Up Front

with the Publisher

The Banaban appeal to the British High Court for justice over Ocean Island phosphate ended last year in a great moral victory for the Banabans, who had the satisfaction of hearing a British judge condemn the British Government and the British Phosphate Commissioners (who include Australia) over many aspects of their treatment.

Unfortunately, when it came to a cash settlement, the legal niceties of the com

plicated, long-running case prevented

the judge, Sir Robert Megarry, from meeting the Banabans’ very substantial claim for back royalties.

But he did find that the Banabans were entitled to compensation from the BPC for the damage to their land by the ex traction operations, and suggested that these be “neither nominal nor very large”. He fixed no specific sum.

And Sir Robert did make it clear that

despite the purely legalistic considera

tion, Britain should make some financial recompense to the islanders for its treat ment of them. Again, he suggested no

figure.

The Banabans, all but about 50 of whom these days live on Rabi Island in Fiji, and who are Fiji citizens, now have

some figures.

In May, Britain announced that she, Australia apd New Zealand (through the BPC) would make available SAIO million (£6.5 million sterling) to the Banabans as an ex-gratia payment on condition that no further claims would be made arising out of past events.

And in July, just as this issue of PIM was going to press, I heard from London that the BPC had offered the Banabans SAI.S million for the damage to their land, in the case where the sum was to be “neither nominal nor large”.

The Banabans have said they will ac cept the $lO million on condition that they have immediate independence for Ocean Island, which is part of the Gilbert Islands colony.

I understand they have no intention of accepting the $1.5 million offered as damage settlement, regarding it as

almost derisory.

What this means is that we can expect the Banaban issue to be continued for a long time yet. But it will be indepen dence for Ocean Island, not necessarily the financial issue, which is likely to be

the major sticking point because it takes the whole matter into a far more emotive area, of brother against brother.

It really started back in 1886, when Britain and Germany cosily agreed to divide the Western Pacific into “spheres of influence”. On the “British side were Ocean Island and the Gilbert Islands.

Britain in 1892 declared a protectorate over the Gilberts, but did nothing about isolated Ocean Island until it annexed it in 1901. The sole reason for annexation was that rich phosphate had been dis covered there. It has been administered as part of the Gilbert Islands ever since.

The Banabans (the occupiers) left Ocean Island for Rabi at the end of World War II because the island had been made virtually uninhabitable by the war.

The Banabans are not Gilbertese, but their histories and families are intertwin ed.

The Banabans’ claim for the separa tion of Ocean Island from the Gilberts is not new. They formally asked Britain for it as long ago as 1968 and were rejected.

It has come up several times since, in cluding in the UN.

The Gilbertese are strongly, perhaps

irrevocably, against separation. In the

Gilberts it is a live public issue. But they have offered the Banabans a 15-point plan which would enshrine in an inde pendent Gilbertese constitution the right of the Banabans to live on Ocean Island at any time, to have “belonger” status in the Gilberts, to have a local seat in the Assembly, and for Ocean Island to have a share of the finances. But the land it self, they say, is “part of the body” of the Gilberts.

The Banabans reject the plan. They in sist that Ocean Island, as their ancestral home, is part of their own body. That Britain, not an independent Gilberts, must decide on the island’s future, since it was Britain which changed its course.

The fact that the Gilberts are ap

proaching independence from Britain

has strengthened the Banabans’ resolve.

As both sides are sincere I find it im possible to predict what turn this deep division will take, or to know what in fluence a final decision may have on the attitudes of other islanders in the Pacific.

Colonial chickens are coming home to roost. — Stuart Inder.