New chapter in bid for compact

Palau

By Ed Rampell

PALAU and the United States turned another chapter in their search for a compact of free association when government officials signed an agreement in Guam on May 26 that could unlock the deadlocked rati fication process. This episode of the on again off-again South Seas sojourn was signed by Palau vice-president Kuniwo Nakamura, the head of Palau’s political status commission, and United States State Department official James Berg, of the Office of Freely Associated States. If achieved, the compact of free association would provide Palau with total inde pendence from Washington and a sub stantial United States economic aid pack age. In return Palau would allow United States sweeping military access to its strategically-located waters.

The elusive Compact quest has witnes sed the mysterious deaths of two presi dents, a virtual reign of terror, historic court cases, and the bankrupting of the Micronesian nation through a suspicious power project. The accord’s evasive

Oceanic odyssey has island hopped from Koror to Honolulu to Saipan to New York to Washington over the years. At stake is the world’s first nuclear free con stitution, banning the transit of nuclear

powered and capable ships and planes.

The Compact’s subsidiary agreements

signed at Guam provides Palau with additional funding for a public auditor,

special prosecutor, drug/alcohol abuse

treatment and prevention, plus a new

hospital and prison. The understanding

also assists the tiny republic in paying off a staggering US$4B million debt accumu lated for the dubious IPSECO power project, as well as SUS 2 million in un paid medical bills. In late 1988, the Un ited States House of Representatives

proposed legislation approving the

above, but the Reagan Administration agreed to a compromise minutes too late for Congress to vote on it After the Bush Administration took office and indicated it would support the compromise, Insular and International Affairs Subcommittee Chairman Ron de Lugo and 65 other members of the House sponsored the legislation in

March. Previous Senate legislation did not contain the additional provisions, nor did earlier versions of the agreement Berg had proposed. A February visit to Palau by members of the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, and Interior

Secretary Manuel Lujan, also helped

pave the way for the latest development.

Nakamura and Berg’s signing of the en hanced accord helped open the stymied path for United States Congressional and Palauan action on the Compact.

It remains to be seen whether the Guam accord is a major breakthrough in the tortuous Compact ratification pro cess, or just another bureaucratic man oeuvre and ploy. Long-time Palau watch ers know that time and again, like a soap opera or serial, the nuclear free constitu tion has been snatched out of the jaws of certain defeat the last possible moment.

In addition to the nuclear issue, a ma

jor stumbling block is the Compact’s

sweeping land use provisions, which, cri tics insist, could allow the Pentagon to seize one third of Palau (which has the

Trust Territory’s largest single island)

for military bases. The United States maintains that it has no intention of ex cercising its option, yet refuses to .re move the wide ranging land use stipula tions from the Compact. □