ALGERIA/FILE: Algeria can clean up after French nuclear tests 50 years ago - but not yet

Record ID: 277298

  • Title: ALGERIA/FILE: Algeria can clean up after French nuclear tests 50 years ago - but not yet
  • Date: 23rd February 2010
  • Summary: ALGIERS, ALGERIA (FEBRUARY 22, 2010) (REUTERS) (CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY) EXTERIOR OF MILITARY CLUB WHERE THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE FRENCH NUCLEAR TESTS IN THE ALGERIAN SAHARA IS TAKING PLACE VARIOUS OF PARTICIPANTS IN CONFERENCE ROOM (SOUNDBITE) (ARABIC) ALGERIAN WAR VETERANS MINISTER CHERIF ABBES SAYING: "These nuclear tests, done by the colonialist state
  • Embargoed: 10th March 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations,Defence / Military
  • Reuters ID: LVAEKP3MN1OD3OYI0JK9PLMN3880
  • Story Text: Algeria gets the go-ahead to decontaminate areas exposed to nuclear blasts by the French half a century ago; the effects on those who took part lives on.
    Algeria says it can now acquire the necessary technology for the decontamination of sites in the Algerian Saharan desert exposed to nuclear tests by France fifty years ago.
    War Veterans Minister Cherif Abbes told an international conference in Algiers on Monday (February 22) the purchase of vital equipment was "possible", but warned it could take time.
    Last week a French pressure group, citing confidential documents, said France deliberately exposed its soldiers to nuclear explosions in Algeria to study the effect of radiation on humans.
    The French government promised last year to compensate victims of nuclear tests in Algeria, carried out between 1960 and 1966, recognising a link between the explosions and veterans' illnesses such as cancer.
    Abbes described the tests as "criminal" and in total contradiction of human rights.
    He said deformities could still be witnessed on the faces and bodies of people living in the area.
    Abbes also accused the French of using thousands of nomads, prisoners and soldiers from the French army as laboratory rats so they could calculate and study the destructive effects of the nuclear experiment.
    According to Algerian scientists, 17 nuclear tests were carried out by France between 1960 and 1966. Thousands of people died.
    The sites were returned to Algerian authorities in 1967.
    Michel Verger, veteran of the French army, who was at Reganne in 1961, said there should be an independent commission to look into the human and environmental consequences of the nuclear tests.
    William Kob, survivor of what was known as Operation Green Jerboa in the same year, where it's alleged 195 soldiers were used as laboratory rats, is calling on France to recognise all those who died, and to compensate their widows. He also wants recognition for all the Algerian people.
    A senior French military nuclear safety official last week strongly denied the French army used conscripts as guinea pigs.
    He admitted that the army had deployed soldiers shortly after the blast to test how they reacted in contaminated terrain in the immediate aftermath of a blast. But the soldiers were wearing protective equipment, had been trained, and were pulled out when radioactivity climbed too far, he added.
    Some veterans who worked on the experiments in Algeria, and subsequent tests on French Polynesian atolls, have said they were ordered to lie down and cover their eyes during the explosions, wearing nothing but shorts and T-shirts.
    France carried out its last nuclear test in French Polynesia in the mid-1990s.
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