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Abstract
As World War II unsettled the global balance of power ushering in a wave of decolonization, the postwar period also saw the expansion of US military imperialism into Micronesia. In this central Pacific region, a new colonial era began rooted in US strategic concerns and mandated under a 1947 United Nations Trusteeship Agreement. During the Cold War, the United States buttressed its nuclear arsenal by testing its deadliest weapons of mass destruction (nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile) in the Marshall Islands, residing on the eastern edge of Micronesia. This weapons testing program would inform Marshallese struggles towards self-determination, ultimately shaping the contours of Marshallese sovereignty as the region achieved formal decolonization through a Compact of Free Association in 1986.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. World Council of Churches Assembly, Vancouver, Canada, 1983. Speech by Darlene-Keju Johnson (available on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hxCGlA5oJQ).
2. Ibid., entire paragraph. My emphasis added to reflect vocal inflection.
3. Nuclear Claims Tribunal, Republic of the Marshall Islands website at http://www.nuclearclaimstribunal.com/testing.htm. The 67 tests comprised 108 megatons, the equivalent of 7000 Hiroshima bombs.
4. Teresia Teaiwa, “bikinis and other s/pacific n/oceans.”
5. United States Army Kwajalein Atoll, published by US Army Space and Strategic Defense Command, 1994. Located at Gov. Docs, University of Hawai’i, Manoa.
6. Lauren Hirshberg, “Nuclear Families: (Re)producing 1950s Suburban America in the Marshall Islands.”
7. Ibid. A number of works contribute to this analysis including: Cynthia Enloe, Banana’s Beaches and Bases, Mark L. Gillem’s America Town: Building the Outposts of Empire, Jana Lipman’s Guantanamo: A Working Class History between Empire and Revolution, and David Vine’s Island of Shame: Vine’s work revealed that today this US base empire has culminated in the possession of some 1000 military bases outside the fifty states and Washington DC.
8. Hirshberg, “Nuclear Families.”
9. For this paper the “Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands” will be referred to as the “Trust Territory.”
10. Of the eleven original trusts, nine were no longer trusts by 1975, either having gained independence or integrating with a neighboring territory. New Guinea, the tenth, under Australian administration, gained independence in union with Papua in 1975, leaving the US the only remaining administrator of a UN Trust Territory by 1975. Donald F. McHenry’s Micronesia, Trust Betrayed: Altruism vs. Self Interest in American Foreign Policy (New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1975), 34.
11. McHenry, Micronesia, Trust Betrayed, 33–4.
12. Ibid., 34.
13. Ibid.
14. Trusteeship Agreement for the Former Japanese Mandated Islands, signed by Harry S. Truman, July 18, 1947. TTA, reel no. 106, 4.
15. Ibid.
16. The Trusteeship System: How the United Nations Works for People of Trust Territories, circa late 1960s–mid-1970s. Located in TTA, reel no. 166 in file entitled: Correspondence, Dispatches and other information regarding the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (General Information), UN, Trusteeship documents.
17. Resolution no. 71 and accompanying correspondence submitted to the Fifteenth Regular Session, United Nations requesting reconsideration of legal and political status of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, signatures Amata Kabua (Speaker) and Atlan Anien (Legislative Secretary), October 21, 1968. Located in the Library of Congress Newspaper Room, UN collection, Washington DC.
18. Ibid.
19. Initially unclassified, the Solomon Report shifted at the insistence of the State Department. According to former US Ambassador Donald F. McHenry, state officials wanted to avoid criticism contained in the report that could be used against the US at the United Nations. McHenry, Micronesia, Trust Betrayed, 14.
20. Ibid.
21. After discovering the report's introduction and summary in 1971, a University of Hawai’i student published them in the student newsletter, The Young Micronesian. McHenry, Micronesia, Trust Betrayed, 14.
22. Today Ebeye’s population is nearly 15,000, while Kwajalein’s 900 acres houses about 1200 down from a peak of about 5500 during the late-1960s.
23. ‘Current Problems in the Marshall Islands: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Territorial and Insular Affairs of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs House of Representatives.’ Ninety-Fourth Congress, Second Session: Oversight Hearings on the Marshall Islands District Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. Hearings on Ebeye, July 13, 1976, and on Majuro, July 14, 1976. Located in the Pacific Collection, University of Hawai'i, Manoa.
24. See Giff Johnson, “Ebeye: Apartheid, U.S. Style,” in The Nation. December 25, 1976 and Ed Rampell, “Islanders sit in against ‘apartheid,’” in Pacific Islands Monthly. June 1986. I have also written about segregation on Kwajalein in Hirshberg, “Nuclear Families: (Re)producing 1950s Suburban America in the Marshall Islands.”
25. See Ann Laura Stoler, “Imperial Debris: Reflections on Ruin and Ruination,” and Joseph Masco, “‘Survival is your Business’: Engineering Ruins and Affect in Nuclear America.”
26. Speech by Ataji Balos appearing in the Micronitor. February 15, 1972.
27. For more on historic accusations of intentional irradiation see Half life: a parable for the nuclear age (Directed by Dennis O'Rourke, 1986) and Holly M. Barker, Bravo for the Marshallese, Barbara Rose Johnston and Holly M. Barker, The Consequential Damages of Nuclear War, and Giff Johnson, Nuclear Past: Unclear Future. Such charges continue to be investigated as increasing information on the nuclear testing campaign became declassified during the 1990s.
28. Smith, Marjorie, “The Summer of Dissent,” in Micronesian Reporter. Fourth Quarter, 1968, 26.
29. David Hanlon, Remaking Micronesia, 192.
30. ‘Current Problems in the Marshall Islands: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Territorial and Insular Affairs of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs House of Representatives.’ Ninety-Fourth Congress, Second Session: Oversight Hearings on the Marshall Islands District Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. Hearings on Ebeye, July 13, 1976, and on Majuro, July 14, 1976. Located in the Pacific Collection, University of Hawai'i, Manoa, 1.
31. “Current Problems in the Marshall Islands,” Appendix. Located in the Pacific Collection, University of Hawai'i, Manoa.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid., 6.
35. Ibid., 16.
36. “Current Problems in the Marshall Islands,” 20. Located in the Pacific Collection, University of Hawai'i, Manoa.
37. “Current Problems in the Marshall Islands,” Appendix. Located in the Pacific Collection, University of Hawai'i, Manoa.
38. Remarks of Amata Kabua to the Senate of the Congress of Micronesia Regarding Separation of the Marshall Islands from the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. February 8, 1977. TTA, reel no. 323.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid.
41. Statement by Rep. Ataji Balos of Marshall Islands. Presented to the House of Representatives of the Sixth Congress of Micronesia, Second Special Session, Saturday, July 24, 1976. Located in the Pacific Collection, University of Hawai'i, Manoa.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid.
44. Carrol, Todd, interview with Amata Kabua, July 19, 1983, TTA, reel no. 0613. The one-page transcript interview is part of a larger file labeled ‘News cables by Todd Carrol of Associated Press (AP) on Marshall Islands and Japan.’
45. It is important to keep in mind that underlying publicly documented discourse on the future political negotiations for the country remained several narratives illuminating other influences. These include conflicts and loyalties based on personality differences, kinship relations and backroom economic negotiations, among others. Many of these stories became accessible during my research via hearsay and thus remain outside the bounds of this project. This paper thus recognizes that just like other contested political histories, what can be analyzed about the path towards Marshallese decolonization in documented statements remains only the tip of an iceberg into understanding the complexities and varied relationships informing political negotiations from both US and Marshallese sides. Other significant influences on the vote involve the 1980s Marshallese anti-colonial protests that Senator Tony De Brum alleged resulted in the removal of ‘independence’ from the Marshallese ballot as a voting option. These events are detailed in great length in my dissertation (see Lauren Hirshberg, “Targeting Kwajalein: US Empire, Militarization and Suburbanization and the Marshall Islands, 1944–1986.” Department of History, University of Michigan, 2011) but require further research to verify the United States point of view in that trajectory.
46. Hanlon, Remaking Micronesia, 212.
47. Oral history by author with Tony de Brum on November 22, 2010. Honolulu, HI.
48. Hanlon, Remaking Micronesia, 211.
49. Giff Johnson, Nuclear Past: Unclear Future (Majuro: Micronitor, 2009), 20.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid. While it took the United States nearly four decades to begin acknowledging the impact of radioactive fallout in the region, the US Empire was not the only nuclear power to treat its colonies as a ‘nuclear playground’ during the Cold War and beyond. For comparative histories, see Stewart Firth, Nuclear Playground (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987) and Gabriel Hecht, Being Nuclear: Africans and the Global Uranium Trade (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2012).
52. United Nations General Assembly, Human Rights Council, Twenty-First Session, September 3, 2012.
53. Julian Borger, “Marshall Islands sues nine nuclear powers over failure to disarm,” The Guardian (online publication, April 24, 2014).
54. Lucy Westcott, “Marshall Islands Nuclear Lawsuit Opens Old Wounds,” Newsweek.com (online publication, August 1, 2014).