It's still war (on several

fronts) in Micronesia

From a Saipan correspondent

Associate High Court Justice D.

Kelly Turner, of the US Trust Terri tory, was alive and apparently well, in Majuro, in November, although Micronesians have, for some time, been hoping he would be elsewhere.

Judge Turner has grown into one of the most controversial current issues among Micronesians, especi ally those from Palau and the Mar shalls, where he has been dispensing the law since 1967.

In a word, the judge is unpopular, and Micronesians say, among a great many other things, that he is prejudiced against anyone with a brown skin.

In 1969, after the Palau District Legislature brought pressure to bear, Judge Turner was transferred to the Marshalls, but by April, 1972 the Marshalls District legislature had passed a resolution asking for the judge’s removal. Nothing happened because by now, said the cynics, the Administration had run out of Dis tricts to which Judge Turner could be sent.

In August, Senator Amata Kabua, President of the Senate of Micronesia, wrote to the Chief Justice of the Trust Territory, the Hon Harold Burnett, expressing local grievances resulting from the judge’s continued presence; and at the end of that month, the Congress of Micronesia, sitting at Ponape, unanimously passed a Senate resolution also demanding the removal of Judge Turner.

However, the judge is not without his supporters. Chief Justice Burnett, in a long, public letter to Senator Kabua, said that the Senate acted on the basis of charges not supported fully by facts; and that although he personally tried to follow up the Marshall Is legislature resolution of April, he received no co-operation. At the same time, another group of Mar shallese had sent him a petition which represented support for Judge Turner.

The Turner battle was still joined in November. Perhaps the best com ment on it comes from the local weekly Micronitor, which published the latest letters of the Chief Justice and Senator Kabua and appended this note; “The letters reprinted . . . rep resented a further investigation into some of the fantastic charges and counter-charges that have been levelled at the function of the judi ciary in the Marshall Is District.

Read at your own risk. Education can be a painful process.”

Among the statements made by Senator Kabua was that Judge Turner’s conduct “could no longer be tolerated in Micronesia”, and that Judge Turner was “insensitive to Micronesian cultures and customs, unprofessional and unethical to an extreme”.

Meantime, other events in the TT are proving that it is a hell of a long road that has no turning—2l years long, in fact.

Recently, a TT government lawyer flew into each district heralding the Micronesian Claims Commission.

The MCC was created by the Micronesian Claims Act of 1971, and is a US governmental agency. The commission operates under the con trol and direction of the Chairman of the Foreign Claims Settlement Com mission of the United States. The scope of the MCC appears to be broad and comprehensive.

Included are all claims of Micro nesian inhabitants resulting from loss of life, physical injury and property damage, caused by hostilities between the governments of Japan and the United States, from December 7, 1941, and the dates of “securing the various islands” in Micronesia by the US military. Also recoverable are payments arising from damage to, or use of, all kinds of property; and death or personal injury, occurring between the dates of “securing the various islands of Micronesia” and July 1, 1951.

The establishment of such a pro gramme is laudable, if late. [lt is interesting to note that war damage claims of indigenes of the New Guinea Trust Territory were settled by Australia within a few years of the end of hostilities, and getting down to cases with these was hard enough. Now, with a generation gap, claims of Micronesians will be just that more difficult to assess.] In the light of the complex and technical nature of the task, care should be taken in fully advising the Micronesians of their rights and this responsibility was given to Mr Robert Boles, a former TT Attorney General.

There is already local criticism of his procedures in that prior notice of meetings with Micronesian groups was short, and that they were con ducted in English, which few outer islanders speak.

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All claims for compensation have to be filed before October 15, 1973.

Eniwetok’s problems, which also have something to do with war, are still in the news.

PIM reported then that the United States had agreed that the military would return Eniwetok to its people by the end of 1973, after the people had for years pleaded to be allowed to return and had finally, in 1971, made a public proclamation that they would return no matter what within one year. The Eniwetokese were exiled in 1946, when the atoll was used for US nuclear bomb testing.

But the Eniwetokese found that although the nuclear bombing was now long over, the US Air Force has been continuing to bomb the atoll under a Pacific Cratering Experiment (PACE), blasting what is left of Eniwetok with quantities of TNT so enormous that they simulate the effects of nuclear explosion.

On September 19, four months after a return visit to their former islands, Eniwetok leaders filed for an

injunction in the US Federal Court in Honolulu to stop the cratering experi ment. The case has been set for Feb ruary, 1973, but meanwhile bombing has been stopped.

Prior to the injunction being filed, the official TT administration policy was that the Micronesians were in accord with the way the Eniwetok situation was being handled. How ever, this has changed since a severely critical appraisal of the effect of the Air Force’s cratering experiments have had on the atoll was made in Washington by Deputy Secretary of the Interior, W. W. Lyon.

Deputy High Commissioner Peter T. Coleman said in Saipan, in early November that Lyon’s appraisal had become the TT administration’s official position concerning the pro ject.

“We assumed that the Air Force would comply with Federal environ mental laws,” he said.

The Air Force did not and it was on these grounds that the Eniwetokese

in early October, pleaded their cai in Honolulu, calling expert including radio-ecologists, geologist anthropologists, and others.

“The Air Force readily admitti that they failed to comply wi National Environmental Protects Agency laws in virtually every r sped,” said Micronesian legal servic director Therodore R. Mitchell.

“Judge Samuel P. King taught ; important lesson to the military wh he ordered the Eniwetok project e tirely cancelled,” said Mitchell. “E order means the US or anybody el does not have the right of the peopk Congressman Ataji Bales, w] attended the hearing at the request the Eniwetok leadership said: “This is the first time any Mici nesian has been able to obtain t protection of the United States cour Everyone has been telling these peoi for years that there is no way to st the US military. Many people ha told me and the Eniwetok peoi that we are crazy to even try. No they are stopped.”