MANUSCRIPT XLIII: Petition to the United Nations Trusteeship Council from the Marshallese People, 20 April 1954

Abstract

ABSTRACT Anti-nuclear protests in the Pacific Islands began in the 1950s. There were a series of petitions throughout the decade as Islanders living under colonial administration sought assistance from the United Nations Trusteeship Council, the newly created Non-Aligned Movement, and international ecumenical networks such as the World Council of Churches. At the height of the 1950s Cold War between the United States and USSR, these calls were mostly brushed aside by the nuclear weapons states. Despite this, Islanders from French Polynesia, Fiji, Cook Islands, Marshall Islands, Western Samoa, and other colonial dependencies spoke out against nuclear weapons and especially the US and British nuclear programmes in the Pacific, petitioning for an end to nuclear testing. This document is a striking example of these petitions, inspired by the March 1954 atmospheric nuclear test, codenamed Bravo, in the Marshall Islands.