Micronesia - Mangefel

Tells It Like It Is.,.

...And an old chicken comes home to roost

In an address to the Senate of the Congress of Micronesia, Yap’s colour ful Senator John Mangefel treated his colleagues to his annual review of affairs couched in the form of a letter to his “cousin Ngabchey”, a student in mainland USA.

According to Micronesian News Service, Senator Mangefel told his cousin about Micronesians being spied upon by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) over the last four years.

He said: “It’s funny that they call it an intelligence agency. If they’re so intelligent, why do people keep finding out about what they’re doing? Maybe if they were intelligent and smart we wouldn’t.”

The senator said he had faith in and respect for “our American friends”, adding: “But to be bugged by our friends has shattered all my belief.

“What we thought was a big, friendly chicken in our coop has turned out to be a fox,” he said. “In future we must pay attention to what friendly chickens do, rather than what they say.”

Known for his ability to temper heated debates in the Senate, Mangefel said he did not blame the US Government for bugging Micro nesians. He said that former President Nixon “was bugging his staff, it seems, and his staff was bugging him.”

But when Nixon “started bugging the American people, that’s when the chickens came home to roost.” Even the President who replaced Nixon “didn’t stop bugging us ..

Mangefel told his cousin not to worry because about the only thing the CIA learned or heard from Mangefel was “the crunch of a good, fresh Yap betelnut, and the occasional ‘plop’ of an old wad into the waste basket”.

The Yap Senator told his cousin that except for the loss of faith, the CIA has “done us an enormous favour”. He said perhaps “we should thank them for all the publicity it gave Micronesia it seems we got more out of the bargain than they did”.

On international issues, Mangefel recounted the current situation concerning the controversial Saipan- Tokyo route. He said former President Ford finally approved the award to Continental/Air Micronesia to fly to Japan. But now the Japanese

Government, despite an earlier promise to let a Micronesian airline land in Japan, “wants to negotiate the issue with America again”.

On issues before the Congress, Mangefel told his cousin about a major tax bill under consideration which would give Micronesia an income of SUS 23 million annually as opposed to the current SUSS.S million.

He said that in public hearings there were those who feel the proposed tax bill should not be approved and implemented now; and those who feel it ought to be done on a gradual basis.

“What it boils down to is that almost everybody favours taxes, but almost nobody wants to pay them”.

Mangefel noted that 1976 marked the 200th anniversary of the American

A 14-year-old US Government report has emerged as a new source of strain in US-Micronesian relations, already under stress following revela tions of CIA surveillance of Micro nesian delegates to political status talks.

The Congress of Micronesia has secured a copy of the long-secret 1963 Solomon Committee Report on US relations with Micronesia.

In remarks made in February before the COM House of Representa tives, Congressman Sasauo Haruo of Truk described the report as “an intelligence document on Micronesia and its leaders”.

The “Political Development of Micronesia” portion of the Solomon Report outlines “how to secure Micronesia permanently for US military installations”, Haruo claimed.

“The only reference to US obligations to promote self-deter mination or independence in Micro nesia, ” he said, “is in circumventing its international obligations under the Trusteeship Agreement and the United Nations Charter”. This would be done by “creating a facade of self determination while establishing a US

revolution. “But what attracted my attention in 1976,” he went on, “was the sailing of a traditional canoe from Hawaii to Tahiti”.

Mangefel said the event attracted his attention “not because there were haoles (white persons) on board, but because of the fact that the Hawaiians had to import a sophisticated navigational system for the trip”. (The Senator was referring to Yap’s traditional navigator Piailug who was the chief navigator of the venture.)

territory as a domain of the US Department of Defence”, Haruo said.

The Truk congressman noted that newspaper reports during the last year “indicate that the US Department of Defence has been conducting intelli gence surveillance of Palauan leaders”.

Haruo asserted that the “faith”

Micronesia once had in the US Government had been “dispelled”. He said: “It seems that the Trusteeship Agreement and the UN Charter become only pieces of paper when the interests of the US and its major allies are involved”.

He added: “The new President of the US has promised honesty, integrity and morality to the American people.

The candour promised the American people must also be given to Micronesia”.

Congressman Haruo said that “disharmony andfragmentation with in Micronesia” were “probably due to past actions of the US, but certainly also to the lack of trust and understanding among ourselves”.

“A nation lacking trust and co operation among its own people has little right to askfor more from another nation, ” he concluded.