Правительство Великобритании вынуждено опубликовать 315 страниц скрытых документов о ядерных испытаниях

This newspaper fought for the nuclear veterans for 40 years when others forgot their story. This review, snuck out with callous cynicism as the nation watched the World Cup semi-final, is vindication of their testimony. And now heads must roll. In 2018, Parliament was told the Ministry of Defence was “unable to locate any information” about blood testing of troops at nuclear weapon tests. It has now been forced to publish 315 pages of information it had all along, hidden behind state secrecy. There is confirmation of another 50,000 files, owned by the MoD, which the MoD has not given itself permission to search. There may also be 5,339 veterans who were deliberately excluded from health studies. Medical records were deliberately and unlawfully destroyed up to September last year, when the review was drawing to a close.Yet ministers were repeatedly briefed, and courts repeatedly told, there was no blood testing programme. These are not small matters. Criminal allegations are under review by Thames Valley Police. Rightly so: this cover-up has cost thousands of service families their lives, their health, and their sanity. In 1983, the legendary Paul Foot first reported in these pages of “The Curse of Christmas Island”. A few months later, our sister paper, the Sunday People, launched its investigation into the “Atom Bomb Kids” born with birth defects. From that day to this, the British government has lied and denied what happened to the troops sent to Montebello, Emu Field, Maralinga and Christmas Island - and to the indigenous people who called those places home. Winston Churchill told Parliament no-one was killed “apart from some local rats”. Anthony Eden, privately warned of the genetic hazards, said: “It’s a pity, but we cannot help it.” Margaret Thatcher said there were only 12,000 troops were involved, when the true figure now appears to be more than 26,000. I have been the veterans’ champion for two decades, first winning the Nuclear Test Medal then uncovering the Nuked Blood Scandal. I repeatedly revealed human experiments, secret documents, and genetic research which proved the veterans’ case. Time and again, the MoD gave off-the-record briefings to other media denying it all. To their unending shame, editors, reporters and defence specialists believed them. They never looked those veterans in the eye and hear what they had to say. It was I who first approached Andy Burnham with a request to meet the veterans in 2021, and now the incoming Prime Minister has told campaigners he will begin work this summer on a special tribunal. We believe it is the only way to end the cover-up and gather evidence for prosecutions. Through decades of trauma and grief, the veterans have shown nothing but courage. The MoD displayed nothing but cowardice. To the government, these brave servicemen were simply guinea pigs. To us, they were heroes. And that is the problem.