Land is key to Micronesian talks

From a SAIPAN correspondent

Land ownership seems to be the one big obstacle in the way of the resumption of future status talks between the United States and the Congress of Micronesia’s Joint Com mittee on Future Status.

The Palauans in the Carolines, backed up by the rest of Micronesia, have demanded the return of all their land to their chiefs. Up to now the United States has been dragging its feet over the matter but there are signs that a formula might be agreed on so that the talks, which terminated abruptly last October when the Micro nesians dragged in a new target, independence, might be resumed around November.

There are 32,040 acres of Palauan land involved and the fate of this land was one of the main topics for discussion when the United States in the person of Ambassador Franklyn Haydn Williams and Micro nesian Senator Lazarus Salii, chair man of the Joint Committee on Future Status, met in Honolulu in October in an attempt to get the talks under way.

While marking time, the United States has been preparing its arguments for retaining this land and also for holding on to some of its other bases as well as taking over Tinian in the Marianas. The outcome of the meeting had not been revealed at the time of writing but Senator Salii, speaking in Saipan in late September, was not hopeful.

There are questions of future financial aid for the Micronesians, the timing of any unilateral decision the Micronesians might like to make on the termination of “free associa tion” with America, the separate talks with the Marianas and a dozen other hot potatoes to be swallowed before agreement is reached, even after the land problem has been solved.

While the Micronesians have many goals—self-government or indepen dence, solid financial aid, schemes for helping the economy, and other forms of help from their trustees— the Americans have only one —to ensure that these 2,141 islands scat tered over 3,000,000 square miles of ocean fit into their defence system and never again become bases for an enemy force. That’s the reason why the Americans are haggling so strenuously over land and until that question is settled there’ll be no suc cessful end to the talks.

Most people expect the talks to resume in November but there are

those who point to December as the month of the talks. There are prob lems associated with that month also.

The US is practically committed to another round of talks with the Marianas political status commission in late November. Then the second session of the Fifth Congress of Micronesia opens on Saipan on January 7. Both sides would like to get another round of talks in before the Congress session but if this proves

impossible then the seventh round could not begin before next March.

Time is of the essence for the longer the talks are held up, the more impatient the Micronesians will be come and the louder and stronger will be the calls for complete indepen dence. About the only thing which is muting those calls at present is the question, “Where does the finance come from if not from the United States?”