Trash or treasure beneath

Tourism

Trash or treasure beneath a tale of two harbours

By David North

THE American flag flies over both harbours, and at the bot tom of both harbours lie relics of World War 11. Some powerful actors want to raise them to the surface, and others want to keep them right where they are.

This tale of two harbours is developing along different lines in Pago Pago, American Samoa, and in Koror, Palau.

In Samoa the underwater relic is regarded as a menace to the health and happiness of the people living around its edge. Congressman Eni F.H.

Faleomavaega wants it removed quickly, and at Uncle Sam’s expense.

In Palau, one faction wants to keep the relic under water as a specialised tourist attraction, while the other wants to vaise it and ship it off to a Mainland desert community, also as a tourist attraction.

In Samoa it is a US Navy ship which the Navy scuttled in the harbour shortly after World War II; the vessel exploded, caught fire, killed a couple of sailors and the Navy figured that sinking it was the wisest move at the time.

In Palau the relic also reached its watery grave through US military ac tion, but of a more violent kind. The Zero fighter plane was shot down in one of the air battles over Palau during World War 11.

Congressman Faleomavaega pays at

tention to the once-clear, now badly polluted Pago Pago Bay. The tuna canneries vital to the territory’s economy used to dump their raw sewage, mostly the innards of dead tuna, in the Bay. Now the most foul-smelling refuse is placed in barges then dumped in the ocean, several miles off shore. At least that is what is supposed to happen; the :anneries are slapped on the wrist with ines, from time to time, for failing to

neet these obligations.

The Congressman, wanting to keep he canneries in business, must balance hat concern with his worries about iegradation of the Bay. But there is no iced for restraint on the issue of the USS Chehalis.

Faleomavaega argues the old ship is a ource of pollution, harmful t 3 A the mvironment. When the ship sank it had arge quantities of oil on board, and 2000 ounds of 3-inch artillery shells and 6,000 rounds of 20 mm ammunition; hus there was a lot of lead on board and t has had more than four decades to each into the water of the bay.

The Congressman has appealed to the

US Environmental Protection Adminis tration (EPA) for help in the cleanup.

Maybe he should also address his request to the US Navy, which a) has much more money than EPA, and b) was in charge of Samoa when the sinking occurred. (Navy captains served as Governor of Samoa from the arrival of the US at the end of the 19th Century until the Department of Interior took over in 1951.) The Congressman’s call for help in cleaning up the harbour came after several press reports on the toxic con ditions in the inner harbour, and warn ings from the territorial government not to eat fish caught in the inner harbour.

They are likely to carry high levels of metals, and to be particularly dangerous to children; mental retardation and cancer can result from eating too many of them.

While the political establishment in Samoa is not divided by the USS Chehalis issue, the question of the proper resting place for the Zero is at the heart of a very Palauan political controversy.

The person wanting to lift the plane from the depths is Shallum Etpison, son of the embattled Presi dent of the Re public of Palau,

Ngiratkel

Etpison; the son owns Neco Mar ine Corp; which

wants to move the plane from its 60-foot deep resting place in Malakai Harbour.

Once on dry land, the plane would be sold and shipped to the Champlin Fighter Museum, located in the desert just outside Phoenix, Arizona.

One of the elder Etpison’s cabinet members, Okada Techitong, Palau’s Minister of Commerce and Trade, ap proved the recovery, and the sale, of the plane by Neco Marine. One rationale might be that it would boost Palau’s anaemic export totals.

The decision by the Minister created a two-tier local controversy, partially commercial and partially political. On the former level, Francis Toribiong, who owns a Koror diving business, objected that the removal of the plane violated the Republic of Palau’s Lagoon Monument Act, legislation which seeks to preserve the underwater relics of World War 11.

Toribiong presumably is interested in renting diving equipment to tourists, and one of the many attractions of the clear

A menace to the health and happiness of the people or a special tourist attraction

water around Palau is the underwater Zero.

Toribiong took Neco Marine Gorp into Palau’s Supreme Court seeking an injunction against the removal of the

plane.

Meanwhile, Senator Joshua Koshiba, president of the upper house of Palau’s Congress, the Olbiil Era Kelulau, and perhaps a future candidate for the presidency of the Republic, waded into the issue at the political level.

He appealed both to Stella Guerra, the US Assistant Secretary of Interior for Territorial and International Affairs, and to the Special Prosecutor of the Trust Territory of the Pacific to investi gate. In his letter to Guerra Koshiba, said that President Etpison “has at tempted to abuse his discretion by allowing his son to take this aircraft from the monument”.

The Senator continued: "I am confi dent that the Champlin Fighter Museum either paid or was going to pay Shallum Etpison for this aircraft. This situation appears to be another example o( government corruption and self

dealing.”

There are a couple of ironies implicit in the Senator's statement. First, a few months earlier he and every other

ranking Palau politician objected

vehemently when Ms Guerra ex tended her powers, and limited the freedom of action,

particularly in

financial affairs,

previously enjoyed

by the Republic.

The Senator is ask ing for just the kind of intervention in

local affairs that he had previously protested.

Second, the Special Prosecutor for the Trust Territory of the Pacific is David Webster, an official who owes his ap pointment to the Mainland government, not to that of Palau. The Trust Territory, which formerly governed all ihe once- Japanese islands taken by the US during World War 11, is a shadow of its former self. Its jurisdiction is now limited to Palau, and its staff has shrunk to a dozen or so.

The speculation in Washington is that Ms Guerra is unlikely to intervene directly in the Zero matter she has enough issues with President Etpison without adding this one. Further, she can point to the Senator’s appeal to the Special Prosecutor, and say that the ball is in his court. Besides, a squabble over who owns a waterlogged, 50-year-old used airplane may not be viewed as serious enough to warrant an Assistant Secretary’s time and attention. □