Word: palau
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...everything fell apart because individual island groups, proud of their separate identities, wanted to strike individual deals with the U.S. The 26,000 residents of the Marshalls voted in a referendum to negotiate separately from the territory as a whole for a change in status. Now the island of Palau (pop. 13,000) wants to do the same...
...negotiations have become affairs of Rube Goldberg complexity. Washington now talks to territorial representatives (including ones from the Marshalls and Palau) as if they were still a united entity. At the same table, U.S. officials negotiate with the two dissident groups as if their separate-but-equal bargaining status were achieved. What all the Micronesians agree upon is that they want to remain associated with the U.S. but gain greater control over their own local governments. More independence, more discriminating federal subsidy, is long overdue in beautiful but troubled Micronesia. Given Jimmy Carter's determination, both may arrive soon...
...known locally-is the pony express of the Pacific. Three times each week the airline's two jets, both coated with Teflon to fight the corrosive effects of salty coral runways, hop among Micronesia's six island airports on Truk, Kwajalein, Yap, Ponape, Majuro and Palau. It is a measure of the region's isolation-the nights range up to 1,451 miles nonstop-that no plane travels without a mechanic and spare parts. Says Captain Lee Minors, 43, who prepped for atoll landings on the flight deck of the U.S.S. Hornet in the 1950s: "This...
...addition to controlling Kwajalein, Johnston, Midway and Wake islands, the military has reserved substantial acreage in Palau and the Marianas. The highest naval profile is on Guam, where two-thirds of the island-including the best beach, the only lake and the one patch of tillable soil-remains off limits to the population save for 8,800 U.S. servicemen and Pentagon civilian employees...
...discouraged all initiative -at least on the part of incoming Japanese. They have asked for permission to raise eels and harvest seaweed around Saipan. A more grandiose scheme calls for coffee, rice and frogs to be raised on Tinian, just south of Saipan. Farther away, on Palau, Japanese investors plan to build a $325 million supertanker port if they get permission from local chiefs...