Can The U.S. Resist Micronesian

Demands On Land Ownership?

• F. T. ULUDONG, acting clerk of the House of Representatives, Congress of Micronesia, views the US Trustl Territory's search for documents in Japan, New Guinea and Australia to authenticate "public land" ownership in Micronesia, as a means by which the IT Government can hang on to land it is not entitled! to. In this article for RIM he gives his point of view. RIM has invited the Trust Territory Governmenti to reply in a later issue.

What is the history of the 2,000-odd islands which make up Micronesia? It’s a turbulent one, made all the more com plicated from the land tenure point of view by the fact that four foreign powers have con trolled the islands at different times.

In earliest times the land was split into estates owned by chiefs, families or clans. The Spanish arrived in the 1500’s but they were more interested in acquiring souls than land.

The Germans were the first to realise the potential value of the Marshalls and the Caro lines. By 1885 Germany had declared a protectorate over the islands and in 1899 Spain formally sold her the Carolines, Marshalls and Marianas for $4 million. The island of Guam (not a part of the Trust Ter ritory) was ceded to the US by Spain as early as 1898.

Immediately after World War I broke out in 1914 Japan took possession of all these islands.

The German way was to claim all land not in actual use by the inhabitants as “public land” and this practise was continued by the Japanese, who were given a League of Nations mandate.

Japanese population grew from 3,500 in 1920 to about 70,000 in 1940—and most of these people were per manent settlers, many of them owning land.

At the end of World War II the Americans were in control of the islands, and the UN gave the US trusteeship in 1947.

Since then, lengthy in vestigations have been held to determine what is public land (claimed by the government) and what is private.

As a new five-year, $5 million land registration programme be gins in Micronesia, the US Government is preparing to meet: challenges to the validity of its own ownership of “public lands”. It’s almost certain that many Micronesians will attempt to challenge the US Trust Territory Administration’s right to title of “public lands”, which comprise over 69 per cent, of Micronesian land.

The challenge will probably be made on the basis that foreign gov ernments prior to the present foreign government did not purchase most of the so-called public lands, that most of the public land was taken by the Spanish, the Germans and the Japanese without just com pensation and therefore that any claim to such land by the US Trust Territory Administration is without foundation.

Many people have hoped that the quasi-judicial land commissions will settle once and for all who have titles to the “public lands”. Most observers are confident that the historical fact of Japanese land acquisition without just compensation will be recognised by the land commissions, and most “public lands” will be returned to the owners from whom the lands were unjustly taken, or to their descendants.

However, it has been recently re vealed that the United States has been sending certain of its Trust Ter ritory Administration employees to Japan, New Guinea, Australia, Hawaii and other parts of the Pacific and Asia to search for old records con cerning the “public lands” in Micro nesia.

The United States, of course, views such explorations as being in the benefit of all landowners in Micro nesia, for any records discovered, whether they support or dispute Trust Territory Administration’s claims to land, it is said, will be available to all parties in the process of deter mining title.

It is with the purported “object ivity” and impartiality of the search for documents that some Micronesian leaders find real cause for concern.

For one thing, the explorations have been relatively quiet and cert

ainly not announced to landowners or interested Micronesian legislators or congressmen. It is only recently that such investigations have been dis covered by people outside the Trust Territory Administration, although the investigations have been going on for some time.

Further, it was only after the “discovery” of certain documents which were claimed by the Trust Territory Administration to support its claims of land ownership in Truk Islands that such explorations were disclosed.

It’s only too easy to suspect that the Trust Territory Administration is carrying on the intensive search for documents to support its claim to title of public lands because it’s aware that its claim is extraordinarily weak.

Unjust sales

Anthropologists such as those hired by the United States commercial company right after the war to study aspects of Micronesian cultures, con sistently stated that the Japanese method of acquiring land for gov ernment use was unjust, and recom mended that most public lands be returned to the Micronesians.

This position was disregarded by the Trust Territory Administration and it appears that it is struggling hard to come up with support for its claim to ownership of most Japanese held land, despite the acknowledged facts of history.

In the Marshall Islands, the United States (the trustee for the Micro nesians under the UN Trusteeship Agreement) is becoming openly worried about the increasing clamour by the local people for reversion of their islands now used by the US Defence Department.

Such a reversion could lead to a loss of multi-million dollar military installations on these islands. The cause of the concern is that the US granted its military, land uses to these islands despite the fact it was told by the Micronesians themselves and its own anthropologists and gov ernment officials that the lands belonged to the Micronesians.

Roi Namur, for example, clearly belongs to the Marshallese, yet there is over $4OO million worth of tech nical military equipment on the island. Many American officials knew this fact when Roi Namur was given to the military.

U.S. may lose

If Roi Namur is returned to its rightful owners during the land registration programme, the US stands to lose all of its $4OO million, as improvements made knowingly on land owned by another, belong to the owner and not to the one making the improvements.

As the land registration programme (it’s really a “cadastre” programme) nears, the United States’ search for documents seems to be accelerating.

When a Micronesian Congressman

from Truk recently repudiated Japan ese documents turned up by the Trust Territory Administration in one of its “impartial” searches as being worthless, because they were un signed, undated, unaccompanied by receipt of payment by Trukese land owners, and of doubtful authenticity, the Administration came up with some “new” documentation to show that the Japanese had title to the land in question in the representa tive’s district.

This particular case is similar to many in Micronesia—the land in dispute has not been used by the Trust Territory since the war and no use is planned for it in the future, yet the Trust Territory Administration is now attempting to support its claim to title.

Micronesians have been asking for many years why all “public lands” which are not presently used, or

which will not be used in the forsee able future, are not turned back to the rightful owners. The Administra tion’s motives are clear in some cases—certain areas are retained because the US may want them for military use.

U.S. to benefit

The land cadastre is thought by some to be designed to secure the title claims of the government to the “public lands”. Benefits to individual Micronesians would be secondary.

Further, if the US succeeds in its desire to make Micronesia a US Ter ritory, the more “public lands” which are securely held at the time ter ritorial status begins, the greater the capability of the US in meeting its land needs in the Pacific for establishment of bases.

Thus, as the cadastre gets under

Micronesia is more water than land—its 2,000-odd islands cover just 706 square miles, dotted over some 3 million square miles of blue ocean—but land is the politics of the territory. Land, and who owns it, more than anything else are the governing factors in Micronesia's relationship with the US, and as tourism now begins its entry into the area, the issue becomes even more controversial. These tranquil hills dropping into a quiet cove are typically Micronesian. They are in fact part of the Rock Islands of Palau District.

way, Micronesians have good cause for concern. The Micronesians have no resources with which they can ensure themselves that the wide-rang ing document searches being carried on by the Administration are im partial and objective.

They must wait until the title determination, to put forth their case to rebut the “findings” of the TT Administration investigators. If they are unprepared to meet whatever documents the TT Administration puts forth with contrary documentary proof, they may lose ownership of their land for the second (or third) time to a foreign government.

While it’s a well-known historical fact that the Japanese Government and previous colonial powers took lands unjustly to meet their needs, it’s only becoming apparent now that another foreign government is at tempting to do the same thing, only under the guise of a democratic system, where the landowner has his “day in court”.

The taking of Bikini, Eniwetok, Kwajalein, the Mid-Corridor, Roi Namur and parts of Saipan for military use was only a thinly veiled form of robbery.

America’s hanging on to land for possible future use rates a close second. Now America has assured the Micronesians that it is straighten ing out the land problems in Micro nesia for the benefit of the Micro nesians. If the Trustee had looked at the facts after the war, if it had listened to its anthropologists, and, (although it is barely possible to suppress a sigh) if it had listened to the Micronesians the people who knew and still know who legitimately owned what land at the end of the war the land problems would not exist.