Reshaping the role of women

PALAU’S 15,000 people have a Federation of 16 states, with a bicameral legislature, the OEK (Olbiil Era Kelulau). The Council of Chiefs represent traditional govern ment, at least in an advisory capacity.

But one very powerful aspect of tra ditional power is not so well represented Palauan women.

Traditionally, chiefs were chosen by women on the basis of descent from the female line, and they could be sacked by them. So, has the power of Palauan women been eroded in the Constitution

adopted in 1979? Pacific Islands Monthly

posed the question to two Palauan women in New York for the UN

Trusteeship Council.

In February, Sandra Pierantozzi, Pa lau’s Minister for Administration, was the second woman appointed to the cabinet after 10 years as Clerk to the Senate. She explained that women’s power was traditionally behind the scenes, with the highest ranking woman deciding who the chief will be.

“On traditional things we still have that power, so I don’t see that the constitution takes power from them. In fact it opens the door for women.”

The constitution allows women to speak out without subservience to the Bilung, or highest ranking woman “so many educated women welcome the democracy.” It also allows women to hold office in their own right, instead of through male nominees, and she would like to see more women take office, as they have in Guam.

She thinks the US directive 3142 taking power back is a means of putting pressure on Palau over the Compact. But it might misfire, like the leaked Cable

sent by State Department staffer Lloyd

Moss advocating the US unilaterally set a date to terminate trusteeship. “The cable admits that the Compact is no good, so there is no reason why they should push it down our throats,” she

explains.

So how does she see the consti tutional impasse resolving itself?

“If the nuclear provisions are taken out of the Compact, then there’s no need to amend the constitution. On the other hand maybe we should also amend the constitution but a lot of Palauans are very protective of it.”

Meikam Weers, a Palauan who now lives in San Francisco, is a poet not a politician. She writes in English and Palauan, and was addressing the Trusteeship Council on behalf of the Otil A Beluad, (Anchor of Our Land) organisation. She thinks the 1979 consti tution, although it united many people on the nuclear issue, divided traditional society based on consensus within the clans and villages, bound together by a web of alliances.

“Instead of clan, family and village, it’s now money and votes. The impetus is no longer the accountability of the people, but of the rich”. She also believes women should participate more, but in a political as well as traditional way through a Council of Women.

She told PIM, Palau could combine the old and new cultures and provide a sophisticated model for the world.

It is a prospect which may not appeal to the United States, where Nancy Reagan’s power behind the throne was not seen as a unmitigated blessing. But then, the prospect of more Pacific islands with the obduracy of Palau is not likely to please the White House either. □

By Ian Williams