Nuclear test veterans: Britain urged to compensate Fijians over 1950s Christmas Island tests

Fijian veterans of British nuclear tests in the Pacific are hoping the British government will finally offer them help after the Fijian government offered compensation payments.

Fiji's prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, announced his government would provide about $A6,000 payments to 24 surviving Fijian soldiers who were on Christmas Island (now Kiribati), during British nuclear tests in the late 1950s.

"Fiji is not prepared to wait for Britain to do the right thing," he said.

"We owe it to these men to help them now, not wait for the British politicians and bureaucrats.

"I have this great honour to award these survivors a modest token of what we can afford in Fiji to finally acknowledge the great injustice that was done to them almost six decades ago."

The prime minister said his government had to step in because too many men had gone to their grave without justice.

"We need to erase this blight on our history," he said.

"We need to lift the burden on our collective conscience."

One of the veterans who will receive the payments is 78-year-old Paul Ah Poy.

He was a 21-year-old sailor attached to the Royal British Marines when he saw his first nuclear explosion on Christmas Island just kilometres from where he stood on a beach.

"They tell us 'look, face west', we face west, and [they] tell you to close your eyes, you don't open your eyes because we'll melt," he said.

"We were all scared, they tell us 'stop squirming'. But I couldn't keep still."

Mr Ah Poy spent two years on Christmas Island (Kiribati) and witnessed seven nuclear explosions altogether.

He told Pacific Beat it was not long before he noticed the impact on his health.

"[A] few months later my hair started to come off," he said.

"My gums started to bleed and sometimes I would almost black out.

"I though that was part of growing up until when we got together and start exchanging stories."

Long-lasting effects

Mr Ah Poy said the effect of his radiation poisoning exposure had been passed on to his two sons, who are unable to have children.

He and other nuclear test veterans have been campaigning for decades to have the British government pay them compensation.

They made several attempts at suing the government but Britain's statute of limitations thwarted their legal action.

Nic Maclellan is co-author of book on the Fijian nuclear veterans called Kirisimasi.

He said Britain failed to follow in the footsteps of France and the United States, which had passed legislation to recognise there were hazards for personnel at the test sites.

"It's Britain however, that consistently refuses to recognise people who are affected in Australia, from the British test between 1952 and 1957 and the subsequent ... hydrogen bomb tests conducted in the Christmas Island, in what's today Kiribati."

Test veteran Paul Ah Poy said while he was grateful for the payments from the Fijian government, the amount was insufficient to address health problems.

He said he would use the money to help fund his son's university education and pay his bills.

He remained hopeful, however, the British government would follow the Fijian government's lead.

"I just hope they might give us something while we're still alive," he said.

"It will really help us at this time of our life."