money belong?

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To whom does this money belong?

ONCE the United States has agreed to fund a Pacific Islands activity, who decides how the money should be spent? How much control should the US continue to have over these decisions?

These questions, debated for years in Guam, the Marianas, Palau, and Ameri can Samoa, have now popped up on Bikini Atoll, in the Marshalls, where a US$9O million trust fund provides ample

opportunities for disagreement.

The money was allocated by Congress in 1988 to rehabilitate that much bombed island and nearby Eneu, and to finance the re-population of the islands.

In return for the money, the 1500 or so Bikinians, now living elsewhere, agreed to drop all lawsuits against the US Govern ment which set off some 23 nuclear bombs on those islands between 1946 and 1958.

In the spirit of the Compact of Free Association signed earlier between the Marshalls and the United States, the Congress decided to end the controversy over the islands by paying, over a period of five years, the $9O million. But the Congress also in

corporated language, now under dispute, giv ing the US Depart ment of Interior some say in the actual expenditure of the funds.

Is detailed monitoring a return to the days of colonialism?

Perhaps burned by reports by the Congressional watchdog agency, the General Accounting Office, that it was letting the Government of Palau run wild with federal funds, the Department of Interior took a look at the Bikini Trust Fund expenditures earlier this year and cracked down on its fiscal practices. From now on the Department insists that it must approve all expenditure in excess of SI 00,000.

Two financial decisions made by the Trust Fund set the Department’s teeth on edge. First was a decision to spend 52.2 million (later reduced to SI.B million) on a one-year lease of certain Bikini land which will be used for the reconstruction of roads, the expansion of the airport, and for the site of a power plant.

The second was the basic imbalance of the books (in Interior’s eyes) with the

Trust Fund spending some $4.5 million more than its income in the year in

question.

Although it has not said so in so many words, the concept of leasing lands for roads is as foreign to Mainland officials as

the concept of selling land is in the islands. On the Mainland, units ofgovern ment buy land for roads.

Further, and openly, Interior officials said that the decision to provide to

the landowning clans, through the Bikini Council, the $2.2 or $l.B million was little more than a pass through of funds to the 1500 residents, and it certainly had not been cleared with Interior. The payment would not result in any improvement to Bikini, it would simply provide money to Bikinians before they return to the island.

The precedent of spending $l.B million to lease the land for public use for one year is an interesting one; if the $9O million fund produces income at the rate of 6 per cent, then it would provide $5.4 million a year. At $ 1.8 million a year, fully a third of the anticipated income of the fund (assuming that none of the principal were used) would be spent each year on land rental; if some part of the principal were spent, then an even larger portion of the income would be used for these transfer payments.

But to what extent should Uncle Sam micro-manage funds already allocated to island activities? Is the trend towards detailed monitoring of expenditures simply a return to the bad old days of colonialism?

Looking ahead, the Bikini Council’s Washington lawyer, Jonathan Weisgall, said that the Council should have the freedom to figure out how to clean up and re-occupy the islands. He said that the islanders, who are getting some high powered scientific advice on the question, have two basic alternatives: • they can scrape the top soil off the islands and replace it with good, uncontaminated soil from somewhere else, or • they can leave the current soil in place, and distribute large quantities of potassium-rich fertilizer, like that mined on Nauru.

The point of the fertilizer is that it would block the uptake of the radio active ingredient cesium-137 into the islands’ coconut palms and other plants.

Bikini is currently habitable if those living there ate imported food out of cans.

The islanders are getting top advice

Without the blocking fertilizer, or new top soil, the inhabitants would be hurt by the contamination were they to start eating coconuts and other locally-grown fruits and vegetables.

The basic decision on new topsoil or

fertilizer is just the first of a series of decisions that need to be made, and these should be made by the islanders, says Weisgall. He says that the Bikini Council is perfectly

happy to have Department of Interior scientists continue to monitor radiation levels on the islands, and for the islanders to set aside (at Trust Fund expense) some land for these studies. But, he said, the Department should not overplay its hand.

He views the role of Interior as “minis terial only”, and it should only come into play if the Bikini Council starts using its money for totally frivolous purposes.

Negotiations are continuing between the Council and the Department on how to manage the trust fund on a proposed budget of some $4 million for infrastruc ture construction. Meanwhile, the people ofßikini, now on Kili and Ejit Islands, are looking forward to returning home. □