Kwajalein: Furore

Marshall Islands

Kwajalein: Furore In Perspective

Ed Rampell looks behind the hysteria caused by a suspected Soviet presence at Kwajalein.

THE RECENT suspected Soviet

incursion into the territory of the Republic of the Marshall Is lands (RMI) was the lead story on the nationally broadcast United States CBS “Evening News” program of January 10, and was reported interna

tionally.

For the first time in memory anchorman Dan Rather led off with a bizarre tale of intrigue set in Mic

ronesia, a region generally ignored by

the US media. According to CBS, the Pentagon suspects that a Soviet mini sub sneaked into the lagoon at Kwaja lein atoll in July 1987 and stole tne flight data recorder from a missile fired from the US Air Force base in Vandenberg, California (See Pacific Is

lands Monthly, January).

Since 1947, Kwajalein Missile Range (KMR) has served as a US military base and missile test facility. Its adja cent lagoon has long served as a target site for unarmed antiballistic missiles fired from the US West Coast, some 8000 kilometres to the east. The Pen tagon currently tests the Strategic De fence Initiative popularly known as ‘Star Wars’ at KMR.

The United States’ historical neglect of the American-administered United Nations Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI) has been epitomised in a famous and possibly genuine story in which a reporter asks a Con gressman what he thinks of Mic ronesia. The response is “Mike who?”

However, Americans were not al ways so ignorant about the 2100 West ern Pacific islands between Hawaii and the Philippines. During World War H’s island-hopping campaign in the Pacific, Micronesian Islands such as Tarawa, Tinian, Peleliu, Truk and Kwajalein were front-page news. Fol lowing the war, the Marshallese atoll of Bikini continued to garner global coverage following US nuclear tests there from 1946 to 1958.

It is no accident that America’s ‘Mic ronesia amnesia’ has once again been shattered by a military scandal. The background to the Kwajalein incident is the simple truth that the territorial status of the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the rest of the entire TTPI is in international dispute.

While it is claimed that the United Nalions’ Strategic Trust has been phased out (except Tor the Republic of Palau)

and replaced by Compacts of Free

association between the US and the RMI and the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), and Commonwealth status between the US and the Northern Marianas (CNMI), the reality is quite different: the United Nations has never completed the ratification process for the termination of the American administered Trusteeship.

On May 28, 1986, the United Nations Trusteeship Council voted on the termination of the TTPI (with the exception of Palau). The Trusteeship Council, once a major organ of the UN, was established following World War II to oversee 11 Oceanic and African territories including Nauru, Western Samoa, Papua New Guinea and most of Micronesia. The TTPI has the distinction of being the only Trusteeship designated as a UN Strategic Trust; the only American administered Trust Territory; the only Trust that did not end with independence or merging with a contiguous

territory; and the only Trusteeship

still in effect.

“We fought for them, we’ve got them, we should keep them. They are necessary for our safety. I see no other course.” Congressman F Edward Hebert, 1945, on the islands of Micronesia.

The outcome of the Trusteeship Council vote on TTPI termination.

On the strength of this action, US Ambassador to the UN Vernon Wal ters notified the UN Security Council in a letter on October 23, 1986, that the Strategic Trust had been termin ated and tne Compacts and common

wealth implemented.

The TTPI phased out its gov ernmental apparatus at Saipan and High Commissioner Janet McCoy bid farewell to the Trust Territory. But while the TTPI may be terminated de facto and a new political status im plemented de facto , according to in

ternational law neither actions are de jure. The American action is, in fact, unilateral and illegal: the Marshalls, FSM and Northern Marianas like Palau still form the UN Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, According to Chapter XIX, Article 83, part 1 of the UN Charter, ‘all functions of the United nations relat ing to strategic areas, including the approval of the terms of trusteeship agreements and of their alteration or amendment, shall be exercised by the Security Council’. This body has never exercised any action approving the al teration or amendment of the Strategic Trust . . . and termination of the Trusteeship system and the ap plication of a new political status cer tainly fall well within the boundaries of ‘alteration or amendment’. The US Ambassador merely transmitted a let ter to the Security Council and simply declared that tne United Nations’

Strategic Trust was no longer in force.

Ambassador Walters’letter went so far as to note that the Compact had come into effect in the Marshalls on October 21; the note is dated October 23.

Why has Washington moved to pre vent Strategic Trust termination being

brought before the Security Council?

The Security Council’s five permanent members consist of the same nations

comprising the Trusteeship Council

but there is a key difference: unlike the Trusteeship Council, the five permanent members of the Security Council each exercise veto power in the latter chamber.

Thus, since 1986 the Trusteeship Council has continued to consider matters pertaining to the Marshalls,

Pohnpei, Truk, Kosrae, Yap, Saipan

and Palau in its published reports and annual May meetings, not withstand ing the United States action. As far as

the United Nations is concerned, the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands is still alive and includes the RMI,

Fsm, Cnmi And Rop.

Washmgton has apparently avoided

the issue because it is worried the Soviet Union will quite legally kill the Compacts and Commonwealth with a single vote by utilising its veto power, Buttressing this fear over a Soviet veto is the USSR’s practice of condemning the US presence and policy in Micronesia as ‘imperialist’. President Mikhail Gorbachev’s own characterisation of American actions in Micronesia as ‘annexation’ during his 1986 Soviet Far East address has added fuel to hawkish American fears of a USSR Security Council veto.

Moscow views Micronesia as a fivemillion-square-kilometre United States militarised and nuclearised zone, a ‘forward base’ in the Pentagon strategy of ‘Soviet containment’ aimed

at thwarting Russian expansionism

and protecting the continental USA.

The Washington Post has documented that the Pentagon has a contingency plan whereby Tinian, Guam and Palau form a Western Pacific defence arc of fallback bases should US military installations in the Philippines ever be closed.

Naturally, the USSR is as pleased by military bases on Guam and a Star Wars facility in the Marshalls as Amer ica was at the prospect of having nuc lear weapons stored in Cuba. The hor

rifying possibility is that such military

toe-to-toe confrontation could put Moscow and Washington on a collision course in Micronesia. The region’s un resolved political status, as the Mar shalls incident illustrates, will continue as a bone of contention between the superpowers and Micronesia could conceivably evolve into an East-West flashpoint: it is wise to recall that America’s involvement in World War II both began and ended in Mic ronesia and that obscure, remote is lands have a knack of moving from the recesses of history to headline

news once they become militarily sig

nificant: witness in recent times the Falklands and Grenada.

The case of Micronesia has been dubbed ‘a sham within a scandal’: The United Nations’ refusal to stand up to the US over the TTPI issue is an igno miny, especially since no fewer tnan eight directly involved Pacific entities Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Western Samoa, Solo mon Islands, Vanuatu, and East Timor’s Fretilin (which has a UN pre

sence somewhat similar to that of the PLO) are represented at the world body. The Pacific nations can lead in the UN’s peace-broking and decol onisation process if they work together in a regional voting bloc, as Other geopolitical regions m the world do.

In fact, these island countries have acted as a de facto bloc in the past,

holding monthly meetings on perti

nent matters at their Manhattan offices.

They have also diplomatically lob bied for the embattled Kanaks at the UN and suceeded in having New Caledonia inscribed on the UN’s list of

non-self-governing territories.

If for no other reason than defusing the North Pacific, the United Nations the world forum presiding over the postwar decolonisation process must take an active interest in its Trustee responsibility to ensure that

the long overdue Trusteeship Agree

ments of development and self determination are realised.

Should the UN continue to ignore Micronesia and its disputed political status, there will eventually be a price to pay. Someday, UN peace-keeping troops may be dispatched to tiny specks of sand that have once more become front-page news. □