. The native Hawaiian community received no benefit from the lands taken. In 1984 much of the land was returned but the Federal Government both continued to retain the best lands and provided no compensation for lost use. Title II of H.R. 402 sets up a process whereby the Federal Government can exchange Federal lands within the State of Hawaii as a means of settling claims against the United States. The Secretary of the Interior would also be authorized to convey lands to the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands as compensation for lost use of those lands. To be honest, I wish this bill went further and demanded back the valuable lands stolen from the native Hawaiians against the directive of the Congress. However, I defer to the wisdom of the only native Hawaiian to serve in the U.S. Senate, my good friend the Senator of Hawaii who authored this legislation. I also want to commend my colleagues Mr. Abercrombie and Mrs. Mink for their efforts in moving this legislation. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, despite international pleading, protests, and appeals, France resumed nuclear testing in the South Pacific on September 5, 1995, at Morurua Atoll, exploding a nuclear bomb 10 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Sixty miles away, 3 days before, on the island of Tureia, Tahitian children splashed and played in the ocean waves, unaware that a man named Chirac would forever mar their innocent way of life. Chirac's decision to promote nuclear proliferation, at the expense of a peaceful people, is a chilling commentary on man's inhumanity to man. If fact, it is an atrocity, a crime against humanity, not unlike the French Government's earlier decision to forcibly deport 75,000 of its own French citizens to Nazi concentration camps where it is said that only 1,000 of those deported survived. France's resumption of nuclear testing, especially in waters other than its own, is nothing less than a classic example of rancid colonialism; an old world ideology politicized by dominant cultures as a means to marginalize, oppress, and make expendable the lives of some 200,000 Polynesian Tahitians. Every enlightened French citizen should be ashamed that such atrocity reigns in the hands of its current leader, President Chirac.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, again I say to my colleagues and to the American people: Wake up America. Mr. Speaker, last week President Chirac of France pushed his nuclear button and exploded 1 of 8 nuclear bombs last week that had more power than was exploded in the atom bomb in Hiroshima, Japan, 50 years ago. Later detonations are expected to follow, each with up to 10 times greater destructiveness than the Hiroshima bomb. Maybe 10 years from now, when that island atoll in the Pacific, the Mururoa Atoll, starts sinking and nuclear contamination enters the marine food chain causing secondary fish poisoning, maybe then one day the millions of Americans living in Hawaii and the Pacific Coast States will say, ``Why did no one tell us about this?'' Mr. Speaker, France has already exploded 164 nuclear bombs in this atoll. What madness. Wake up America. We may also end up the victims of French callousness by poisoning our Pacific environment.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, about 150 years ago, by show of military force with guns, bullets and cannons, the Government of France incorporated into a colony a group of Polynesian islands currently known as French Polynesia, with its current capital in the town of Papeete and the main island called the island of Tahiti. Mr. Speaker, these Polynesian islands were popularized by the famous historical novel that was written by Mr. Hall and Mr. Nordoff in the early 1930's, and later, a couple of very famous films were based on this novel. They are currently known as the Mutiny on the Bounty. As you well know, it was a historical fact that a British Naval captain by the name of Captain Bly was assigned to go to these islands in the South Pacific to bring back a certain fruit called the bread fruit so that it could be transferred to the Caribbean to feed the slaves, as it was part of the British empire at that time. Mr. Speaker, these islands are currently in tremendous turmoil, as has been witnessed by the American people and throughout the world, of what has happened in the eve of the recent decision made by President Chirac in June that the Government of France was going to resume nuclear testing in the South Pacific. And the proposed plan by President Chirac was that for the 8-month period, once each month the Government of France was going to explode one nuclear bomb each up to the equivalent of 10 times the power of the bomb that we dropped in Hiroshima 50 years ago. Mr. Speaker, I am sad to say that this new testing program began a couple of days ago and as a result of that, riots broke out in the city of Papeete. The main airport was closed and the island of Tahiti was at a standstill. Now the tremendous uproar, Mr. Speaker. Everybody is pointing fingers at everybody. President Chirac recently, by the media, is pointing fingers at Australia and New Zealand and other countries for causing all these riots to occur. New Zealand and Australia are saying, no, Mr. Chirac, you are to blame for this thing that has happened now to the people of Papeete and the French Polynesians. Mr. Speaker, I don't know if the American people are aware of the fact that this is the same situation that occurred in the early 1960's when our Government also exploded some of the most powerful nuclear bombs the world has ever witnessed in the islands of Micronesia. I recall in 1954 we exploded what was known as the bravo shot, in which we exploded the first hydrogen bomb that was 50 megatons, and let me explain this to the American people and to my colleagues. The power of this bomb that we exploded on the island of Bikini was 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb that we dropped in Hiroshima. As a result of that bomb, 300 men, women and children on the islands of Rongelap and Utirik just playing on the ocean floor, not even knowing exactly what was happening, and the sad part of this legacy and the story in our own country, Mr. Speaker, our officials knew that the winds had shifted but they did not stop the detonation of that bomb. And as a result of that, as a result of that, these people were directly impacted by nuclear contamination because of what we did to them. Mr. Speaker, to this day, these people are still suffering, still suffering from radioactive contamination, having the highest rates of cancer, leukemia. You can call it what you may, but these people are still suffering and no amount of money our Government could ever give these people will bring them back to normal health. Mr. Speaker, this is the same problem the people of the Pacific have been fighting for years, and by our own admission, by our own admission, in 1963 we said, hey, we better not do this any more, it is hurting the environment. We conducted some serious atmospheric tests in Micronesia, underground, on the ground, under the reefs. We have done it and we found out that ecologically it was not suitable, and this is the reason why we did these tests now underground in the State of Nevada. Mr. Speaker, we advised our friends from France, you cannot do this in the atolls of these islands in the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific Ocean is not a stagnant pool. It is an ocean that constantly moves, like what we call the Humboldt Current, and by doing this, our good friend, President DeGaulle, said, no, we are going to do it. So for the past 20 years, the Government of France has exploded over 240 nuclear bombs on these islands in French Polynesia, mainly on these two atolls known as the Moruroa and the Fangataufa atolls. Mr. Speaker, on Moruroa atoll, the Government of France has exploded over 163 nuclear bombs; and 8 more nuclear bombs, Mr. Speaker, that atoll is going to collapse, and when that contamination comes out of that atoll, it is not just the 200,000 French Polynesians that are going to be affected by it, but the whole Pacific Ocean. Mr. Speaker, somehow we have taken a very passive view of the seriousness of the situation, and Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues and the American people, something has got to be done. President Chirac has got to get the message. What he is doing is wrong. It is morally wrong and it is time that we stop this madness.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier to my colleagues and to the American people, the French Government has already exploded 164 nuclear bombs in the atmosphere and under the Mururoa Atoll in French Polynesia, in the South Pacific. Mr. Speaker, first French officials said the tremendous amount of nuclear contamination contained in this atoll should be contained for 1,000 years. Now, these same French officials are saying it may be 100 years. Mr. Speaker, the consensus now among the scientists is that Mururoa Atoll will collapse within 10 to 50 years. Mr. Speaker, the contamination contained in this atoll is equivalent to several Chernobyls in the Ukraine. Mr. Speaker, I was arrested for 16 hours on the Greenpeace ship the Rainbow Warrior II, and I wrote these verses to describe the crisis in the South Pacific: You appear in a cloud, like a flash from the West that blinds our vision. From Tahiti Nui, from the Tuamotus, Mangareva, Tubuai, Bora-Bora, Raiatea, Huahine, Tahaa, NukuHiva, Tureia, Mururoa and Fangataufa. Like poisoned fish that float aimlessly from fissured reefs, death moves slowly toward the people from the sun until it is too late. Chirac, Chirac, what have you done?

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from New Jersey for yielding me this time and I really appreciate his consideration for allowing me to share with my colleagues and the American people what is happening in French Polynesia, the eve of the French nuclear testing catastrophe that I feel that what is happening now. Mr. Speaker, yesterday France detonated a nuclear bomb in French Polynesia, defying worldwide opinion which [[Page H 8592]] has uniformly condemned their resumption of nuclear testing. Mr. Speaker, about 2 hours ago, I personally received word from Tahiti's most prominent leader against nuclear testing, the mayor of the village of Take Ah Ah, Mr. Temaru. My colleagues, as I speak, Tahiti is burning right now. Tahiti is at a standstill. The only airport in Tahiti is burning. As a result of France's explosion of the nuclear bomb in Mururoa Atoll right now, Tahitians attempted to hold a peaceful demonstration and occupy the only airport on the island. As a result, a French military hurled grenades and starting shooting at these unarmed Tahitians. Mr. Speaker, what arrogance. Several Tahitians are wounded and Mr. Temaru is making an appeal to the world community of what is happening because the French Government right now is making every attempt to suppress what is happening right now on this island in French Polynesia. Mr. Speaker, there are several good reasons why France should not, does not need to explode eight more nuclear bombs under the atoll, Mururoa Atoll. First, France has already exploded 163 nuclear bombs in the atmosphere on and under the Mururoa Atoll. The nuclear contamination under this atoll is equivalent to several times the contamination of the city of Chernobyl in Russia. And let me share with my colleagues and the American people what the atoll looks like, Mr. Speaker, if I can get a focus on this. And this is what the atoll looks like. This is a French document showing the areas of the atoll that is contaminated. And despite all this publicity that some of the people have seen, the President of French Polynesia swimming on the beach, it is a total misinformation given to the world community, and the fact is this atoll is contaminated, Mr. Speaker. And it could be 10 years from now, 50 years from now, if this atoll starts leaking nuclear contamination, the people of the Pacific are going to be the victims while Mr. Chirac continues to drink his wine in Paris. Mr. Speaker, France currently has the third largest supply of nuclear bombs in the world. Nuclear bombs are weapons of genocide, Mr. Speaker. Nuclear bombs destroy everything and anything on sight, including human beings. Mr. Speaker, who are the French going to explode these bombs against? The fact that Europe is united, we have a NATO organization. And the fact that Chirac says that this is in the national interest of France's nuclear deterrent force system, what about our friends in Germany? Should they then also be concerned that this is the kind of thing that France is opening up a complete can of worms. What is there for us then to tell Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan, that they have no right to conduct nuclear testing for their national interest? What hypocrisy, Mr. Speaker, what hypocrisy. Mr. Speaker, after exploding over 1,000 nuclear bombs, the United States, who happens to be an ally of France, has already offered the technology for which France seeks to achieve by exploding 8 more nuclear bombs. Each nuclear bomb with a force of up to 10 times, 10 times more powerful than the nuclear bomb that we dropped on Hiroshima 50 years ago. And that bomb, Mr. Speaker, incidentally, killed 120,000 men, women, and children in that city with an additional 80,000 people who died as a result of radioactive contamination and illnesses. Mr. Speaker, three major newspapers and several others in the United States, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, all called for President Chirac to stop the nuclear tests in the South Pacific. The U.S. Senate has also passed a resolution under the leadership of U.S Senator Daniel Akaka of Hawaii that calls upon the Government of France not to conduct these tests. In the House of Representatives, the Committee on International Relations unanimously adopted a resolution again calling upon the Government of France not to conduct these nuclear testings. Mr. Speaker, President Clinton has also issued a strong statement last month to call upon all nations, especially France and China, for a complete ban on termination or termination of nuclear bomb testings. Mr. Speaker, the United States alone has enough nuclear bombs to blow this whole planet 10 times over. The notion that the nation with more nuclear bombs will win the next nuclear war is sheer nonsense and total madness of what this world is doing now. Mr. Speaker, if France does not set a good example by canceling nuclear bomb tests, what is there is stop countries like Iran and Iraq and Pakistan and India to also conduct nuclear bomb tests and also either purchase or develop their own nuclear arsenals? What madness, Mr. Speaker. When is this madness going to end? I personally visited Muruoa Atoll 3 years ago, Mr. Speaker, and I must say in all candor, the military officials of France personally told me that that atoll is contaminated. The atoll is contaminated. Mr. Speaker, in appealing to the people of French Polynesia and to the leaders of French Polynesia, who are in constant contact with Mr. Chirac, one day the children of the Pacific and their children's children are either going to live as a free people or as victims of nuclear contamination from the Pacific Ocean which has served our Polynesian people for centuries as a highway system and also the source of all forms of life where man, the animals, and plants have coexisted. Mr. Speaker, this is truly a sad commentary to make in a democratic country like France to totally disregard the sincere concerns of some 27 million men, women, and children who live in the Pacific who have no hatred or animosity toward the people of France. The people of the Pacific only want to live without fear of nuclear contamination in their vast ocean of the marine environment. Is this asking too much of President Chirac who, maybe 10 or 50 years from now, when we are going to be all gone but our children's children will then ask how can the Government of France allow such nuclear contamination to happen? Mr. Speaker, I am reminded of what a great western leader once said. He may have even been a French philosopher, for all I know. But he said the only real reason why evil continues to exist in this world is because good men do nothing. And I call upon President Clinton and the State Department, this is the French Government that decided years ago, this is the very government that decided years ago to withdraw its membership from NATO. This is the same French Government that demanded that all United States forces leave France within 60 days. And as I recall history, Mr. Speaker, our President, through Secretary of State Dean Rusk, personally hand-carried a letter and to let President De Gaulle know in verbatim that also included the 10,000 bodies of Americans who are buried in France who were there to fight, to liberate France from Nazi Germany. Mr. Speaker, this is the same French Government which 50 years ago by forced deportation of 75,000 French citizens to Nazi concentration camps and as a result only 1,000 of those French citizens survived. What a shame, Mr. Speaker, what a shame. And this is the same French Government who looks upon the 200,000 people who live in French Polynesia and say yes, they are expendable. They are expendable because Paris is 15,000 miles away. The people of France have no concern whatsoever about the leakages of the nuclear contamination. The 200,000 men, women, and children who live in French Polynesia, Mr. Speaker, are deemed expendable by the Chirac government's policy to continue these nuclear bomb explosions, which is madness. Mr. Speaker, President Chirac drinks his wine. The island of Tahiti is burning right now, at this moment. The total, the whole island is at a standstill. There are blockades now taken at the airport. The airport is burning. As I said, Mr. Speaker, it is just a beginning. What arrogance, Mr. Speaker. What arrogance on the part of a democratic country like France. It is the best form of true colonialism in its worst example, and I cannot believe that here a democracy of the world is setting the worst example to the rest of the world. When we talk about human rights, when we talk about liberty, when we talk about freedom and these people are suffering and are victims because of this stupid and asinine policy of the French Government to explode nuclear bombs in the Pacific. And the leaders of the world, the community, the world [[Page H 8593]] said if it is so safe, Mr. Chirac, why do you not explode it in France? We do not need this madness. We do not need this nightmare. I might also, Mr. Speaker, there are only 1.2 million American citizens living in the State of Hawaii. On the State of Hawaii, these are American citizens, Mr. Speaker, and I appeal again to the President, to the State Department, let us not be submissive. Let us not be passive to allow President Chirac to make these kinds of decisions that bring tension, that bring trouble and complete disregard for the concerns and the lives and the health and the welfare of the people who live in the Pacific. Mr. Speaker, I was in Tahiti just 2 days ago. Never have I witnessed what colonialism really means in the eve of the 21st century. Tahitian people are the least educated. I learned that only a handful, this is after 150 years of French colonialism, I was told by the Tahitians there are less than 10 Tahitians that were ever educated in the field of law. What a shame. What a shame, Mr. Speaker. I was joined by the Minister of Finance. The Minister of Finance, Mr. Takemura of Japan, quotes that France is losing respect from nations all over the world because of this stupid policy of exploding nuclear bombs in the Pacific. I might also note, Mr. Speaker, that there were parliamentarians from about 20 countries all over the world who were there to lend their support in strong opposition to this stupid policy that President Chirac has established to continue these stupid nuclear tests that we do not need in this world. And why are we reinventing the wheel? We have the technology. We offered it to President Chirac. But he does not want to accept it. What foolishness. And if it is so much to say that President Chirac can get away with this, then, Mr. Speaker, there is no justification for the United States and for France to tell India, to tell Pakistan, to tell Iraq, to tell Iran, you cannot experiment with nuclear bombs. That is nonsense and I urge my colleagues, I urge the American people to help, to help the 200,000 Polynesian Tahitians who are the victims. I might also add, Mr. Speaker, the media has done a disservice to this whole issue of nuclear bomb testings seeking only the opinions of people living in Europe, seeking only the opinions of policymakers but never looking at the situation of the victims, the people, the indigenous people who live in these islands, never, never regarding their concerns and their needs to live. And that is all they want, Mr. Speaker. They just want to simply live as a people whose lives depend on the ocean, whose lives depend on these atolls and these islands, and I just cannot believe this, Mr. Speaker. I cannot believe this is at the eve of the 21st century we have a country like France, supposedly a democracy, practicing the worst evils of colonialism against these 200,000 people that live there and all they want in life is just to live in peace. Is that asking too much of President Chirac? Oh, no. President Chirac wants to so that he is a big man now. He is macho; he is De Gaulle the second. He wants to show that he has got muscle there. I hope Chancellor Kohl will take notice of this fact. If I were a German citizen, I would be a little concerned about President Chirac's ability to press that nuclear button. Why should Germany also not have nuclear deterrent force? I say, in every justification, Germany should have that same, but this is a farce that is going on as far as nuclear testing is concerned. Why should France be the only one? And other democratic countries in Europe, they should also have the same technology. This is what France has done. Chirac is the leading proponent of nuclear proliferation. What France has done yesterday, it has opened up the nuclear arms tests again, and I call upon President Clinton and Secretary Christopher, let us not be passive about this. This thing concerns the lives and the welfare of the American people just as much as the poor victims who are caught between this whole episode on how one man, not the goodness of the French people, one man and the terrible policy that his government has established since he has been in office for the first 100 days. I cannot believe this, Mr. Speaker; the worst example of colonialism on the eve of the 21st century that we find a democratic country like France totally disregarding world opinion, totally disregarding the wishes of the local people who are going to be most impacted. Yet this man still went ahead and exploded that nuclear bomb yesterday. I cannot believe this, Mr. Speaker. I ask the American people, you know, there is one thing I have learned about American tradition. Mr. Speaker, they always like to support the underdog because we were the underdogs when we were colonies and happened to be going against the greatest power, that happened to be the British empire. Who would dare challenge the British empire for its form of colonialism? This exactly is the situation facing the Polynesians, 200,000 people who do not have guns, grenades. They are still paddling canoes to make a living, enjoying what nature has given them, enjoying what God has given them. Is it asking so much that these people want to live as any others, Mr. Speaker? Mr. Speaker, what nonsense, what madness that the President of France has the gall, the mitigated gall, to press that nuclear button yesterday. If the Tahitians get killed and wounded, if that place is burning, I say this should be on the head of President Chirac, that he should be taking full responsibility for this. I call upon my colleagues and the goodness of the American people, do not buy French products, do not buy French perfume, do not by French wines. Send a strong message to President Chirac that the world community and the American people support the victims of this whole thing, and this is the only way that that man is going to listen to the wishes of the world community. Mr. Speaker, 63 percent of the people of France do not support nuclear testing. The vast majority of the Tahitian Polynesians, 200,000 men, women, and children who live in this area of the world, do not support nuclear testing. Yet because of the strong military lobby, the corporate lobby in France that probably supported President Chirac during his campaign, is getting a payoff. That is what this is about. The corporate lobby in France is getting a payoff because of its support of President Chirac in his election campaign this year. What a shame, Mr. Speaker. What a shame this is the kind of policy the President of France adheres to despite the wishes not only of the people, the victims who live in these islands; they are getting nothing but the worst example of colonialism in the middle of the 20th century. Again, Mr. Speaker, I appeal to my colleagues and the American people, do not buy French foods, do not buy French products. This is the only way that President Chirac is going to listen to common sense, listen and be a little more sensitive to the wishes of the people who live there. Mr. Speaker, again I thank my friend, the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the editorial board of the New York Times for an excellent editorial commentary this morning, entitled, ``Mr. Chirac's Nuclear Blunder'' and I recommend the article to my colleagues and the American people. Mr. Speaker, I will say again and again--shame on you President Chirac of France--shame on you President Chirac and your military cronies--the gall and arrogance to come marching to the South Pacific to explode eight nuclear bombs starting this month. Mr. Speaker, as I indicated yesterday to my colleagues and to all the citizens of our country who may be listening to this television broadcast, the government of France has just announced it will now begin its program of exploding its first nuclear bomb within 3 weeks of this month rather than next month. What has happened, Mr. Speaker, is that the President of France and his advisors have totally underestimated the outrage of millions of people around the world, and the leaders of nations from the Pacific Region from Asia, from Latin America, and even from Europe--all expressing resentment and disappointment for France's recent decision to resume its nuclear testing program on certain atolls in the South Pacific. Mr. Speaker, several known leaders of governments around the world have asked their constituencies to boycott all French made goods and products in their countries--in other words, don't buy French wine, French perfumes and cosmetics, French foods, French clothing, French shoes--French everything and anything that is manufactured or produced in France. Mr. Speaker, I wish I did not have to make this appeal to the American people not to purchase French goods and products, but how else is the French government going to take responsibility for its announced policy to resume nuclear testings in the middle of the Pacific Ocean? It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that the President of France can better utilize the 1 billion dollars he plans to spend for these eight nuclear bomb explosions--to resolve the serious problem of unemployment French citizens are now confronted with--a 12-percent unemployment rate right now in France. [[Page H 8423]] Mr. Speaker, if President Chirac really wants to prove how much of a world class leader that he claims to be--be a real man by showing real compassion and sensitivity to the hazards and dangers of nuclear bomb explosions--don't explode any more nuclear bombs in French Polynesia. [From the New York Times, July 30, 1995] Asian Nations Putting Pressure on France Over Nuclear Tests (By Philip Shenon) Bangkok, Thailand, July 29.--With France only weeks away from returning nuclear tests in the Pacific, governments across Asia and the south Pacific are demanding that the French reconsider, and there are warnings of an economic boycott that could damage the French economy. The most potent threat may come from Japan, where the Government has bitterly criticized the decision by President Jacques Chirac to resume nuclear testing in French Polynesia this fall after a three-year moratorium. Mr. Chirac says his decision is irrevocable. Last week 47 Japanese lawmakers, many of them prominent members of parties in the coalition Government, called for a boycott of French luxury goods, a threat that carries weight given the affection of millions of Japanese consumers for brand-name French fashion, perfumes and liquor. The Japanese market accounts for as much as half of the profits for some French makers of luxury goods, and shares of several of those companies have been tumbling in the French stock markets as a result of the protests in Japan. ``Nations that possess nuclear weapons must show their wisdom and set an example to countries that do not have nuclear weapons,'' the Japanese Science and Technology Minister, Makiko Tanaka, said in a letter to Mr. Chirac. Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama has accused France of ``betraying'' nonnuclear countries with the resumption of nuclear tests. Mr. Chirac announced in June, shortly after his election, that France would carry out eight underground explosions in two tiny Polynesian atolls--Mururoa and Fangatauta--from September through May. After that, he has promised, France will sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and end nuclear testing forever. The French Government has said it needs to carry out the tests to check the reliability and safety of its existing nuclear arsenal. But that has not satisfied foreign leaders and environmental campaigners who say computer simulations would offer much the same information. There is debate among scientists about the environmental impact of the tests, with French geologists insisting that none of the radiation from the test sites can leak from the hard basalt bedrock of the atolls. Scientists elsewhere are not so sure, concerned that radiation could reach the ocean through a porous layer of limestone. The decision to resume the tests has been criticized by the United States, Britain and Russia--nuclear powers that have all halted testing. Last week, the lower house of the Russian Parliament condemned the French tests, describing as ``dangerous such testing in the fragile systems of coral reefs.'' Only China, which has continued to conduct underground nuclear experiments at Lop Nor in the western province of Xianjiang, has continued to test. Although they can threaten nothing like the economic wallop of a Japanese boycott, the Governments of Australia and New Zealand have offered far stronger words against the French. ``An arrogant action of a European colonial power,'' Prime Minister Jim Bolger of New Zealand has said of the French tests. The Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating, described the tests as ``deplorable.'' ``We are determined to maintain the pressure on France to modify its program to desist from testing weapons and also to encourage further international focus on France,'' Mr. Keating said last week in Melbourne after meeting with Mr. Bolger.