Honolulu
December 7, 1970
Part I
Ten thousand islands lie south and west of Hawaii in the world’s largest ocean. Pacific waters wash across a third of the globe, an area more than 20 times the size of the U.S. Mainland. The island area in the Pacific tropics is called Oceania, It sprawls some 5,000 miles between the west coast of the Americas and the edge of those other bigger islands that are part of Asia — Japan, the Philippines, and Indonesia.
Oceania’s islands feel the influence of fringing nations in varying degrees. Above the equator, U.S. strategic interests are strong and controversial. Below it, Australia and New Zealand are economically active. Japan is making a commercial comeback. Indonesia uncomfortably holds half of New Guinea. Yet the tropical Pacific Islands themselves remain an entity worth noting, if only because they are largely dependent and underdeveloped — the world’s last emerging colonial area now coming of age.
By the usual measures, the area is not large. There are only some 4 million people, about the number in Rio or Peking and not much more than half of New York City. The land area of about 490,000 square miles is far smaller than Alaska or a country like Peru. And a major fact is that more than 80 per cent of these Pacific people and this land is on far-off New Guinea, another world in itself. Most Pacific island groups are so small that Hawaii has big-power proportions; in fact, a vast number of the islands are uninhabited.
Still, Pacific Oceania is an area emotionally, strategically, and literally bigger than the sum of its small parts for several reasons. Among them:
The sheer size gives it strategic value. As one U.S. military planner put it: “You just can’t ignore that much of the world.” If nothing else, for the U.S. even in the missile age there is a negative security aspect, a desire to keep unfriendly powers out. Former Secretary of State Dean Rusk was once quoted as saying, “I want every wave in the Pacific to be an American wave.” It won’t happen in quite that jingoistic-sounding manner, but the idea of a friendly-neutral buffer zone seems a minimum-security interest.
In the U.S. military pullback from Asia it seems there will be a desire for more bases in the central Pacific, notably in parts of Micronesia.
The Pacific has a variety of scientific and technological test uses. Some are beneficial, such as weather and sea studies. A few are tolerable if dangerous, such as ABM tests that make Kwajalein a missile shooting gallery. Some are ugly and frightening — the nuclear blasts of past years, nerve gas tests on Hawaii and quite possibly elsewhere, and now the plan to store tons of deadly gas from Okinawa on Johnston Island, 700 miles southwest of Oahu.
Even in the age of ocean-spanning jets, the Pacific provides a sea and air transport linkage, notably to Australia and New Zealand, nations who are allies and trading partners and who share a common concern about the islands.
If the world’s oceans provide new underwater economic frontiers for food, mining, oil, etc., the Pacific is the biggest of them all. New kinds of international cooperation — or competition — could emerge.
Aside from any unknown oil potential and some very important mineral deposits in the Southwest Pacific, the islands are no economic treasure house. But for Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and for some American business, they do present a market. Tourism is really just emerging as a major factor. Behind it is the potential of tourism’s next phase –“commuter colonies” of part-time residents from affluent nations.
For the U.S. especially, the Pacific is important as a moral challenge. The immediate and pressing question involves reconciling our strategic self-interest with the wishes and best interests of the Pacific people.
And at this point the name of that problem is spelled Micronesia.
Part II: The Micronesia Problem
A prominent South Pacific leader remarked recently that, “the Americans and the French are the worst imperialists in the islands.”
Some Americans may be surprised to find themselves classed with the French who bluntly claim that the islands they hold in Polynesia and New Caledonia are “part of France” and will not be set free. Yet in Micronesia the U.S. rules what is geographically the world’s biggest colony. There are only about 100,000 people and 675 square miles of land in the entire area (about that of Rhode Island or the island of Oahu in Hawaii). But the more than 2,100 islands (fewer than 100 inhabited) spread over an area larger than the U.S. Mainland.
Legally, Micronesia is governed by the U.S. as a Trust Territory under United Nations mandate. But if the definition of a colony is one people ruled by another in the latter’s self-interest, Micronesia has long qualified. In fact, there have been four colonial masters in 300 years: Spain came first in search of souls, gold, and national glory. Practical German traders arrived last century and for a time the two contested. That era ended with the Spanish-American War when Guam, which is part of the Marianas group, became a U.S. possession and the rest of the area now called Micronesia went to Germany. Japan seized the German islands when World War I broke out in 1914 and was formally granted rule under a League of Nations mandate in 1920. Until it ended in the bombs and bloodshed of World War II, the Japanese period was the high point of Micronesia’s economic development. To be sure, it was a Japanese effort largely by Japanese for Japan, but in economic terms it was efficient use of the islands’ limited resources. Micronesians shared some peripheral benefits in basic education, an introduction to Westernized progress, and a generalized feeling of satisfaction.
Americans may regard our wartime battles in this area as something akin to the liberation of the Philippines or our island of Guam. But that is not the perspective of many Micronesians who saw relatives die and the economy smashed. A government worker on Palau put it this way: “Nobody in Micronesia asked for you to come in and bomb in World War II, not the chiefs here, in Truk, or in the Marshalls.”
The shortcomings of American rule in Micronesia, especially after the Interior Department took over from the Navy during the 1950s, have been well documented. It literally became “The Rust Territory,” and the kindest explanation is that Washington followed the “zoo theory” of colonial rule. This holds that you “protect” the native culture from expensive public improvements so the people will be able to afford independence if and when it comes. But since the good Japanese economic structure was smashed by the war, the real result was stagnation at a low level. And there was basic cynicism in having such a policy when the American military security view dictated against independence and we were using the islands for a variety of highly expensive purposes, including nuclear tests, missile shots, and CIA training of Chinese Nationalist guerrillas.
The improvements of the American effort in Micronesia, begun in the early 1960s, also deserve to be noted. The annual budget has jumped from V million to $50 million. The Nixon Administration has not only continued improvements but added new programs and new interest.
Such things are worth stressing. But they also must be judged against three other factors — the basic economic situation, political development, and U.S. policy:
A quarter-century after the U.S. took over a shattered Micronesia in World War II; economic development remains a basic need. This does not mean development on some high level akin to Hawaii today; often it means just rehabilitation to the standards set by the Japanese before World War II. Visiting missions of the U.N. Trusteeship Council have documented this problem over the years. The latest, issued in May, noted some favorable signs. But the report also talked of “economic stagnation.” And its first economic conclusion reads:
“The Visiting Mission did not see signs of significant progress in the economy of the Territory as a whole. In particular, the basic infrastructure is still in a lamentable state, agriculture is stagnant and seems to be threatened by the movement of population to the towns, the adverse trade balance is increasing, and, apparently, some pressure is beginning to be felt on prices.”
An even more important point is that Micronesia’s political development has moved faster than the economic and social improvements brought by new U.S. policies.
Micronesia has some very talented young leaders, men who are friendly yet able to argue persuasively that the U.S. should live up to its own high principles in its treatment of Pacific peoples. It is to America’s credit that these leaders were offered the education (much of it at the University of Hawaii) and provided a political forum for their aspirations. Despite limited legal Dower, the Congress of Micronesia has won the reputation of being both responsible and determined in seeking the best possible future for the area’s people.
As this legislative development was under way in the late 1960s, the U.S. was correspondingly weak in developing Micronesian administrators. A virtual crash program has put Micronesians in many top jobs in the past 18 months. But such improvements have come in a time of increasing Micronesian concern over future political status. Thus big new U.S. appropriations are sometimes suspiciously interpreted as a move to “buy” Micronesian dependence and permanent ties with the U.S.
In this perspective, the U.S. has hardly given too much in Micronesia in terms of what’s right. But Washington may have been too late in giving it in terms of its own policy.
United States policy in Micronesia seems quite clear: Washington wants agreement on a future political status that will end the U.N. mandate and bring Micronesia into some form of permanent association with the U.S.
What is not clear is how tough and rigid Washington will be. There is ample evidence that paramount concerns are American strategic interest in having a friendly buffer, and having territory for bases when we fall back from Asia. In a showdown, these concerns could be strong enough for the U.S. to disregard any United Nations call for a plebiscite that might lead to independence. Whether it would ever come to such an unpleasant point is now the big question.
After two years of talk and maneuvering, the situation is at an impasse but not frozen. Washington has offered “commonwealth” status, seemingly a form of territorial government perhaps like or better than Puerto Rico has. The Congress of Micronesia rejected this at its summer session. The Micronesians have called for a status titled “free association,” which in effect would give them independent self-government in the islands. There would be financial help from Washington in return for U.S. control over foreign affairs and defense, with an option for Americans to lease land for bases, missile test sites, etc.
The key question is whether Micronesia would be some kind of American area where Micronesians live or a Micronesian area closely related to the U.S. The end result could be much the same thing. However, the most delicate point in Micronesia’s demands seems to be one that would allow either side to withdraw from the “free association” arrangement at any time — in effect, for Micronesia to later choose full independence if it wishes. Even there, however, it seems possible to bargain a 10-year freeze or other form of compromise.
Somewhere in the fabric of Washington thinking about Micronesia has to be consideration of Guam, the U.S. island territory of 108,000 people with its blooming mini-Hawaii type economy of growing tourism, U.S. military bases, and air and sea transport links. Among other American failures in the area was not joining Guam and the Trust Territory long ago. Now it is too late, although the northern Marianas above Guam are the part of the Trust Territory that most favors U.S. commonwealth status. But, if it will not happen right away, it seems likely that the future Micronesia, whatever its new political status, will have growing economic, and possibly later political, relations with Guam.
So what the U.S. faces in its dealings with Micronesia is a very real challenge between short- and long-range interests at a changing time that calls for new thinking, and perhaps new political arrangements. What the U.S. does about Micronesia will say something to the peoples of the Pacific. More important perhaps, we will be saying something to ourselves.
Fiji’s Government Headquarters
Part III: The “South Seas”
There are really two parts of the Pacific Islands for Americans to think about — north and south.
The North Pacific is the U.S. sphere of influence. There is Hawaii, the vast Trust Territory and the island of Guam, all under various forms of American rule. The significant exception is part of the Gilbert Islands (Tarawa, etc.). Geographically and racially, the Gilberts are part of Micronesia, which means “small islands” and generally means small people of medium color and often a Malay-like look. Politically, however, the Gilberts are with the Ellice Islands, a below the equator Polynesian group, as a British crown colony that is considered part of the South Pacific picture.
The American view of the North Pacific tropical islands tends to that of a coconut Clausewitz: If we have political problems with the Micronesian people, the main consideration remains security. Tourism, other business, and transportation links are secondary.
The South Pacific is something else. When Americans think about this area below the equator it is usually in terms of the “South Seas” image (a mixture of dreams, history, and tourist promotion) or the harsh realities of the Pacific war — black natives and bloodshed.
It is that, and more.
The U.S. political presence in the South Pacific is in American Samoa, our only territory below the equator. The U.S. acquired American Samoa a-t the turn of the century when the big powers were busy carving out coaling stations and colonies among the little islands. It’s a little place even by Pacific standards — a land area like the District of Columbia and only enough people (30,000) to fill a medium sized stadium. Here as in Micronesia, the U.S. record has improved. But the picture of Pago Pago is still shadowed by the legacy of past neglect, lack of resources, a tendency for petty feuding, and booming population pressure relieved only by immigration to Hawaii.
American Samoa, of course, is only one speck of Polynesia (“many islands”), the big triangular area taking up most of the eastern Pacific. Because they were originally populated by people from the area near Tahiti, Hawaii and New Zealand are far points in the triangle. Today, however, both are basically westernized groups where other races predominate.
The heart of Polynesia remains in the South Pacific. There is Tahiti, being commercialized but still the capital of the South Sea dream. And there are other magic names and happy places — Bora Bora, Puka Puka, Rarotonga, Nukualofa, Savaii. There may be flies all over and the women are often fatter than the travel posters indicate, but often enough to raise your heart, the beauty of place and people remains by lonely lagoons or beneath towering crags rising from deep blue sea and the white line of wave-crashed reef. Copra (dried coconut meat) and bananas are no longer enough to meet rising expectations of health and comfort for the younger and more sophisticated among these islanders. Tourism is seen as the big economic hope, and it is picking up momentum. How much happiness it will bring is an open question.
The “Dark Islands” Half
Melanesia is the other half of the South Pacific — starting with Fiji where the people show touches of Polynesia and stretching across to New Guinea which at times seems more like an African country than a huge island between the Pacific and Southeast Asia. Melanesia means “dark islands.” Perhaps that’s a reflection of the more Negroid look of the people. But it is also a comment on the islands: dark, brooding, often big, and sometimes rich with minerals. These are the islands of Michener’s “Tales of the South Pacific,” and as in Micronesia far north, reminders of war remain. The skeleton of the wartime control tower stands on Guadalcanal’s Henderson Field. Old Japanese guns still guard Rabaul. Rusting landing barges lie half buried as native children play on lovely beaches. Crumbling quonsets mark what was the big base on Santo.
But the people have changed. True, some still venerate pigs, wear leaves, and have little idea of the world beyond their mountains, but others have been well educated abroad and are preparing to lead new nations. In some places there are black power movements and even touches of Westernized youth culture that promise new aspects of change in the future.
In contrast to Micronesia and central Polynesia, the islands of Melanesia often have the size and potential resources to support themselves. They also have the potential for some explosive political disputes. North Pacific politics are simple by contrast; they relate to the United States and its policy. In the South Pacific there are a bewildering array of multi-national influences.
Most rigid are the French who proclaim their territories are part of France. In Polynesia they have a nuclear test ground, dollar-producing tourism, and an emotional attachment for Tahiti and the other islands. In New Caledonia, where almost half the people are French, they have an island second only to Russia and Canada in nickel deposits. But in both areas the French face increasing resentment, not so much from people who want independence but from those who seek more self-government in the centralized French system.
In contrast, the British goal is to leave when possible. They still must find a viable future for tiny Pitcairn with its 60-some citizens, the resourceless Gilbert and Ellice colony, and the undeveloped Solomons, where they are experimenting with a new form of parliamentary government.
Britain and France jointly rule the New Hebrides in the world’s only condominium government. The comic opera aspects (three sets of laws and administration, two police forces, dual money, etc.) are overshadowed by sales of American subdivisions, talk of a Bahama-like tax free haven for foreign business, and the developing aspirations of 75,000 Melanesians.
New Zealand, which has a considerable islander population, maintains commercial and emotional ties in the area. But it has dispatched most of its colonial responsibilities with imagination. It granted Western Samoa independence in 1962 and gave the Cook Islands a generous form of self-government that could be a model for the U.S. in Micronesia.
Australia governs the eastern half of New Guinea and the neighboring Bismarck Archipelago. However, it no longer sees the area as essential to its defense. Its plan for the vast, populous (over two million people) area is self-government in 1972 and perhaps independence by 1975.
Independence or something close to it is the goal for most Pacific Islands. If they cannot immediately afford it, they assume the colonial power will feel obligated or remain interested enough to help tide them over. In that, they are partly right.
The number of independent states is growing:
Western Samoa makes its poor but pleasant way with a British parliamentary system veneer over a stratified clan system that produces thousands of chiefly titles.
The republic of Nauru, just below the equator, has only eight square miles, but its 8,000 people have one of the world’s highest per capita incomes because their island is essentially one large phosphate deposit.
Tonga, the Pacific’s last real kingdom, this year gave up its status as a British protected state to join the Commonwealth.
Fiji, with a size and multiracial population skin to Hawaii, in October became the Pacific’s newest nation. It is also the only one to join the United Nations so far — thus giving the islanders their first real voice in the world forum.
It seems likely that Fiji, New Guinea, and other major island areas will be most preoccupied with their own emergence and development in the early 1970s. But some thought is already being given to new forms of cooperation and unity.
There is already a forum of sorts in the South Pacific Commission. It was started in 1947 by the colonial powers to deal in health, education, and economic development matters. But in recent years, islanders have gained more power in the SPO and nudged it towards political questions. In addition, some see modest Pacific Common Market potential in the Fiji-based Pacific Island Producers Association.
Distances, underdevelopment, lingering colonialism, and various Western impacts all make for confusion in trying to view how the Pacific Islands will “emerge” in the 1970s. There is much these people need and deserve in the way of health, education, and economic betterment from the West. All is not idyllic by any means. But for centuries the Pacific Islands have also provided Western man something important — an element of mystery and dreams, caught in the vision of barrier reefs, trade winds in palms, quiet lagoons, thatch villages, and smiling, friendly people.
Again, it is not that idyllic. But the charm survives, and that is important in a world with far too few happy dreams. The hope is that the best of the Pacific way of life will not die from a disease called progress.
Received in New York on January 20, 1971.
Mr. John Griffin was an Alicia Patterson Fund award winner on leave from the Honolulu Advertiser, Hawaii. This article may be published with credit to Mr. Griffin, the Honolulu Advertiser, and the Alicia Patterson Fund.
