Up Front

with the Editor

Commonwealth is one of those words that mean different things to different people, and “Commonwealth status” as currently used by America in its dialogue with the Micronesians is causing some confusion in the rest of the Pacific Islands.

Most of the islands have a British background (my apologies to the French presence) and the British Commonwealth does not bear much relationship to what America has in mind in Micronesia. Hence the con fusion.

I submit, though, that it was Bri tain, not America, that altered the original meaning of the word Com monwealth.

At the grass roots, Commonwealth started out meaning simply a group of persons banded together for the com mon good, and that’s the way that America still sees it.

There are within the United States four states still officially called com monwealths—Pennysylvania, Virginia.

Kentucky and Massachusetts. And vir tually sharing US statehood is the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, in the Caribbean. Most federal laws apply to Puerto Rico as though it were a state, and its people are US citizens with free access to the US. Essential differences between Puerto Rico and the four states that still bear the word common wealth in their titles is that Puerto Rico has a non-voting representative in the US Congress, and it does not pay federal income taxes.

Commonwealth status suits some Puerto Ricans, but there are internal political pressures for full US state hood.

The British Commonwealth took shape early in the century as a group of self-governing countries banded to gether for the common good, but the changes in form and emphasis since are legion.

Internal pressures have brought the changes. The ties were loosening as long ago as 1926 at the Imperial Con ference in London which defined the Commonwealth as “united by a com mon allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated members of the Commonwealth of Nations”. Since

then, member nations have come and gone, with varying degrees of enmity or joy, and what is left is an extra ordinarily loose association that surely deserves to be a source of wonder for the cohesion it still retains, the Common Market decision notwith standing.

This cohesion has a lot to do with the fact that the member countries of the Commonwealth of Nations are free to do their own political thing any way they like. They are in fact free.

It’s not this kind of developed Com monwealth status that America has so far offered Micronesia—but the Puerto Rico kind.

Micronesia would become part of the United States as the Common wealth of Micronesia—a relationship not so close as that of a state, but closer than that of an unincorporated territory.

It would have internal self-govern ment, with a non-voting delegate to the US House of Representatives. It would have local courts but the US Federal Court system would be ex panded to include Micronesia.

A Commonwealth of Micronesia would have the choice of having federal income tax laws or not, but with the tax money being retained by Micronesia. The US has also offered to match local revenues with an equal sum from the US Treasury, and also appropriate additional US funds for specific purposes.

Micronesians would have the choice of becoming US nationals or US citi zens.

The Commonwealth of Micronesia would have the right to control land, with the exception of land required by the US as “being necessary for the public purposes”. Foreign policy mat ters, defence, banking and postal sys tems would be the responsibility of the United States.

The Congress of Micronesia, as a

whole, has rejected Commonwealth status. It gave official notice of its re jection 12 months ago, and only now are both sides beginning to ease out of their deadlock and arrange to talk to each other again.

The settlement is not likely to be easy, especially as it has recently been complicated by the apparent determi nation of the Marianas, one of the six districts of Micronesia, to do its own thing. There is a strong element in the Marianas which would like to have Commonwealth status, and would secede from the Trust Territory to have it, “by force of arms if neces sary”. Thus Micronesia is dividing at a time when unity would be in its best interests.

The Congress of Micronesia re jected Commonwealth status simply because it does not want to be ab sorbed holus-bolus into the American system. It has laid down four basic principles that it says must be met by America in deciding on Micronesia’s future.

These are: 1. Full Micronesian control of gov ernment. 2. Free choice of independence or association with any nation. 3. The right to draw up and change the constitution. 4. Freedom to end the association.

In the long debates that have sur rounded discussion on Micronesia’s future it has been clear that the Micronesians are not anti-American, despite the enunciation of these four principles of freedom. My own observations during a visit to all the districts last year also convince me of this. The wonder is that with the great distances between those widely-scat tered islands of Micronesia there is as much cohesion and America orientation.

America deserves much credit for what she has done there, but I wish she wouldn’t push her luck during the next few significant months. There are alternatives, and the odds are that a free Micronesia will work even more closely with America than other wise.

What Micronesia really is asking for is Commonwealth status as it works among the Commonwealth of Nations, and not the original, but narrow, American version that has never developed further because it has never had to.

So long as the key decisions are made before the present comparative era of goodwill dissipates, both sides can have their cake and eat it too. I believe it is as clear as that.

Stuart Inder.