Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 10, Number 12, 1 Kekemapa 1993 — Palau finally does it [ARTICLE]

Palau finally does it

If at first you don't succeed. try. try again. That has heen the storv in the little island nation of Palau in the Westem Pacific. Seven times in a decade Palauans went to the polls to vote on a compact of "free association" with the United States. Eaeh time a majority approvcd the pact, whieh provides for self-government and hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid, but approval fell short of the required 75 percent. However, last year the Palauan constitution was amended to permit approval by a simpie majority. Now, on the eighth try, the compact has been approved, again by a wide margin. The vote apparently completes the process of ending the United Nations Trust Territory of the Paeilie Islands, whieh has been administered by the United States since 1947. The other components of the Trust Territory approved their new status years ago. They are now the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northem Marianas, the Repubiic of the Marshall Islands, and thc Federated States of Micronesia.

Palau's conversion was delayed by a hangup over a constitutional provision banning nuclear weapons and nuc!ear-powered ships. The United States retains responsibility for defense and military use rights, whieh conflicted with the nuclear ban. With the end of the trusteeship will eome an end of the postwar era in the Pacific, with the United States administering the islands seized during World War II from Japan. As a member of the Pacific Island community, Hawai'i should weleome Paiau's long-delayed emergence into nationhood. Honolulu Star-Bulletin editorial, Nov. 11, 1993. Reprinted by permission of Honolulu Star-Bulletin.