The mid-January visit by senior administration and US Congress members was seen as positive by Marshall Island leaders who more than three years ago filed a petition seeking additional compensation for the massive damage caused by 67 US nuclear tests in the island chain in the late 1940s and 1950s.

Bikini Senator Tomaki Juda, who was a small child when Bikini islanders were relocated ahead of the first post-World War II nuclear tests in 1946, says the meetings with US Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Congress members this month gave islanders an opportunity to discuss the issues with key policy makers from Washington for the first time in recent years.

American officials argue that 270 million dollars provided to nuclear test victims between 1986 to 2001 represents a full and final settlement to compensation claims.

However, Republican California Congressman Richard Pombo, who chairs the House Resources Committee which oversees funding to the Marshall Islands, admitted during the visit that Washington's obligations had not ended.

"Obviously, the United States has an ongoing liability (for the nuclear test legacy)," Pombo said in an interview with AFP in Majuro.

"This issue is 50 years old. At some point we need to find closure."

But as the 50th anniversary looms of the March 1, 1954 Bravo test at Bikini -- the largest hydrogen bomb ever tested by the United States -- the dissatisfaction of Marshall islanders continues to fester.

Rongelap Atoll Senator Abacca Anjain-Maddison and Bikini Council official Jack Niedenthal said the closure at the end of this month of a special medical program for nuclear test victims because of a lack of US funding was a serious concern.

However, Pombo said Washington was prepared to step in to save the health project, which was previously funded by the 270 million dollars.

"One way or another this will be addressed, either administratively or through Congressional action," he said.

A US-Marshall Islands agreement, known as the Compact of Free Association, ended more than 40 years of American rule of the islands as a United Nations Trust Territory in 1986. The Compact provided for a compensation package which paid out 270 million dollars over the next 15 years.

The money was used for individual compensation, community development projects, a special health program for people from the four worst affected atolls and to fund a Nuclear Claims Tribunal.

A US-funded nuclear clean-up at Enewetak in the late 1970s allowed people to return to three southern islands, but most of the remaining coral islands, the test site for 43 nuclear blasts, are off-limits because of dangerously high radiation levels.

As the compensation package wound up two years ago, the Nuclear Claims Tribunal was completing nearly 10 years of judicial proceedings on claims by Bikini and Enewetak islanders over land damages, clean-up costs and hardship.

The awards, after deducting previously provided compensation, amounted to more than one billion dollars but have so far not been fully been paid.

The tribunal has received only 45 million dollars in funding from the United States for its operations and paying awards.

The tribunal is now in the final stages of judging similar claims from Rongelap and Utrik, which were exposed to high-level fallout from the Bravo test and many of the other hydrogen bomb explosions in the 1950s.

In addition, the tribunal has approved personal injury claims of over 70 million dollars from more than 1,700 Marshall Islanders for cancers and related health problems.

According to statistics provided by the tribunal, more than one-third of the claimants have died without receiving their full compensation because it has had to make small annual percentage payments due to the lack of funding.

In September 2000, the Marshall Islands sent a petition to the US Congress seeking two billion dollars, which includes the tribunal's unpaid awards. It languished until March 2002, when several members of the Congress sent a letter to the Bush Administration requesting a review of the petition.

Bush Administration officials have been stating publicly since July that the report to Congress was to be issued shortly.

Privately, top Marshall Islands government officials believe the Bush Administration review will reject the petition. However, officials here want it to issue its report in order to move the long-stalled issue forwards.

Pombo said this month's visit would help to speed the process and "relay the sense of urgency" to the administration.

WAR.WIRE