‘We will not Relax our Efforts’: The Anti-Nuclear Stance of Civil Society and Government in Post-Independence Fiji

ABSTRACT

In the years immediately following independence, Fiji took advantage of its position as the first Pacific Island country in the United Nations to highlight the harms of French nuclear testing. Building on the outspoken efforts of Fijian civil society that reflected deep concerns in the region, the government of Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara took on an increasingly activist role in the international arena around the testing of nuclear weapons in the Pacific. Fiji’s advocacy over this time represented an important moment in Pacific Way politics, tying nuclear resistance to self-determination struggles. Anti-nuclear sentiment at both a community and political level positioned Pacific agency and perspectives in this global discourse. Revisiting the speeches and diplomatic efforts of the Fijian government alongside the advocacy and activities of the ATOM group offers lessons on the importance of collaborative politics in the face of transboundary harms and regional challenges.

Key words:

• Fiji
• nuclear weapons testing
• nuclear colonialism
• nuclear resistance
• civil society

In the early years following independence, the government of Fiji’s founding prime minister, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, took a strong oppositional stance on nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific. Fiji’s advocacy during this time represented an important moment in Pacific Way politics, tying nuclear resistance to self-determination struggles, giving voice to small states.¹ The concept embodied for many a sense of Pacific unity and could be invoked to signal a different form of diplomacy and cooperation on transnational issues, including nuclear colonialism. Fiji provided an early and important focal point for nuclear concerns as the first Pacific country to join the United Nations (UN) following independence in 1970, using this platform to highlight the harms of French nuclear testing in particular. But where did this activist stance come from, and how did it evolve amongst significant transitional challenges during decolonization?

This article revisits this unique period in history, drawing on archival materials to rediscover the emergence of the anti-nuclear sentiment that grew from within Fiji and helped inform the later Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement. The strength of the emergent civil society approach in Fiji can be seen in the actions the Fijian government took in the earliest years of independence. Fijian groups such as Against Testing on Moruroa (ATOM) are sometimes credited with setting the tone for the NFIP movement. While they established foundations that aided the development of a distinct regional voice in opposition to nuclear weapons testing and associated harms, this small group had its origins in deeper and broader civil society movements.

Nuclearizing the Pacific

When nuclear weapons came to the Pacific Islands in the wake of World War Two through the testing programmes of the United States, Britain,² and France, many small Island states faced silencing that was inherent in colonialism. Historian Tracey Banivanua Mar notes that in the absence of territorial sovereignty or national autonomy for much of the region in the 1960s and 1970s, decolonization emerged as an identity, a belief system, and a thought process. She describes decolonization as a practice that is an ‘ongoing, ever contingent process of uncolonizing that has necessarily worked from the inside out’.³

As a sovereign state, Fiji carried a special responsibility to the UN in October 1970. Beyond their own national interest, Fijians saw themselves as a representative voice for the Pacific.⁴ While the assumption of being a voice for the Island states was not always welcomed by all, until 1975 Fiji remained the only self-determining member of the Pacific Island community in the UN, and as such their role in raising issues around nuclear weapons testing was vital.

Such advocacy was not enabled by colonial permissions. Britain’s silencing of their own nuclear activities in the region was part of the broader colonial picture. As Ratu Mara stated in his first speech to the UN in October 1970,

The British have not been wholly immune from the failings inherent in the colonial system itself. As with other colonial powers, their policy has been based on their concepts, their values, and their patterns of behaviour. They have not always shown due regard for the feelings, customs, and the way of life of the people. There has been superiority, and there has been arrogance. There has been too much direction and too little opportunity for participation.⁵

For Fiji, which had been under British rule for nearly 100 years, the transition to independence was relatively peaceful, but ties to the United Kingdom remained strong. It took courage as a small Island state to take up criticism of former colonial powers and other large states that would continue to exercise foreign power in the region. This landmark speech from Ratu Mara, delivered just weeks after the British flag was lowered at Albert Park in Suva to be replaced with the new Fijian flag, seemed to signal a new approach to international diplomacy from Fiji. Ratu Mara championed the Pacific Way as a central approach to Fiji’s new position in the UN⁶ as a means of speaking ‘on terms of equality with the larger nations’,⁷ claiming to have coined the phrase to ‘speak from our own experience’.⁸ His speech to the UN in 1970 raised the bar for truth-telling on the effects of colonialism. In the years to follow, such direct challenges would be seen again in relation to nuclear weapon testing.

At least in theory, the early Alliance government's concept of the Pacific Way in diplomacy was a rediscovery of a regional sense of identity, responsibility to neighbouring states, and an outlook for future cooperation.⁹ The term was used at this time by both government and civil society¹⁰ to indicate a new approach to diplomacy and collaboration. As a co-operatist strategy aligned with the Fijian traditional concepts of talanoa, the Pacific Way emphasized consensus, cohesion, dialogue, and striving for mutual understanding among the leaders.¹¹ Although it could be perceived as hierarchical and frequently gendered through traditional practices, it may also be seen as an antidote to the enormous disempowerment facing a region already subjected to decades of nuclear colonialism, pushing back from the imbalance of power that enabled Pacific places and peoples to be used in foreign nuclear test programmes.

As Fiji transitioned to independence, there were many pressing demands. Competing national interests, transiting bureaucracy, foreign affairs, new commitments to regional voice through the South Pacific Forum, and a rising civil society with growing expectations of action on nuclear issues all played a part. Each of these influences can be discerned in Fiji’s early foreign diplomacy efforts in the UN and regionally in the first five years following independence.

Government Action 1971–5

Following independence, Ratu Mara served as both the prime minister and the foreign minister, taking the lead on Fiji's foreign affairs.¹² Aside from his inaugural address in October 1970, Ratu Mara delegated these addresses to the UN to other high-ranking government officials, including Ambassador Semesa Sikivou, Ratu Edward Cakobau, and Ratu Penaia Ganilau, all close colleagues who were instrumental in the Fijian government in the lead up to independence.¹³ While biographer Derryk Scarr and others have noted that Ratu Mara’s administration had a wary relationship with the UN in the lead up to independence, largely due to concerns about the Decolonization Committee,¹⁴ this research shows a clear embrace of the role as a new member of the UN in 1970.¹⁵ Speeches and actions taken by these post-independence leaders show the strength of these concerns in Fiji,¹⁶ and the pressure and expectation to act from the public and civil society becomes evident. What follows is a brief overview of some key moments over this time that highlight the level of engagement on the nuclear issue from the Fijian government.

When speaking to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in 1971, Ambassador Sikivou emphasized the historical significance of speaking freely about nuclear testing issues. Sikivou stated,

On this occasion, our independent status enabled us for the first time to protest in our own right at the contamination of the atmosphere and of the sea which these tests must cause and at the subjection of the peoples of the South Pacific, against their will, to increases in the levels of radioactivity which, no matter how small, must be regarded as potentially hazardous to health.¹⁷

The point on ‘no matter how small’ was a challenge to the insistence of the French government that their nuclear weapons tests were harmless. It was a long-held deception. Early in the testing programme, General de Gaulle, apparently astounded at the resistance to French testing in the Pacific, was reported as declaring, ‘our bomb is a peaceful one – it is the most peaceful thing we’ve invented since France came into existence’.¹⁸

In 1971, Sikivou had noted the French announcement just weeks before proposing a halt to their nuclear testing programme in the Pacific. Sikivou expressed the hope that France would be ‘sufficiently sensitive to the feelings which the tests have aroused that it will make this halt permanent and final’. The Pacific region had little reason to believe that France would be ‘sensitive’ to the worries of the people who would be most impacted by the testing.¹⁹

In their UNGA address that same year, the French representative, Mr Maurice Schumann, had mounted a spirited defence of France’s nuclear weapons programme as part of their sovereign rights and an effort to maintain their independence. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) had come into force only the year before, bringing new commitments to general and complete disarmament of nuclear weapons in the five established nuclear weapons states, along with non-proliferation commitments. France had not signed the NPT, and Schumann argued that measures such as bans on proliferation were ‘misleading’ and could ‘only promote the development of hegemonies and would tend to divide the world by installing an order in which only the super-powers would retain the ability to exercise their sovereignty’.²⁰ Schumann added to this defence by claiming, ‘our experiments  …  would, in our view, cease to be legitimate if they were to endanger life – first of all, of course the life of man, but also the life of the flora and fauna on land and in the sea’. Justifying the ‘experiments’, he noted the ‘remoteness of the test sites’, and appealed to the evidence that France had established reporting mechanisms to the UN, as well as international collaborations with other scientists and researchers, as a ‘unique and unprecedented effort of international scientific co-operation’.²¹

The first South Pacific Forum meeting had also taken place in August 1971. For the first time since their independence or transition to self-government, Fiji, Tonga, Western Samoa, and the Cook Islands came together in a formal setting alongside Australia and Aotearoa-New Zealand. The meeting addressed French testing, with the final communique expressing Pacific nations’ ‘deep regret’ over the French atmospheric tests.²² In a joint protest to the French government on behalf of independent South Pacific nations, Aotearoa expressed their concern over the potential risks that atmospheric tests pose to human health and safety as well as to marine life, which is vital to the subsistence and economic wellbeing of the Pacific Islands. They requested that the current test series be the last in the region.²³

In the same year, Fiji also joined the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) for the first time.²⁴ It was an important meeting, resulting in the Declaration of Commonwealth Principles, which denounced racism and colonial domination.²⁵ At the meeting in Singapore in January 1971, Ratu Mara had raised nuclear testing, but the final communique did not adopt a resolution, opting instead to note discussion about nuclear concerns among a cluster of issues under other items related to international affairs. Some analysts speculate that the perception of a lack of respect at this meeting when discussing nuclear testing provided a greater impetus for the formation of the South Pacific Forum later that year.²⁶ Yoko Ogashiwa records Ratu Mara responding to the meeting with the observation, ‘Some countries think we are far enough away to act as a dumping ground for their own pollution. Although we live far away in the Pacific, we are becoming involved in international affairs whether we want to or not’.²⁷

In 1972, Ratu Sir Edward Cakobau took the podium at the UNGA. Ratu Cakobau was a long-time ally to Ratu Mara,²⁸ but he was also a military leader and followed a distinguished political career. In 1972 when he addressed the UNGA as Fiji’s deputy prime minister, he reiterated,

Ever since Fiji has had the opportunity of making its voice heard in the international community, it has protested the carrying out of nuclear tests in the atmosphere, and particularly the atmosphere of the Pacific Ocean.²⁹

Despite its claims of only a year before, France had resumed nuclear testing, conducting four more explosions during 1972. Ratu Cakobau combatted French claims that the tests produce little radiation and were harmless, stating ‘many countries in Fiji’s part of the world question why France needs to conduct them at a point on the earth’s surface, which is as far removed as possible from the mass of its own territory and population’.³⁰

Fiji supported calls for an initiative looking to ban all testing activity, particularly in the South Pacific. Calling the testing ‘repugnant to the international community as a whole’, Ratu Cakobau declared, ‘We will not relax our efforts, in concert with other like-minded nations, to persuade those responsible to bring their programmes of destruction to an end’.³¹

Following this 1972 UNGA address, Fiji also raised strong concerns at the UN First Committee, the key annual multilateral disarmament body. Making an intervention on the agenda item ‘Urgent Need for Suspension of Nuclear and Thermonuclear Tests’,³² the Fijian representative Mr Satya Nandan asserted that ‘Protests from individual bodies and persons throughout the Pacific region are loud, strong and clear, and they will continue as long as the tests do’.³³ Fiji referred to the continuation of testing as a ‘wilful act’ from a permanent member and a disregard of international opinion, in which France, ‘crosses the earth’s surface to conduct its tests in our surroundings’.³⁴ Fiji submitted that ‘there is a risk of induced disease or disability from even the lowest levels of exposure to radiation’, a claim that would be reaffirmed the following year when the Fiji government intervened in cases before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

1972 also saw two further Pacific Island Forum meetings, the first hosted in Australia in February, and the next in September 1972, hosted by Ratu Mara in Suva. The communiques of both meetings expressed deep concern about the nuclear weapons tests, particularly their impacts on human health and the environment, including marine life.³⁵

In Fiji’s 1973 statement to the UNGA, Ambassador Sikivou again stated Fiji’s firm opposition to nuclear testing in the region, and protested that France had ‘ignored the call of the international community for the halting of all atmospheric nuclear-weapon testing in the Pacific or elsewhere’. Pointing out that ‘action taken by one member can impinge on the rights of others’, Sikivou reiterated,

France has continued to conduct nuclear testing in the atmosphere at a point far removed from its own metropolitan territory, thus endangering the marine resources, health and lives of peoples of the South Pacific region.³⁶

Recalling the special considerations needed for those states that rely on the oceans, Sikivou stated, ‘With 300 scattered islands and with limited land resources, Fiji regards the sea and its resources as matters of vital importance in its efforts to improve the quality and standards of life of its people’. These repeated reminders that the nuclear tests were unwelcome intrusions and far from home came from within the region and only kept growing in subsequent years. Many recall the signs and posters from the 1980s carrying the slogan, ‘If it is safe; dump it in Tokyo, test it in Paris, store it in Washington, but keep my Pacific nuclear-free’.³⁷

1973 was the year both Australia³⁸ and Aotearoa³⁹ each brought cases to the ICJ to examine claims of harm from the nuclear tests being conducted in the atmosphere by France at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls in French Polynesia. Both countries followed up with applications to intervene for protection, seeking a halt in French testing while the ICJ considered their case. This led the court to quickly make a ruling that France needed to avoid nuclear tests causing the deposit of radioactive fallout while the court considered the cases.⁴⁰

Fiji became the only Pacific Island state to make formal interventions in each of the cases,⁴¹ submitting to the court evidence of the harm the tests were doing across the region. Fiji’s interventions were ultimately dismissed by the court, but the application to intervene cites important evidence of fallout on Fijian territory through the scientific monitoring programme run by New Zealand’s National Radiation Laboratory, which the governments of the day relied on to make the case. The monitoring programme had stations throughout the Pacific, including in Suva and Nadi. Monitoring showed notable increases in ‘fresh fission products’ derived from the French testing, which the Fijian submission claimed, ‘constitute a hazard to the health of the people of Fiji and their environment’. The application also listed a dozen instances of Fiji’s formal protests or actions taken to make their objections, as well as two direct pleas to the French government in 1971 and 1972. In addition to their addresses in the UNGA, the Fijian intervention cited the calls from the first four meetings of the South Pacific Forum condemning French nuclear testing, along with objections raised in other UN forums and at Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings. The application also noted the Fijian government had imposed bans, ‘on the landing and overflight by French military aircraft and on calls by French naval vessels which might be connected with the tests’.⁴² It was a packed agenda in the first couple of years of this newly independent state.

The intervention application noted,

Fiji public opinion has also voiced its strong opposition to the continuation by France of its testing programme. The fears of the public have been heightened by the proximity of the tests centre and a heightened awareness of scientific knowledge on the possible harmful effects of the increased doses of radioactivity to which the Fiji population is exposed as a result of these tests.⁴³

This heightened public concern, and particularly the awareness of the health impacts in Fiji, may be partly attributed to the vibrant civil society movement that culminated in the formation of the group Against Testing on Moruroa (ATOM).

Ultimately, with France’s announcement of the cessation of atmospheric testing in late 1974, the ICJ case (and Fiji’s interventions) were dismissed, as the court determined that the Applications from Australia and Aotearoa no longer served any purpose, and that it was not required to make a ruling on them.⁴⁴ However, in his 1973 address to the UNGA, Sikivou noted that France had ‘chosen to disregard the terms of an interim injunction granted by the World Court’. Sikivou said France had made a ‘dangerous encroachment of the long-standing principle of freedom of the high seas’ by cordoning off ‘a large area of the high seas far beyond the boundary of the territorial sea of its testing site’.⁴⁵

Perhaps one of the strongest of these early UNGA statements came in 1975 from Ratu Penaia Ganilau. This was less than a year after the French had ceased atmospheric tests in Mā‘ohi Nui/French Polynesia. The halt was something of a pyrrhic victory, as underground nuclear testing would soon begin and continue until 1996. Fijian leaders in both government and civil society were cynical about the safety of the shift to underground testing, with Ratu Mara reportedly saying, ‘putting the tests underground will not drive the problem underground’, and reiterating that, ‘Fiji is opposed to all forms of nuclear testing and would continue to proclaim her complete opposition to it’.⁴⁶

In his 1975 address to the UNGA, Ratu Ganilau again shows an impatience with the failure of nuclear weapons states to comply with international obligations for disarmament. Ratu Ganilau had directly witnessed a British nuclear test on Malden Island in 1957,⁴⁷ but he made no mention of this nor the impact on Fijian nuclear veterans. He did however make clear again Fiji’s objections to ‘all forms of nuclear contamination by any country, in any environment’. Ratu Ganilau stated, ‘Our endeavour to improve the quality of life of our people will continue to be frustrated so long as the environment in which we live is threatened by nuclear pollution’.⁴⁸

Ratu Ganilau stated that war, armed conflict, and in particular the nuclear arms race threatening global peace and security meant that ‘no corner of this globe can feel secure from the indiscriminate effects of modern warfare’. Confronting the idea that small states had no power in this question, Ratu Ganilau made clear that, ‘The question of disarmament – or, rather, the lack of progress in the field of disarmament – is a matter of concern for all States, big or small, near and remote’. He contended that nuclear non-proliferation would be thwarted if developments of ‘ever more sophisticated weapons’ were not stopped and that, ‘There can be no permanency in a peace based on fear of mutually assured self-destruction’.⁴⁹

Ratu Ganilau’s strong position in 1975 may have also been loaned momentum by Papua New Guinea having joined the UN following their independence in September 1975. PNG’s first prime minister, Michael Somare, addressed the UNGA at a special session to welcome their admission to the world body in October 1975. Somare explained,

Ethnically and culturally, we are a South Pacific people. We believe in close co-operation among the island peoples for the protection of our environment. The strength of this conviction is shown by our intention to sponsor, with New Zealand and Fiji, a resolution in this Assembly to make the South Pacific a nuclear-weapon-free zone. It is appropriate that this should be our first contribution to the work of the Assembly.⁵⁰

In his speech, Ratu Ganilau had also reiterated calls from the South Pacific Forum for a ‘comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty and complete disarmament’ and sought UNGA approval for a joint resolution for a study into the feasibility of a nuclear free zone in the South Pacific. Such a zone was central to Fijian civil society demands.⁵¹ The co-sponsored South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone resolution was adopted in December 1975 with the support of 110 states.

Ratu Ganilau was making this address in the wake of the powerful Nuclear Free Pacific Conference (NFPC) in Suva in April 1975. The Fijian government had sent representation to the conference, and Ratu Mara offered an opening statement in absentia. The clarity of calls just months before this address in the UN – including on the question of a Nuclear Free Zone – surely provided momentum for the strong position of the Fijian and other regional governments.

In these actions by the Fijian government during the first years of independence, we see a determined leadership working collaboratively, assertively, in the Pacific Way. What is less visible or acknowledged is how they were spurred on by a vibrant civil society movement back home.

Fiji’s Civil Society

Governments and civil society can work together with a degree of mutual respect, confidence, and cooperation when facing transboundary threats. This is seen in contemporary times around issues of climate change and oceans, in certain Pacific countries. For Fiji, in the years surrounding independence, a relationship between civil society and political leaders was tentative but also key to the outspoken stance the government took to the global stage.

Strong civil society voices were already at play within Fiji when Ratu Mara’s government began to take an anti-nuclear stance in foreign diplomacy. Although under-acknowledged, a small group of Fijian civil society actors were active on these issues from the mid-1960s. They informed, pushed, and advocated for action on issues arising from nuclear testing.⁵² From the outset, the basis of their concerns included self-determination, health, environmental protection, and science. Many activities were geared towards an integrated approach between these concerns, alongside cultural, solidarity, social, political, and human rights questions. The cohesive approach of civil society resulted in what was to be an altogether too brief but significant moment of collaboration between civil society and government on one of the most challenging transboundary issues of the time. How this came about is best explained by looking at the broader emergence of civil society groups in Fiji.

Helmut Anheier has broadly defined civil society as ‘the sphere of institutions, organizations and individuals located between the family, the state and the market in which people associate voluntarily to advance common interests’.⁵³ For Fiji in the immediate post-independence years, an eclectic mix of civil society organizations – including the churches, women’s groups, student and labour movements, and academic networks – played a prominent role in bringing civil concerns to governments and the wider communities they served. Influenced by self-determination, decolonization, and a reinvigorated sense of regional identity, these groups coalesced in Fiji in the 1960s and 1970s as a broad movement against nuclear testing.

As with much of the Pacific, by the 1970s civil society in Fiji had emerged as one of the ‘important players in postcolonial political polity’.⁵⁴ The emerging anti-nuclear and anti-colonial movements shared a commitment to ‘regional self-determination and a desire to participate actively in influencing the ideas that underpinned the practices of regional governance’.⁵⁵ This embrace of regionalism was marked by a period of optimism and collaboration, and was a feature of what emerged in Fiji from the mid-1960s as independence neared.

While trade unions had been well in place from the 1940s onwards, particularly around the sugar industry, Fiji saw a rise in networks that had roots in international and regional collaborations. The Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), established in Fiji in 1962,⁵⁶ contributed a gender lens to both community building but also local and regional political views. Amelia Rokotuivuna became the first Fijian staff member and was later to become the first Fijian director of the Fiji YWCA (hereinafter the Fiji Y) and a pillar of the anti-nuclear movement. Described as ‘an early pioneer of the women’s movement in Fiji’, Nicole George notes ‘she and her associates certainly developed a far more politicized style of advocacy than had previously been the norm for women’s organisations’.⁵⁷ The Fiji Y housed many of the first campaign activities around the nuclear testing issue.

The YWCA had been established in 1898 in London, and there were ongoing discussions around issues of peace, disarmament, and nuclear weapons at the time the Fiji Y was getting started.⁵⁸ The Fiji Y contributed a distinct and radical voice on the issue of nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific, educating the broader YWCA membership and advocating on the issue within the wider community in Fiji. Perhaps attributable to these efforts, by 1971 a YWCA World Council resolution on nuclear tests urged that

national associations continue to express to their respective governments their support of the suspension of nuclear tests and their immediate concern about the persistent nuclear testing in the Pacific Area.⁵⁹

The Fiji Y was not the only new civil society group to emerge in this pre-independence period. The Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) was established in 1966⁶⁰ as a result of increasing concerns about decolonization among churches worldwide and a recentring of churches in the communities they served. Christine Weir⁶¹ details a history of advocacy within the churches, calling for discussion around ‘the indigenisation and mutual cooperation of the South Pacific churches’⁶² from as early as the 1930s and 1940s. The PCC was connected to the broader World Council of Churches (WCC), which had been established in Europe in the late 1930s. The WCC became politically active during the Cold War, particularly as a forum for East–West dialogue and debate around nuclear weapons. The PCC became a strong voice in the public resistance to nuclear testing across the Pacific, viewing nuclear testing as a societal problem that affected largely voiceless peoples.⁶³

The opening of the first regional university, the University of the South Pacific (USP), was another catalyst in the development of a strong resistance movement to nuclear testing in Fiji. Opening in 1968, the USP fast provided both intellectual authority and organizational energy to the campaign to stop testing. USP scholar Vijay Naidu – a leading anti-nuclear activist at the time – described the USP as ‘the cradle of the regional anti-nuclear and independent Pacific movement, building the campaign against nuclear weapons testing in French Polynesia and, later, the nursery for independence and pro-democracy movements’.⁶⁴ Historian Stewart Firth suggests the ‘USP in the 1970s was a crucible of fresh thinking about decolonisation, the place of the Pacific Islands in the wider world as well as key political issues such as French nuclear testing’.⁶⁵

A/Part of a Global Movement

Although many of the groups that were central to Fiji’s early anti-nuclear movement had roots in broader international networks, it is important to note that the rise in anti-nuclear sentiment was not driven from outside. Although this local movement was informed by international networks, the force of the sentiment was driven from very real and local concerns. Pacific activists emphasized links between widespread nuclear racism, ongoing silences enforced by nuclear colonialism, and the process of decolonization even as it was taking place.

Equally, it is important to recognize that what was building in Fiji was not happening in a vacuum. There was a well-established movement against nuclear weapons across the globe, entrenched debates in the United Nations and international law, and an established knowledge around the nuclear threat. The mainstream nuclear deterrence theory that had emerged at this time included both the threat of use and a thorough knowledge of the repercussions. The Cold War was rife with such threats, and nuclear testing was integral to the theory of nuclear deterrence. It was through testing, the show of force and destruction involved, that nuclear weapons states declared their weapons capability and established an essential element of deterrence. As theorist Thomas C. Schelling pointed out, ‘The power to hurt is bargaining power. To exploit it is diplomacy – vicious diplomacy, but diplomacy’.⁶⁶

However, what made the Fijian movement of particular interest in this time was the narrative shift towards the Pacific. While nuclear powers were using the Pacific as testing grounds on the assumption that these places were ‘far away’, ‘unpopulated’, and ultimately able to be silenced, the work of Fijian and other regional activists was challenging this by articulating Pacific perspectives.⁶⁷ The concerns for vanua, oceans, and health were underwritten by a growing and clarion call for regional sovereignty and self-determination. Pacific peoples were actively involved in their own protection, resisting colonial incursions, despite the colossal odds, and practising active engagement and resistance in numerous ways.⁶⁸ While drawing on the teaching, support, and work of international and regional groups, the civil society groups from the 1960s onwards in Fiji helped develop a regional voice of opposition.

It was a combination of women’s, church, union, and university activists that came together to create Fiji's first anti-nuclear campaign in the years shortly before independence and to strengthen new alliances in the years right after. Even before independence, these groups collaborated to build understanding of the threat posed by nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific. Activists from each of these groups were key in the formation of a unique collaborative organization that was formed on the brink of independence in Suva, Against Testing on Moruroa (ATOM).

ATOM

As the new decade dawned in 1970, it had been four years since the French nuclear testing programme had begun in neighbouring Mā‘ohi Nui (French Polynesia), and there were genuine concerns around the health of local peoples and the food supply, particularly ocean-sourced foods.⁶⁹ International concerns about nuclear weapons testing and the potential for their use in the war on Vietnam had also filtered through to the Pacific. In this space ATOM arose.

While some established literature around nuclear movement histories acknowledges ATOM,⁷⁰ too little has been written of its origins or its impact. Naidu explained the group’s aims were to ‘inform the Fiji public about the nuclear tests in French occupied Polynesia and also to act as a pressure-group to urge the Fijian government to take steps to stop these tests’.⁷¹ While it was active over a relatively short time, from formation in 1970 to gradual dissipation after 1975, ATOM played a significant role in coalescing the organizational and public voices of nuclear resistance, educating the public and engaging the newly independent government. The brief life of the group helped to build momentum on nuclear resistance in the region and actively engaged with the Fijian government.

Opposition to nuclear testing in the region was being raised in a crowded and fractious time. As observed by Naidu, ‘Far too many people in Fiji are preoccupied with the demands of daily survival to participate in organised protestations’.⁷² The work of nation building that came following independence, as well as the realities of being a small Island state,⁷³ meant there were many demands on civil society and governments that competed with these large concerns. However, ATOM succeeded in engaging on the issue across diverse sectors of society.

For many, ATOM’s focus on science was of great importance. Several key members came from strong scientific backgrounds, particularly the first president, Graham Baines,⁷⁴ and first secretary, Suliana Siwatibau,⁷⁵ who were both biologists at the USP. Their academic approach combined with the grassroots concerns of the student, women, church, and trade union movements created a strong position. As Talei Luscia Mangioni writes, creative activism enhanced the messaging and education outreach, engaging a diverse spectrum of the community.⁷⁶ ATOM challenged the message from testing states that the weapons tests were not causing harm to people and the environment. ATOM brought together knowledge, skills, and outreach capacity, promoting awareness of nuclear testing, instigating community meetings, education activities, and public rallies, and engaging media and politicians. Collaborations with Fijian trade unions, picketing of airline offices, petitioning the French president, and large public meetings and rallies⁷⁷ were amongst the important actions. Much of the public education was led by science and centred on Pacific sovereignty.

While ATOM members were largely drawn from the educated urbanized centres, they had a commitment to engagement across Fiji’s main islands outside of just the urban centres. Such a strategy may have helped influence the political elite, as community involvement in rural areas was much more prevalent, and many rural people saw themselves as community leaders, showing a high interest and engagement in political matters.⁷⁸ Government support for the goals of ATOM gave it a public legitimacy for many. Naidu recalls,

the good thing was that the Fiji government has a lot of sympathy and empathy with this movement. …  They also were able to meet the Fijian Prime Minister to communicate to him their concern about the tests. He supported ATOM activities.⁷⁹

Amongst its many contributions, ATOM developed a key 10-point plan in 1972 which was presented to regional partners and governments, including the Fijian government. Walter Johnson and Sione Tupouniua record the plan as encompassing calls for the government of Fiji to push for greater international action through a broad swathe of actions in the UN, as well as embargoes, legal and moral support for those protesting in international waters in the region, calls for radiation data to be made available, and ‘diplomatic moves to establish a nuclear weapons free zone in all or part of the Pacific Ocean’.⁸⁰ In the years to come, many of these elements were crucial to regional diplomatic efforts and Pacific advocacy.

It is noteworthy that the Fijian government eventually undertook action on almost all of the items on this impressive agenda. The Alliance government clearly advocated for the nuclear free zone in both UN and regional meetings and was a vital party in bringing about the Rarotonga Treaty for a South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone (SPNFZ) in 1985. Ratu Mara was proud to recall the actions the government had taken on French testing in his autobiography, noting ‘We had banned all French goods, ships, aircraft, postal services, and telecommunications’.⁸¹ He also noted, ‘Our foreign policy position was a reflection of our domestic attitudes’.⁸² There were also echoes of the Action Plan in Fiji’s interventions in the Australian and Aotearoa governments' cases in the ICJ in 1973, which sought to stop the French atmospheric testing in Mā‘ohi Nui.⁸³

While it appeared there was an understanding between leading campaigners and the Fijian government on this issue, people felt it was the considerable community action that forced the government to sit up and take notice. While this closeness between civil society and government leaders was not to last, in these initial years of post-independence optimism there was, for a time, a strong sense of shared purpose. This was evident in the first Nuclear Free Pacific Conference (NFPC), coordinated by ATOM in 1975.

1975 Nuclear Free Pacific Conference

The Nuclear Free Pacific Conference of 1975 was the first in a series of regional conferences that established the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement. The distinct focus on regional nuclear resistance was clear at this conference, though it would be several years before the movement resolved internal tensions to truly represent the duality of both the ‘nuclear free’ and ‘independent’ aspects.⁸⁴ The NFIP movement’s vocal and vibrant Pacific advocacy across the region and around the world flourished from this foundational conference.⁸⁵

This can be seen in the opening address of the chair of the 1975 NFPC, Amelia Rokotuivuna, who stated the gathering was intended to reaffirm, ‘the rights to self-determination of the Pacific people and our will to struggle for our liberation from the clutches of imperialists’. She declared,

This struggle does not belong only to the countries still under colonial rule, it also belongs to the independent nations; it is our struggle to determine and create the new order which will define our relationship with each other and with the international community. The aims also exert the desire to preserve and create an environment in which we grow to our full potential as individuals, as people and nations. An environment which is healthy and free from nuclear hazards and the threat of nuclear war.⁸⁶

Rokotuivuna made it clear that this conference was more than a discussion of nuclear disarmament, saying, ‘The right to self-determination is ours, the right to develop as we choose is ours, the right to live and grow to our full potential in a peaceful and healthy environment is ours’.⁸⁷

In his message to the NFPC, Ratu Mara extended both his government’s and his own personal welcome to the participants, although he could not attend in person. He began by noting,

Your meeting today is a further expression of the determination of the peoples of the Pacific, through their own initiative, to come together to seek the best possible, and the most practical, means to advance the common cause to which all our Governments have also committed themselves. And this is how to make this region, and the world at large, a better and safer place to live in.⁸⁸

Emphasizing Fiji's position on issues of environmental pollution, particularly through nuclear testing, Ratu Mara also pointed to bilateral and multinational initiatives that Fiji had committed to since joining the UN. He made an explicit commitment that his government would ‘use every possible international forum to voice its opposition to such tests’. In his conclusion Ratu Mara noted,

The fear of mutual assured nuclear destruction cannot provide a firm basis for a durable international peace. In our troubled world, justice and lasting peace can only be achieved through the universal acceptance of tolerance, understanding and goodwill as the basis of the conduct of international relations. These are positive standards which are already guiding us in the Pacific, and we can show the world that mutual respect and co-operation can be the best way forward. In playing this role, I place very great importance on the contribution of individuals and of organizations and gatherings such as yours, in bringing about a greater understanding of what we are all trying to do.⁸⁹

While there was a short, significant period of shared intent around nuclear weapons testing between the Fijian government and civil society, as the first decade of independence passed and politics developed into compromises, the collaborative spirit changed. Civil society’s contribution to the regional NFIP movement grew in strength and significance following the 1975 meeting coordinated by ATOM, and the government continued to advocate against nuclear testing and for a nuclear free zone in the Pacific. In 1983, however, there were significant shifts on nuclear issues.⁹⁰ This was marked particularly by the reversal of a previously strong position against nuclear warship visits to Fijian ports.⁹¹ Following Ratu Mara’s visit to the United States at the invitation of President Ronald Reagan in 1984, the US president declared,

Having weighed his legitimate concern over nuclear issues against the defense needs of his country and the Oceania region, in 1983 Prime Minister Ratu Mara reopened Fiji's ports to all our American naval vessels. I know that such decisions are not easy and reflect a high degree of political courage.⁹²

The change in the previously strong position of the government of Ratu Mara against nuclear ship visits⁹³ sparked the formation of a new, more nationally focused nuclear resistance movement, the Fiji Anti-Nuclear Group (FANG).⁹⁴ The military coups in 1987, which deposed an anti-nuclear government under Timoci Bavadra, were to see even more splits in the once subtle but important collaborative spirit between Fijian government and civil society.⁹⁵

There is much more to be written and explored in the events around these shifts. In the early post-independence years, the government was clearly taking a strong stance on nuclear issues in concert with the expectations of civil society.⁹⁶ Nuclear colonial pressures created new political tensions in the region in the decades that followed.

Conclusion

This article has revisited a unique period in Fiji’s history, one that saw a powerful activist position taken up in international forums by the newly independent government, pushed by an emerging dynamic civil society movement. This was seen within regional and multilateral forums, bans on French planes and shipments, spearheading a regional nuclear free zone, and even intervening in the World Court regarding French nuclear tests. Looking back at the speeches and actions of the government of the first Pacific country to join the UN, it is clear that there was a powerful and determined stance being projected. The strength of this position, which responded to the nuclear threat out of concern for both health and environment, had its underpinnings in a more vivacious civil society stance that also encompassed anti-imperialism, opposition to nuclear colonialism, and support for self-determination.

The lessons that can be learned from this time are poignant still, as the Pacific continues to live with the legacies of nuclear pollution and is currently threatened by other significant transboundary harms. Historically, Pacific peoples’ nuclear resistance generated not only unique anti-nuclear movements but also enabled new political sovereignty movements. Studies recentring nuclear issues from the perspectives of those people, places, and regions used in nuclear experimentation deserve greater examination.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dimity Hawkins

Dimity Hawkins – School of Social Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Australia. [email protected]

Notes

¹ While the Pacific Way term has been critiqued and interpreted in myriad ways, in this context it refers to the earliest statements on it, led by Ratu Mara and his representatives in the United Nations and echoed in civil society in the immediate post-independence years in Fiji. For critiques and the changes to the concept over time, see Epeli Hau‘ofa, We Are the Ocean: Selected Works (Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2008), 17, 43–4; Stephanie Lawson, ‘“The Pacific Way” as Postcolonial Discourse: Towards a Reassessment’, Journal of Pacific History (hereinafter JPH) 45, no. 3 (December 2010): 297–314; Greg Fry and Sandra Tarte, ‘The “New Pacific Diplomacy” An Introduction’, in A New Pacific Diplomacy, ed. Greg Fry and Sandra Tarte (Canberra: ANU Press, 2015), 5–6; Nicollette Goulding, ‘Marshalling a Pacific Response to Climate Change’, in A New Pacific Diplomacy, ed. Fry and Tarte, 193; Richard Herr, ‘A “Vuvale” Partnership for the Pacific Islands?’, The Strategist (Australian Strategic Policy Institute), 19 June 2019, https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/a-vuvale-partnership-for-the-pacific-islands/ (accessed 6 Nov. 2023).

² The British nuclear tests conducted on Malden and Kiritimati islands hold a special significance for Fiji as Fijian military personnel were deployed for the tests from 1957–8. The legacies of those tests have been the subject of ongoing legal and political debates. See Nic Maclellan, Grappling with the Bomb: Britain’s Hydrogen Bomb Tests in the Pacific (Canberra: ANU Press, 2017).

³ Tracey Banivanua Mar, Decolonisation and the Pacific: Indigenous Globalisation and the Ends of the Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 224.

⁴ Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, ‘Address to the United Nations General Assembly’, United Nations 1876th Plenary Meeting, 21 Oct. 1970; Greg Fry, Framing the Islands: Power and Diplomatic Agency in Pacific Regionalism (Canberra: ANU Press, 2019), 132.

⁵ Ratu Mara, ‘Address to the United Nations General Assembly’.

⁶ In this first speech to the United Nations, Ratu Mara uses the term ‘Pacific Way’.

⁷ Ratu Mara, The Pacific Way, A Memoir (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1997), 117.

⁸ Ratu Mara, The Pacific Way, 117.

⁹ Semesa Sikivou, ‘Address to the United Nations General Assembly General Debate’, United Nations 2131st Plenary Meeting, 27 Sept. 1973; Fry, Framing the Islands, 138–9.

¹⁰ Ron Crocombe, ‘Seeking a Pacific Way’, in The Pacific Way: Social Issues in National Development, ed. Sione Tupouniua, Ron Crocombe, and Claire Slatter (Suva: South Pacific Social Sciences Association, 1975), 1–6.

¹¹ Ratu Mara, The Pacific Way, 117; Fry, Framing the Islands, 138–41.

¹² Ratu Mara, The Pacific Way, 113–21; Derryk Scarr, Tuimacilai: A Life of Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara (Adelaide: Crawford House Publishing, 2008), 198.

¹³ Daryl Tarte, Turaga: The Life and Times and Chiefly Authority of Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau in Fiji (Suva: Fiji Times Limited, 1993); Brij Lal, A Time Bomb Lies Buried: Fiji’s Road to Independence, 1960–1970 (Canberra: ANU Press, 2008); David McIntyre, Winding Up the British Empire in the Pacific Islands (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); Deryck Scarr, Fiji: A Short History (North Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1984).

¹⁴ Scarr, Tuimacilai, 115; Tarte, Turaga, 56–8.

¹⁵ Scarr, Tuimacilai, 198; Fry, Framing the Islands, 131–2.

¹⁶ Scarr, Tuimacilai, 199–202.

¹⁷ Semesa Sikivou, ‘Address to the United Nations General Assembly’, United Nations 1951st Plenary Meeting, 4 Oct. 1971.

¹⁸ As cited in Jean-Marc Regnault, ‘The Nuclear Issue in the South Pacific: Labor Parties, Trade Union Movements, and Pacific Island Churches in International Relations’, The Contemporary Pacific 17, no. 2 (2005): 339.

¹⁹ Sébastien Phillipe and Tomas Statius, Toxique: Enquete sur les essais nucléaires français en Polynésie (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2021).

²⁰ Maurice Schumann, ‘Address to the United Nations General Assembly’, United Nations 1942nd Plenary Meeting, 28 Sept. 1971.

²¹ Schumann, ‘Address to the United Nations General Assembly’.

²² South Pacific Forum (hereinafter SPF), ‘Communique’, Wellington, 5–7 Aug. 1971.

²³ Ibid.

²⁴ Ratu Mara, The Pacific Way, 14–8.

²⁵ ‘The Declaration of Commonwealth Principles’, Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, Singapore, 1971.

²⁶ Yoko Ogashiwa, Microstates and Nuclear Issues: Regional Cooperation in the Pacific (Suva: University of the South Pacific, 1991), 47.

²⁷ Ratu Mara, quoted in News from Fiji, 21 Jan. 1971, in Ogashiwa, Microstates and Nuclear Issues, 47.

²⁸ Ratu Mara, The Pacific Way, 13.

²⁹ Ratu Edward Cakobau, ‘Address to the United Nations General Assembly’, United Nations 2060th Plenary Meeting, 10 Oct. 1972.

³⁰ Ratu Cakobau, ‘Address to the United Nations General Assembly’.

³¹ Ibid.

³² United Nations, ‘Urgent Need for Suspension of Nuclear and Thermonuclear Tests: A/Res/ 2934’, General Assembly 27th Session, 29 Nov. 1972.

³³ Fiji Government, ‘Application for Permission to Intervene submitted by the Government of Fiji (Australia vs France)’, International Court of Justice (hereinafter ICJ), 16 May 1973, 158.

³⁴ Ibid.

³⁵ SPF, ‘Communique’, Canberra, 23–5 Feb. 1972 and 12–14 Sept. 1972.

³⁶ Sikivou, ‘Address to the United Nations General Assembly’, 27 Sept. 1973.

³⁷ Charles Manata, ‘If it is Safe’ Poster, Produced for the Pacific Conference of Churches Poster Competition, in A Call to a New Exodus: An Anti-Nuclear Primer for Pacific People, ed. Suliana Siwatibau and B. David Williams (Suva: Pacific Conference of Churches, 1982).

³⁸ Australian Government, ‘Application Instituting Proceedings: Case Concerning Nuclear Tests (Australia vs France)’, ICJ, 9 May 1973.

³⁹ New Zealand Government, ‘Application Instituting Proceedings: Case Concerning Nuclear Tests (New Zealand vs France)’, ICJ, 9 May 1973.

⁴⁰ See the separate orders made: ‘Nuclear Tests Case (Australia v. France): Request for the Indication for Interim Measures of Protection: Order’, ICJ, 22 June 1973, 99–110; ‘General List No. 59, Nuclear Tests Case (New Zealand v. France): Request for the Indication for Interim Measures of Protection: Order’, ICJ, 22 June 1973, 135–47.

⁴¹ Fiji Government, ‘Application for Permission to Intervene (Australia vs France)’, May 1973; Fiji Government, ‘Application for Permission to Intervene, (New Zealand vs France)’, May 1973.

⁴² Fiji Government, ‘Application for Permission to Intervene (New Zealand vs France)’, 91.

⁴³ Ibid.

⁴⁴ ICJ, ‘Nuclear Tests Case (Australia vs France) Judgment of 20 December 1974’, https://www.icj-cij.org/public/files/case-related/58/058-19741220-JUD-01-00-EN.pdf (accessed 29 July 2022).

⁴⁵ Sikivou, ‘Address to the United Nations General Assembly’, 27 Sept. 1973.

⁴⁶ Ogashiwa, Microstates and Nuclear Issues, 49.

⁴⁷ Maclellan, Grappling with the Bomb, 147–56.

⁴⁸ Ratu Penaia Ganilau, ‘Address to the United Nations General Assembly’, United Nations 2380th Plenary Meeting, 8 Oct. 1975.

⁴⁹ Ibid.

⁵⁰ Michael Somare, ‘Address to the United Nations General Assembly’, United Nations 2383rd Plenary Meeting, 10 Oct. 1975.

⁵¹ Michael Hamel-Green, ‘Anti-Nuclear Campaigning and the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone (Rarotonga) Treaty, 1960–1985’, in Proceedings of the 14th Biennial Labour History Conference, ed. Phillip Deery and Julie Kimber (Melbourne: Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, 2015), 51–62.

⁵² Vijay Naidu, ‘The Fiji Anti-Nuclear Movement: Problems and Prospects’, in The Pacific: Peace, Security, and the Nuclear Issue, ed. Ranginui Walker and William Sutherland (London and New Jersey: Zed Books, 1988); Stewart Firth, Nuclear Playground (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1987), 97; Nicole George, Situating Women: Gender Politics and Circumstance in Fiji (Canberra, Australia: ANU E Press, 2012), 49–52; Anne S. Walker, A World of Change: My Life in the Global Women’s Rights Movement (Melbourne, Australia: Arcadia Press, 2018), 85–6.

⁵³ Helmut Anheier, Civil Society: Measurement, Evaluation, Policy (London: Earthscan Publications, 2004), 22.

⁵⁴ Fry, Framing the Islands, 141.

⁵⁵ Ibid., 141, 144.

⁵⁶ Walker, A World of Change, 58–66.

⁵⁷ George, Situating Women, 4.

⁵⁸ See, for example, the statements on nuclear weapons in 1959, 1963, and 1967 through the meetings of the World YWCA. World YWCA Statements of Policy Adopted at Legislative Meetings 1894–2007 (Geneva, Switzerland, 2007), 92, 93, 99.

⁵⁹ World YWCA, World YWCA Statements, 108.

⁶⁰ Charles Forman, The Voice of Many Waters: The Story of the Life and Ministry of the Pacific Conference of Churches in the Last 25 Years (Suva: Pacific Conference of Churches, 1986), 1–13.

⁶¹ Christine Weir, ‘The Opening of the Coconut Curtain: Pacific Influence on the World Council of Churches through the Campaign for a Nuclear-Free Pacific, 1961 to 2000’, JPH 54, no. 1 (2019): 116–38.

⁶² Weir, ‘Opening of the Coconut Curtain’, 118.

⁶³ Interview with Rev. Akuila Yabaki, 2 June 2018, Suva, Fiji.

⁶⁴ Vijay Naidu, ‘A Commentary on the 50-Year History of the University of the South Pacific’, in Understanding Oceania: Celebrating the University of the South Pacific and its Collaboration with The Australian National University, ed. Stewart Firth and Vijay Naidu (Canberra: ANU Press, 2019), 13.

⁶⁵ Stewart Firth, ‘Themes’, in Understanding Oceania, 3–4.

⁶⁶ Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1966), 2.

⁶⁷ Epeli Hau‘ofa, ‘Our Sea of Islands’, in We Are the Ocean (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2008), 32.

⁶⁸ Banivanua Mar, Decolonisation and the Pacific.

⁶⁹ Vanessa Griffen and Talei Luscia Mangioni, ‘“Will to Fight Together”: Fiji has Taken another Bold Step in the Battle Against Nuclear Weapons’, The Guardian, 8 July 2020.

⁷⁰ Ogashiwa, Microstates and Nuclear Issues, 46–50; Naidu, ‘The Fiji Anti-Nuclear Movement’, 185–95; Firth, Nuclear Playground, 133; Greg Fry, Framing the Islands, 147–9; Lawrence S. Wittner, Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (California: Stanford University Press, 2009), 115.

⁷¹ Naidu, ‘The Fiji Anti-Nuclear Movement’, 185.

⁷² Ibid.

⁷³ Amelia Rokotuivuna, Fiji: A Developing Australian Colony (North Fitzroy: International Development Action, 1973), 4–9.

⁷⁴ Graham Baines, ‘Nuclear Games in the South Pacific’, The Ecologist 1, no. 18 (1971): 9–11.

⁷⁵ Siwatibau and Williams, A Call to a New Exodus.

⁷⁶ Talei Luscia Mangioni, ‘Art/Story of the Niuklia Fri Pasifik: On Doing Creative Pacific Histories’, JPH 59, no. 1 (2024): 37–59.

⁷⁷ ‘“Bomb” Burned in Suva Protest’, Fiji Times, 15 July 1974 (also available online at the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau (hereinafter PMB) 1211, ‘Young Women’s Christian Association of Fiji Archives, 1963–2000’, Reel 2, 555); Naidu, ‘The Fiji Anti-Nuclear Movement’, 186.

⁷⁸ Anne S. Walker, ‘A Study of Relationships between Mass Media, Community Involvement and Political Participation in Fiji’ (PhD thesis, Indiana University, 1976), 232–40.

⁷⁹ Interview with Vijay Naidu, 28 May 2018, Suva, Fiji.

⁸⁰ Walter Johnson and Sione Tupouniua, ‘Against French Nuclear Testing: the ATOM Committee’, JPH 11, no. 4 (1976): 215.

⁸¹ Ratu Mara, The Pacific Way, 148.

⁸² Ibid.

⁸³ Fiji Government, ‘Application for Permission to Intervene (Australia vs France)’, May 1973; Fiji Government, ‘Application for Permission to Intervene (New Zealand vs France)’, May 1973.

⁸⁴ Smith records that it was not until the third Nuclear Free Pacific Conference in 1983 that the name ‘Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement’ was officially adopted. See Roy H. Smith, The Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Movement after Moruroa (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 1997), 27.

⁸⁵ Wittner, Confronting the Bomb, 115; Naidu, ‘The Fiji Anti-Nuclear Movement’, 185–90.

⁸⁶ Amelia Rokotuivuna, ‘Opening Introductory Speech by Amelia Rokotuivuna, Chairperson, ATOM’ (Nuclear Free Pacific Conference, Suva, Fiji, 1–6 Apr. 1975). Archive retrieved from the National Library of Australia (also available online at PMB 1085, Fiji Trades Union Congress Archives, Reel 8).

⁸⁷ Ibid.

⁸⁸ Ratu Mara, ‘Message from the Prime Minister of Fiji, The Rt Hon Ratu Sir K. K. T. Mara, K.B.E.’ (Nuclear Free Pacific Conference, Suva, Fiji, 1–6 Apr. 1975). Archive retrieved from the National Library of Australia (also available online at PMB 1085, Fiji Trades Union Congress Archives, Reel 8).

⁸⁹ Ibid.

⁹⁰ Fry, Framing the Islands, 178.

⁹¹ Ogashiwa, Microstates and Nuclear Issues, 49–53.

⁹² President Ronald Reagan, ‘Remarks of the President and Prime Minister Kamisese K.T. Mara of Fiji Following Their Meetings’, 27 Nov. 1984, Reagan Presidential Library Archive, https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/remarks-president-and-prime-minister-kamisese-kt-mara-fiji-following-their-meetings (accessed 10 Apr. 2021).

⁹³ Ogashiwa, Microstates and Nuclear Issues, 50.

⁹⁴ Naidu, ‘The Fiji Anti-Nuclear Movement’, 191; Fry, Framing the Islands, 163.

⁹⁵ Smith, The Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Movement after Muroroa, 158–63.

⁹⁶ Fry, Framing the Islands, 163.