Publication Laka-library:
Special issue (1982)
| Author | Micronesia bulletin |
| Date | 1982 |
| Classification | 4.26.4.00/03 (PACIFIC - US TESTING AREA) |
| Front | 
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From the publication:
About This Issue The first issue of the Micronesia Support Committee Bulletin, published in November 1975, was a single sheet mailed to about 100 people. Since that time both the size of the Bulletin and our readership has expanded. Key economic and political issues, vital to understanding Micronesia today, have their roots in events occurring during the 1970's, before many of our current readers were receiving the Bulletin. Hence, our Special Issue covering many of these events to provide this background. This Special Issue, marking MSC's 7th Anniversary, contains articles and excerpts of articles from many of our past issues. Each article bears the date and volume number of the issue in which it appeared. The six sections are largely in chronological order. We chose the oil superport proposed for Palau as a starting point, as it reflects a critical problem in the Pacific today: That of pollution export by Pacific-Rim countries to bland nations in need of economic development assistance. Nuclear testing and nuclear waste dumping are two other forms of this pollution export. Strong local, and then later widespread international opposition to "Port Pacific" at Palau, from 1976-1979, forced the Japanese to shelve their plans, perhaps only temporarily. In 1979, it was reported that Japan bad withdrawn its public support for the superport to "cool off" the opposition. Palau's constitution prohibits the government from acquiring land if it is for the benefit of a foreign entity. But the Japanese still need a site for an oil superport. The Free Association Compact, with its provisions granting total U.S. military control of Palau for 100 years, if approved, would provide the needed stability for the immense Japanese investment in the superport. It may not be a dead issue at all. Japan hopes to get approval for its nuclear waste dumping plan by providing increasing financial aid (see p. 18). The question is whether Pacific Islanders will allow their lands and waters to be purchased for highly polluting industry and waste unwanted by industrialized countries and supported by the U.S. military. The story of this Special Issue is the relationship between what the U.S. perceives as its strategic necessity in the Western Pacific and the economic and political aspirations with which the Micronesians are struggling.
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