But Colonialism, Just The Same!

IT is too much to expect that the United States, which started late, should have made no mis takes in administration of depen dent territories; or that in should have escaped the attentions of jour nalists who like to find them out.

In plain terms the US hasn’t — on either count. It is stuck with many of the same problems of colonialism in a changing world as is France, the UK, Australia and New Zealand—all of whom have been longer at the job; and in such places as the Trust Terri tory of the Marianas, Carolines and Marshalls, it has some prob lems that are peculiarly the Trust Territory’s own.

Furthermore, in the last few years, since travel restrictions in the TT have been eased, there has been no lack of American jour nalists who have galloped through, observed, drawn conclusions and then proceeded to put the adminis tration straight.

I shall try not to follow in their footsteps. I was four days in Saipan in April and this scarcely makes me an authority on any thing. Saipan, 1 imagine, has about as much relation to the rest of this Trust Territory as Port Moresby has to Ambunti, on New Guinea’s Sepik River.

All that four days of imbibing administration headquarter’s atmos phere can do is to give you a means of some comparison with other administrations that you have known better; and some im pressions that could—if you had more time to investigate—turn out to be little better than inspired hallucinations. There is then the matter of “problems”.

The general problems are reasonably commonplace; but of the unique problems perhaps the greatest is the difficulty of official America to square its conscience over its colonial role in the terri tory with ingrained American anti colonial traditions.

Because of this it has, on the surface, endeavoured to keep an amateur status in the territory by building up local Micronesians to take key roles and by opting in expatriate experts as required from Washington or Nebraska or Texas or elsewhere on terms of service as short as two years.

There has been no attempt to

create a permanent or even semi permanent non-Micronesian ad ministrative service, and although in the long run this could be wise, in the short term it makes adminis tration—and the provision of guide-lines for the Micronesians— just so much harder. . .

I don’t know how the Statesider in the TT sees America’s role there —or whether he even puts a name to it. But plainly the only way a foreigner can view what has been going on there for the last 20 years is to see it as colonialism— colonialism with trimmings but colonialism all the same. I per sonally can think of worse fates; many Americans profess that they cannot.

Nor is it easy, in mid-1967, to see any escape from this status.

Accidents of history have grouped the Carolines, Marshalls and Mari anas together when geographically they are far apart and, politically, don’t even look like making a har monious whole.

The Mariana people already say that they want out of the TT, to join Guam. Guam, also part of the Mariana chain, has been an American territory since 1898 and bills itself as “Guam, USA” and “Where the American day begins”.

Its main industry is defence — about 30,000 of the 80,000 in habitants are expatriate servicemen and their families —although tour ism may soon add more butter to the local bread.

The Marshallese occasionally work up steam about the old US atomic experiments at Bikini and Eniwetok, and the fact that popu lations had to be moved; and more steam about the current restricted area of Kwajalein, which is the United States top security anti missile missile base.

They also like to think nostalgic ally of their cousins in the Gilbert Islands, which are a geographical extension of the Marshalls.

However, it is difficult to see even the Marshallese tossing away the idea of good Yankee dollars in favour of throwing in their lot with the tough subsistence economy of the British Gilberts.

Against this background I found my week in Guam and Saipan new, refreshing and completely fascinat ing. On these pages are some of the reasons why. —Judy Tudor.