Palauans approve Compact

Politics

By David North

VOTING for the eighth time on a controversial and' long stalemated defense and foreign aid treaty with the United States, the voters of the Republic of Palau have approved the Compact of Free Association by more than a two-to one majority.

By a 68 to 32 per cent margin, the Palauan electorate on November 9 voted to end more than a decade of impasse with the United States over the terms of

the agreement. Only a simple majority

was required to approve the pact because a constitution-required 75 per cent majority requirement had been amended last year by a voter initiative. The compact provides about US$450 million in aid in the first year funding.

According to complete returns, 4956 voters opted for the Compact, while 2309 cast ballots against it. There are 11,562 registered Palauan voters, about two thirds in Palau and the others on Guam, Saipan, Hawaii and the US West Coast.

Located about 500 miles east of the southern Philippines, Palau has been administered by the United States since 1947. The island is the last of the UN’s 11 original trust territories and the sole remaining part of the US Trust Territory of the Pacific, which had included the Marshall, Caroline, and Northern Mariana Island. The first two groups became sovereign states in the mid 1980s, through similar Compacts of Free Association.The Northern Marianas opted for US Commonwealth status.

“Palau’s journey to sovereignty has been long, and at times extraordinarily difficult,” said Palau President Kuniwo Nakamura. Though he had opposed the agreement a few years ago, he strongly endorsed it during his campaign for the presidency last year. “As a democratic nation of laws, it is incumbent upon all Palauans to respect this decision made by the overwhelming majority of Palauans.”

Nakamura expects opposition to con tinue and believes there will be further court tests of the vote. “I know many Palauans have had real and serious doubts about what an independent future under the Compact will bring,” he said. “I honestly believe that this was, given the totality of the circumstances, the best decision for Palau.”

The “circumstances” Nakamura was referring to include the end of the Cold War and dissolution of the Soviet Union, as well as the US withdrawal from its Philippines bases. Two decades ago, when Palauan and US leaders began negotiating the pact, the United States

‘Palau’s Journey to sovereignty has been long, and at times extraordinarily difficult’

considered Palau a possible contingency basing site for some of the US defence missions in the Philippines.

With the US military presence and defence spending in the western Pacific dropping steadily and the closing of several US defence facilities on Guam, many Palauan leaders no longer believe the United States has either the means or the desire to use Palauan islands for defence installations.

US budget cutting and “economic revitalisation” left some Palauan leaders fearful that if the Compact was opened to renegotiation, the US Congress would be not be able to significantly increase financial aid to the island. Some even feared that because of the current pressure on the US Congress for spending reductions, compact aid on the US.

If the November 9 results survive expected legal challenges from groups opposed to the Compact the vote will officially close out the era of US trusteeship for the Western Pacific Islands and launch Palau into the international community as a sovereign nation, much as earlier US compacts did for the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

The pact provides that the United States will be responsible for Palau’s external defence and regional security.

That provision had caused the greatest controversy because the Palau consti tution bans all nuclear material in Palauan territory, a prohibition that would even have prevented US nuclear powered ships from transiting the islands’ waters.

The November 9 voting victory was almost anti-climatic for those groups that had successfully fought to lower the

required approval majority to a simple

majority. A voter initiative in the November, 1992 general election placed the amendment to the constitution (to lower the majority) on the ballot and it was approved by a 60 per cent plus

majority.

In the seven previous votes, majorities ranging from 60 per cent to 73 per cent approved the pact but the previously required 75 per cent threshold was never reached. The Nakamura administration also had fought off legal challenges to

those results that could have prevented the November 9 vote.

The opposition, led by 49-year old paramount chief Ibedul Yutaka Gib bons, filed several law suits to block the vote and lobbied the electorate right up to the polls. The Compact could destroy traditional values, Gibbons told voters the day before the election. As traditional head of Koror state, site of the main seaport and interim capital of the islands, Gibbons warned that the United States would continue to dominate Palau’s affairs. “My last appeal to Palauans everywhere is not to sell out our rights, our land and don’t let our dignity and integrity be compromised.”

Ibedul and other opposition leaders lost two major court appeals just days before the vote. On October 29, the Palau Supreme Court Appellate Division upheld an earlier Palau court ruling that said the English language on last year’s initiative was not significantly different enough from the Palauan version to invalidate the vote. The court also ruled that the burden of proof concerning the validity is signatures on the initiative petition was on the those appealing the vote and not on the Palau government.

The Appellate Court agreed that the plaintiffs had failed to establish that any of the signatures were not genuine.

In another court test, filed on behalf of 10 Palauan women, the opposition had charged that the law setting up the November 9 referendum had required that the Palau government to receive a “favourable response” from the US government on Palau’s requested modi fications of the compact. The September 24 suit argued that the Palau govern ment had not received a favourable response. The Palau Supreme Court, just three days before the vote, ruled that it was the responsibility of the Nakamura administration and the Palau National Congress to decide if the response had been favourable. It was not the court’s prerogative to decide such political issues, the court ruled. A related suit filed in US District Court for the Northern Marianas is not expected to be decided until late 1993. The ruling will not alter the November 9 vote, however.

The attorney for the Ibedul and the Palauan harassment. He was released on bail, pending his trial. Palau police said his Filipino maids had charged he was abusing them and told local authorities about the guns. A search of WolfFs residence then turned up the illegal weapons. Palau’s Constitution prohibits the possession of all such weapons and requires a mandatory 15-year jail sen tence for anyone convicted of the crime. □