Unequal Association

The following is taken from a Sojourners interview with Bernie Keldermans, a native of Palau, who is leader of the Save Palau organization and director of science curriculum and development for the Palau Board of Education. Keldermans is one of the many Palauans actively working against the U.S.-sponsored Compact of Free Association, which would end U.S. control of Palau under the U.N. trusteeship agreement but allow for more extensive U.S. military activity on the islands. She is also active in the Catholic Church. --The Editors

I am from the island of Palau, which is on the western end of Micronesia. Our islands have been colonized three different times: by the Spaniards in 1668, the Germans in 1899, and the Japanese after World War I. Then in 1947, after World War II, we were turned over to the United States by the United Nations and became a U.S. trust territory.

When the Americans came, we felt good because they said they were going to save the islands from colonialism. We believed them, and for 30-some years they taught us ideas of democracy and freedom.

Negotiation of the Compact of Free Association started in 1969, but 10 years later, in 1979, we hadn't seen the proposed agreement. We had heard of negotiations taking place in Honolulu, Hawaii, but these meetings were all very secluded. We kept asking why we, the common people, were not part of the negotiations. If the negotiations would affect us, then why didn't they ask the people what they wanted to negotiate?

The Compact of Free Association would indeed affect the people of Palau. In addition to our loss of eminent domain in Palau, U.S. provisions in the compact include: filling Angaur Island from one end to the other with an extension of the existing airstrip; use of 32,000 acres on Babeldaob Island for jungle warfare and guerrilla training; use of beach areas for landing tanks and other equipment; freedom of activity for off-duty U.S. soldiers on Palau without legal control by the Palau government of the soldiers' offenses; storage and ocean dumping of nuclear waste; and storage of nuclear weapons when deemed necessary by the U.S. government.

We on Palau introduced our independent constitution in April, 1979, because we did not agree with the compact provisions. We knew from the constitution of the Federated States of Micronesia that the United States did not like the ban on nuclear substances in its section on eminent domain. We made our constitution even stronger by saying we don't want to test or store anything nuclear, or use anything nuclear on Palau. The first vote on our constitution showed that 75 per cent of the people agreed.

Then U.S. Ambassador Rosenblatt came down and told us to change three important points in our constitution: land, water, and the nuclear issue. We were supposed to make the Palau constitution comparable with the Compact of Free Association. We did not take him seriously; we voted again in July, 1979, and reapproved the constitution by 92 per cent. This made the ambassador very upset, and the whole thing went to the Trust Territory High Court, where the American chief justice upheld the Palau legislature's action to declare our constitution null and void. All this happened after we had expressed the democratic system that we had been taught.

The three points that the military in the United States rejected--land, water, and the ban on nuclear material--were deleted, and the revised constitution was put to a referendum three months later, on October 23, 1979. We rejected this revised version by 70 per cent. Then the third referendum of our original constitution took place in July, 1980, and even though a lot of pressure was put on the people to vote against it, it passed this time by 78 per cent. That constitution took effect in January, 1981.

Meanwhile, there had been continued talk about the negotiations for the Compact of Free Association. The government wanted the plebiscite about the compact soon, and the three entities (Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, and Marshall Islands) were supposed to have the vote on the same day. We picketed and asked the legislature to postpone the plebiscite because almost 90 per cent of the people do not really understand the English in the compact. We wanted until November or December, 1983, to slowly learn about the compact. The government said no.

The U.S. ambassador, who was the first chairman of the committee that started the negotiations in 1969, said that we had been learning about this compact for 13 years and there was no reason why we shouldn't know by now what the content is, since we Palauans are so smart. When he said that, we all got pretty angry.

But the United States government authorized $315,000 for the political education process. It turned out that they did not educate, though; they were actually campaigning all the way through. They gave out free food and drinks, including intoxicating beverages like beer and wine. They even handed out money and ended up spending almost half a million dollars for only 7,000 voters.

When it came time for the plebiscite, we didn't understand why there were two parts in the ballot. One part asked if we approved the compact, and the other part asked if we approved the nuclear part in our independent constitution. Sixty-two per cent of the people voted in support of the compact, 53 per cent voted in support of our nuclear part.

When I was home in March or early April this year, a man from the U.S. Department of the Interior came down and said that they were going to implement the compact. A press release, I think from the Department of State, said that the nuclear part is our internal problem, that we have to revise our constitution so it will be comparable with the compact.

The result of the compact would be the loss of our sovereignty. The U.S. military personnel will have more rights on our land than the Palauans themselves. So people are confused. They don't understand why the United States government has been saying it was preparing us for self-determination and independence. People don't mind having a relationship with the United States, and that's why most people voted for the Compact of Free Association. But they emphasize the words "free association," which means that we're not going to be under the United States, but we'll have a free relationship.

For the past 30-some years, the United States government has been giving money to operate the Palauan government. This year it will give us nine million dollars, with seven million of it going for employees' salaries, and one and a half million paying for the electricity on Palau. So there hasn't been much money left over for development, and people feel that this is discrimination. It's unconstitutional and illegal for the United States government to do this under the trusteeship agreement. Yet it says it will do things to help the people become self-sufficient.

So, we have been told that the compact will be implemented in September of this year. But we know that there are certain procedures that must occur before it is finalized. It seems that it hasn't even gotten to the first step, but we are being told that it is going to be implemented.

At first we thought that the announcement was just a joke. We didn't think that the United States, even though a very powerful and wealthy nation, would do that. Especially when they have been teaching us ideals of democracy for more than 30 years, it's just unbelievable that they will actually go through with the plan. Now the people are waiting.