No political motive seen in killing

The murder by gunshot in the early hours of July 1 of Haruo Remeliik, 51, father of six, founding president (since 1981), of Palau, sparked all sorts of rumors about political assassination, and clandestine plots in the tiny archipelago trust territory of the U.S. But the best efforts of local police, and two imported F. 8.1. operatives could turn up no motive, and the estimates of many leading citi zens were that the killing had more personal than political connotations. \ President Remeliik had been out fishing, and had then, accor ding to some reports, gone to a private barbecue which he left about midnight on Sunday. He drove home and was walking from his car to his house when, according to American-born Judge Larry Sutton, next-door neighbor, the president was accosted by a number of per sons.

Sutton said he heard Remeliik say: ’’What are you guys doing here? Beat it.”

There was a single shot. Re meliik screamed and, said Sut ton, started to roll down the hill.

The gunmen followed him and fired three more times before they ran off.

Remeliik’s body had four bul let wounds, all from a single .32 calibre pistol, one in the head, and three in the lower body and he must have died instantly. The gun, a rarity in Palau where all

firearms, except a few closely controlled shotguns, are out lawed, has not been found, and no suspects have been de tained.

Vice-president Alfonso Oiler ong, 62, was in New York, attending trusteeship committee session at the United Nations, at the time of the killing. He rushed home to be sworn in as presi dent of the tiny semi-auton omous state of 14,000 people scattered over 200 islands, many uninhabited, set in the Pacific about 900 km east of the Philippines and 1000 km north of Papua New Guinea.

Remeliik had his political ene mies and, by the measure of some observers, had lost some status by his handling of the long-drawn out negotiations over the Compact of Free Association between Palau and the United States. Palau is diffe rent from other island countries of the region administered by the U.S. under the 1947 U.N. trusteeship, in that its constitu tion bans the passage of nuc lear ships or weapons through its waters. The U.S., which has offered to settle about $1 billion on Palau over the next 50 years, has sought, in return, assur ances that its naval operations in the region would not be impeded by this clause. How ever, public referenda in the islands have failed to give suffi cient majority to alter the con stitution.

While Remeliik’s killing does not appear to have been poli tically inspired, Washington seems anxious that it may be come a factor in the spread of anti-nuclear sentiment among other small countries of the Pacific, taking a lead from New Zealand’s David Lange, who brooked damage to the long standing ANZUS Treaty to pur sue his Labor party’s anti-nuc lear policy.

Remeliik, in common with some other Micronesian lead ers, principal among them Tosi wo Nakayama, president of the Federated States of Micronesia, was looking towards the South Pacific, and the Forum, as a means of leavening the appear ance of political dependence upon the United States. His country also shared serious doubts that without something like the Forum they could beat the powerful Washington lobby of the American Tuna Boat Association in the current battle to have their exclusive econo mic zone fishing rights observed. (The A.T.B.A. refuses to acknowledge these rights as they apply to migratory fish like tuna).

Remeliik, like most of his countrymen, was not anti-Amer ican, and accepted that without U.S. support they would have very little chance of more than simply surviving.

PIM Staff writer.