Word: deroburt
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...islanders want only one thing that phosphate cannot buy: independence. However, as Chief deRoburt de parted for Manhattan last week to report to the U.N. Trusteeship Council, Australian Territories Minister Charles Barnes conceded cautiously that as a first step toward sovereignty for the island, his government will draft a Nauruan constitution; next January the first Nauruan Parliament will convene. If Nauru proves ready for self-government, Barnes says elliptically, "Further discussions will take place regarding the possibility of further political progress." In other words, it is only a matter of time before Nauruans will be independent-provided the Australian government...
...rate, they will leave in style. Last week Nauru's elected chieftain, Hammer deRoburt, finished hammering out a contract with its principal phosphate customers-Australia, New Zealand, Britain-that will assure the island's 500 families a kitty of $225 million by the time the phosphate runs out. Under the agreement, deRoburt, 42, more than trebled his people's royalties (to $1.50 a ton, retroactive to July 1, 1964) and extracted yet another price boost (to $1.97), effective next year. The Australian government, which administers the island as a U.N. trust territory, will hold most...
...years ago, it became evident that the phosphate would run out before long. Nauru's three concessionaires and the U.N., of which the island is a trusteeship, rushed solicitously to the rescue. Last year Australia took the natives' head chief, Hammer deRoburt, to look over Australia's Curtis Island off the Queensland coast, offered to underwrite a $22.4 million resettlement of the Nauruans there. Curtis Island is larger than Nauru, has abundant supplies of fish offshore, and its wildlife would even permit the Nauruans to pursue their favorite pastime of taming noddies and frigate birds...
...Canberra, burly Head Chief deRoburt stomped out after conferences with Australia's Minister for Territories Charles Barnes and Prime Minister Robert Menzies, vowing: "The whole world will know how you've treated us!" With that, DeRoburt announced that his people would now remain on Nauru and seek to have it filled with crop-growing soil, take over the remaining phosphate deposits-and become an independent state by 1967. Whether the latter will come to pass remains to be seen. But clearly what the Nauruans want is just what South Pacific's Bloody Mary recommended-their own special...
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