The plight of the Marshallese

[mapen]

Re: Hokule'a crew presents ho'okupu to Marshallese

Why do Marshallese need jobs when they can live off the land and sea? How have the Marshallese survived for thousands of years? Why all of a sudden a population boom?

Poiboy, I completely understand what you are staying. But what you don't understand or don't want to understand is the Marshallese would rather have a job and live in a house and buy a can of Spam at the market, rather than fish and live off the sea and live in simple shack.

[Miulang]

Re: The plight of the Marshallese

Miulang, there is no consistency in your ideas. Your thinking reminds me of bipolar women on prozac.

On the one hand you want the US Government to get the hell out of Hawaii and the Marshall Islands.

And now you say "why doesn't the US do more to fix the Marshallese economy and help the ruling chiefs create more jobs?" Do you realise the conflict in your thinking? You will take whatever position puts the blame on the US Government, no matter how much conflict and inconsistency there is in your ideas.

The subsidies from the US government are supposed to end in 2023 (then there will be a permanent trust fund set up); the Marshallese government has to get up to speed and on its feet between now and then. Keeping the people on welfare is not a way to help them progress. We are the ones who supposedly have the business savvy that can help them get on their feet. All I'm suggesting is that we should be doing more along those lines between now and 2023. And I don't think my statements are in conflict at all. The US government (the military) has messed up big time in Puerto Rico, Hawai'i, the Philippines, practically everywhere we've decided to stake our claim. It's time to start fixing what we broke, to take some responsibility for that. And I didn't say help the irioj; I said help the GOVERNMENT (the Nitijela) develop an economic growth package. I'm sure the irioj would rather keep their people subjugated, but they really have no legal say in the government today.

Knowing that no other country willingly would allow the US government to take any more of its land for testing purposes, do you think the US will leave Kwajalein when the current agreement ends? I doubt it. And that's why some Marshallese natives are really upset. Fulfilling our current obligations to which we agreed by treaty apparently is not one of the US's strongest suits. All the Marshallese have to do is look at what happened to the Bikinians and their efforts to secure reparations and they kind of suspect that they will be headed down the same path themselves.

Miulang

P.S. One of the reasons why I think the US won't help with economic development is because they don't see what's in it for them, since no foreigners can own land (unless that changes in the Constitution). Land ownership issues are always the biggest bone of contention between indigenous people and outsiders.

[mapen]

Re: The plight of the Marshallese

The US Government is not "keeping the Marshallese on welfare". We are giving them aid. The US Government is not repressing the governing bodies of the Marshall Islands from providing for their people and pursueing the better welfare of its peoples.

The failures we see in the Marshall Islands are a failure of its people to rise up and be something better.

But instead the Marshallese are only interested in exploiting all the free money and benefits they can get from the USA. And that is why the military base on Kwajalein is still there- because they want to profit from it.

It is not the job of the US Govt to build a prosperous economy for the Marshall Islands. It is up to the Marshallese to choose their fate. If they so choose, they could send their brightest abroad to study options, or invite experts in to advise them.

The US Government did not, as you put it, "mess up big time" in Hawaii and the Phillipines. For example, the lease on US bases in the Phillipines ended. The Filipino govt did not want to renew the leases. So we left. What's the problem?

The people of Hawaii enjoy a standard of living that is admired and envied by most Marshellese. How is the Hawaii economy "messed up" vis a vis the Marshallese economy?

[Miulang]

Re: The plight of the Marshallese

This is a Marshallese perception of what the US government has done to its people (in a letter from Iroijlaplap Imata Kabua [who is also former President of the Marshall Islands] to US Ambassador to the Marshall Islands Greta Morris in response to some public statements Amb. Morris made with regards to the continued use of Kwajalein Island by the US):

Our Constitution prohibits the taking of land without the consent of the owners of the land and fair compensation. The RMI government owns no land. For the legitimate use of Kwajalein beyond 2016, a Land Use Agreement between RMI and the people of Kwajalein is required by law and by the Constitution. No such agreement exists and we have proclaimed our intention not to agree to a new one and to return to our lands in 2016. Your condescending public statements ignoring that reality go beyond acceptable standards of international relations and, to us, reflect systematic taunting on the part of a powerful partner bullying a less powerful one. So pervasive is your attitude among other American representatives in our country that now an army colonel on temporary duty to oversee housekeeping chores there calls Kwajalein "my island!"

You have never missed an opportunity to state that you have the right to use of Kwajalein beyond the life of the lease under which you now occupy our lands. Is it your position and that of your government that you will ignore the laws and Constitution of our land and take Kwajalein without the owners consent? Is it your position and that of your government that you will simply deny the existence of our Constitution and take land which belongs neither to you nor the government of the RMI, because that is what you were promised by people who have no rights to those lands?

Knowing that the RMI possesses no rights to land in Kwajalein, yet claiming you have the right to remain there beyond 2016 is a remarkable display of colonial audacity. It is one thing to dress up Compact II as a guarantee of Kwajalein use rights when you needed to get this lopsided agreement through your own Congressional approval processes. We were surprised to find even the venerable Heritage Foundation a part of this gross misrepresentation of facts. If your government negotiators found it useful for their own purposes to be duplicitous with their own Congress in the presentation of Compact II, that is your business. But riding roughshod over our own Marshallese Constitutional processes, to force that injustice upon our people is outrageous!

...Make no mistake about our physical and spiritual ties to our lands. Our forefathers fought and died to provide us with this peaceful home, sovereign and free. Our right to live here peacefully and to pass it on to our heirs, whole and intact, is a fundamental right you and your government cannot take away. We have been your friends for the longest time in spite of the outrageous things your government has done to us. But there comes a time when even friends must draw the line.

The RMI wants Kwajalein back after 2016.

Miulang

[mapen]

Re: The plight of the Marshallese

Our Constitution prohibits the taking of land without the consent of the owners of the land and fair compensation. ... a Land Use Agreement between RMI and the people of Kawajlein is required by law and by the Constitution

No, they want even more money.

Mapen

[Miulang]

Re: The plight of the Marshallese

No, they want even more money.

Mapen

You conveniently left out the next sentence, which is the key (as it was for the Philippines and Okinawa):

No such agreement exists and we have proclaimed our intention not to agree to a new one and to return to our lands in 2016

Can they hold Kwajalein over our heads for ransom? Sure. But my guess is they think they could do better by taking the land back and leasing it to some other entity.

Miulang

[Miulang]

Re: The plight of the Marshallese

The people of Hawaii enjoy a standard of living that is admired and envied by most Marshellese. How is the Hawaii economy "messed up" vis a vis the Marshallese economy?

Hawai'i's economy isn't messed up, but Kaho'olawe still is. The Navy took the sacred land, bombed the beejeezus out of it, and then only made a half-hearted attempt to rehabilitate it (most of the island is still too dangerous to walk on because of all the unexploded ordnance). Bikini Atoll is STILL radioactive even though the DoD was ordered to decontaminate it and we are supposed to pay reparations to the people who were displaced. The Philippines decided not to renew the lease of the Navy. Same thing the Republic of the Marshall Islands and Okinawa want.

What they do with their land is up to them, not us. If they want to let Sheraton come in and build a megaresort on Kwajalein, that's their prerogative. RMI is a free and sovereign nation, and they can do business with whomever they wish, without getting prior approval from us.

Miulang

P.S. this is why the Philippines decided not to renew its lease agreement with the US for Subic Bay (even though Philippine President Aquino wanted to extend the lease):

The Military Bases Agreement of 1947 expired on September 16th. Months of intense negotiations between the Philippine and U.S. governments had taken place and had resulted in the Treaty of Friendship, Peace and Cooperation.

The Philippine Senate voted on the Treaty on September 13, 1991, and voted for rejection. The Senators cited a number of reasons for the rejection but most centered on throwing off the "last vestige of American colonialism", Subic Bay Naval Station -

The Aquino administration was strongly pro-treaty and called for a referendum by the Philippine people, a move the 4nti-bases forces declared unconstitutional.

During the first week of October, a compromise was reached - the U.S. would have 3 years to withdraw from the naval base.

[PoiBoy]

Re: The plight of the Marshallese

MARSHALLS TRIBUNAL AWARDS NUKE VICTIMS $1 BILLION

By Giff Johnson

MAJURO, Marshall Islands (Marianas Variety, April 19) – A group of Marshall islanders exposed to high-level nuclear test fallout were awarded more than US$1 billion in compensation Tuesday by a special tribunal but are not likely to receive even US$1 in compensation.

The Marshall Islands-based Nuclear Claims Tribunal, which issued the ruling Tuesday, has virtually no funding to pay the award and has labeled United States-provided compensation "manifestly inadequate."

The Tribunal, which since 1991 has annually paid personal injury claims of islanders, halted these payments in 2006 for lack of money.

A Tribunal official said the compensation trust fund provided by the U.S. has dropped from its original 1986 amount of US$150 million to just US$1 million, and is expected to be exhausted by administrative costs to operate the Tribunal next year.

"Although the people were assured that it was safe to return to Rongelap in 1957 (after a three year evacuation following Bravo), it was evident that the U.S. knew Rongelap was still contaminated at that time," Tribunal judges James Plasman and Gregory Danz, both Americans, said in their ruling.

The judges said that the people "came to feel like guinea pigs, used for experimentation by the U.S."

whole article
http://pidp.eastwestcenter.org/pirep...l/04-19-01.htm

[Miulang]

Re: The plight of the Marshallese

The outcome is sad, and sadly predictable. It's another example of the arrogance of our government in believing that only certain treaties and agreements need to be honored, while others can be conveniently ignored.

We can ignore the plight of a group of people whose ancestral homelands we comandeered, destroyed and made unusable in perpetuity and not compensate them for their losses because, after all, they only number a couple of thousand. Meanwhile, the State Dept. sends millions of dollars abroad to political resistance groups to "help spread democracy."

First the Native Americans, then the kanaka maoli, now the Marshallese. How many more indigenous groups have to suffer at the hands of this government (and I'm talking about the federal government, not one administration in particular)?

Miulang