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PACIFIC ISLANDS REPORT Pacific Islands Development Program/East-West Center |
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Features KWAJALEIN: SWIM IN MORNING, GOLF IN AFTERNOON By Greg Wilesmith SYDNEY, Australia (Australian Broadcasting Corp. August 10, 2009) – Breakfasting in the cavernous Cafe Pacific, Kwajalein Island, Kwajalein Atoll, Pacific Ocean. Actually it's more an institutional dining room than cafe - all you can eat for US$7.50, but the much re-brewed coffee is lousy. We're all munching and slurping, watching baseball on the big screen TV. In bursts a deeply tanned, long haired guy, wearing shorts. "Hey guys, are you really watching this game? There's a great chase on Fox." He's right, of course, the helicopter shots of the felon in the fleeing car in a far off mainland American city are much more interesting than yet another ball game. So Yokwe Yuk. Welcome, as they say in the Marshall Islands, to a snippet of daily life on USAKA/RTS. Translation: US Army Base Kwajalein Atoll / Reagan Test Site, central west Pacific. In terms of orientation head for New Zealand and turn hard left - due north, say 3,000 kilometres and you'll get close. From the air Kwaj - everyone calls it Kwaj - is a remarkably small half a horseshoe of an island, barely a metre or two above the ocean, the southern anchor of a vast coral atoll, embracing the world's largest lagoon. The lagoon comes in pretty handy when you want to test fire an intercontinental ballistic missile from an air base in California and splash it down, right on the money, in the shallow waters of the lagoon, or slam it into an island - or, on occasions, in the deep water just outside the coral reef. Kwaj is all you expect of a tropical idyll - aquamarine water, glistening white sand, coconut groves, balmy weather. Actually it isn't balmy, more the kind of sun that beats you over the head with a shovel until you submit. Occasionally a tropical storm will blow in bringing torrential rain and cool you down - but not for long. Amid the trees and manicured lawns sit nests of giant golf ball-shaped structures housing an extraordinary array of radar. Kwaj is the ultimate listening post. If North Korea launches missiles into the Sea of Japan, or beyond, those on Kwaj expect to be among the first to sense and see it. Most of the people who do this in their ultra air-conditioned offices are civilian contractors or employees of the US Defence Department. As American military bases go Kwaj has a highly unusual vibe - very few uniforms, bronzed people in T-shirts, shorts and sandals who wave, nod and say hi as they ride by on high-handled bikes, or in battery powered golf carts. They're swimming and jogging in the mornings, golf and gardening after work in the afternoons, star-spotting at night, scuba diving expeditions and sailing on weekends. Of course it helps that, notwithstanding North Korea misfiring its missiles, the current security rating on Kwaj is Alpha - general, indefinite terrorist threat. It can get much get much more anxious in the force protection rankings, escalating through Bravo, Charlie and Delta. When Cafe Pacific palls there's always the food court - Burger King, promoting my personal favourite, Otis Spunkmeyer's fresh baked cookies, Subway sandwiches "six inch or twelve?", Baskin Robbins ice cream and Arthur's Pizza "We Deliver", but not, unfortunately, while we're here. Consumerism lives at The Shopette for frozen TV dinners, low grade Australian wine and an astonishing array of pharmaceuticals. There's also the PX with all manner of remarkably cheap clothing, sunglasses, furniture and other essentials shipped in from the US at vast expense. At the end of another long, hot day of saving the free world you can head off for a palate cleansing ale at the Oceanview Club, an open air pavilion on the surfside of the island or head towards the more sheltered lagoon side and the rustic charm of the Kwaj Yacht Club. Fly or sail up the lagoon to an even more perfect tropical island, Roi-Namur, and join the lucky few gathering at sunset, beers at the ready, staring west across the endless Pacific, hoping to catch a glimpse of a rare optical phenomena - the green flash. It's worth the trip, but blink at the wrong time and you'll miss it. The other attraction of Roi-Namur, once two islands but joined over the years by some creative coral enhancement of a causeway, are an array of giant radars that can, we're told, track a football in deep space at a range of 8,000 kilometres. But here's the bad news, Kwajalein and Roi-Namur and nine other islands within Kwajalein Atoll are off limits to all, including most Marshall Islanders, except those who work there or have a very good reason to visit. The US Army leases the islands from the Republic of the Marshall Islands under an arrangement called The Compact of Free Association and while the days of Russian fishing "trawlers" eye-balling missile tests and listening in to American communications chatter seem long gone, Kwajalein Atoll, deservedly, remains a top secret surveillance base - an American window on the world and into deep space. (I should stress that while Kwajalein is definitely off the tourist track there are many more atolls and islands, 1200 in total, in the Marshall Islands that can - and deserve to be - visited. It's a low key, slow-moving place, full of charming people but getting there is not easy. There are basically two options - via Hawaii and then backtrack, or via Cairns, Guam and an series of island hops.) The US lease on Kwajalein runs until 2016 and most Americans see it enduring for 50, maybe 70 years, beyond that. For the Marshallese people the American experience has been a two edged sword - liberation from Japanese occupation in 1944, forced off Bikini Atoll two years later for atomic tests, in the 50s some were poisoned by radioactive dust swept across from the Bravo test on Bikini and later other islanders were evacuated from their traditional island homes to be re-located on what is now one of the worst slums of the Pacific, the island of Ebeye. There have been benefits too; the US provides most of the money which keeps the Marshall Islands government afloat and on Kwajalein atoll it employs many Marshallese, though mostly in menial jobs, like de-nutting coconut trees to keep Americans residents safe. Also cleaning the swimming pools, manicuring the golf courses and of course, making and serving the burgers and pizzas in the aforementioned food court. No relationship between a 300 million strong superpower and the 60,000 strong Republic of the Marshall Islands (about 10,000 of whom live in Hawaii or other US states) is likely to run smoothly, all the time. Right now though traditional land owners on Kwajalein Atoll feel they're being ripped off and are demanding a $4 million hike in the annual rental of the atoll. The Americans are resisting. It would seem a relatively small price to pay, given that running costs on the Kwajalein bases are more than $US200 million a year. What price paradise? ABC News Online: http://www.abc.net.au/news/ |
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KWAJALEIN, EYEBE: MARSHALLS’ UNEASY NEIGHBORS SYDNEY, Australia (Australian Broadcasting Corp. August 10, 2009) – What would it be like to experience the last few seconds of life watching a nuclear warhead arc gracefully through the sky heading towards you? Foreign Correspondent's presenter Mark Corcoran glimpses this apocalyptic vision while standing on a beach at the northern end of Kwajalein Island just north of the equator in the western Pacific. Corcoran and his crew were filming a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile which had been fired 28 minutes earlier from a US airbase in California, nearly 8000 kilometres away. (See "Rocket Island," ABC’s video documentary) Fortunately instead of three nuclear warheads - in total 90 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima - the Minuteman's three re-entry vehicles splashed down harmlessly in deep water outside the coral wall of Kwajalein Atoll. Americans watching on this hot, humid night, cheered wildly, one suggesting it was just like 4th of July fireworks. US Army Lt-Colonel Harold Buhl was pumped. "In order for a weapon to be a weapon of deterrence it needs to be proven that in fact it will work." Corcoran, " It's a spectacular light show but we shouldn't beat around the bush here; this is about testing the delivery weapon for an enormous nuclear weapon ?" Buhl, "That's correct , so you saw something - where anywhere else in the world - if someone saw it'd be the last thing they saw." As it happens nuclear testing, for real, had a long and tragic history only a few hundred kilometres from Kwajalein. Bikini Atoll was the site of a series of extraordinary atomic tests conducted by the United States in 1946. 63 years on the Republic of the Marshall Islands is still playing host to American war games and will continue to do so until at least 2016 - and potentially for another 60 years. But traditional landowners of Kwajalein Atoll say US compensation is inadequate and their people shouldn't have to continue to live in slums on the island of Ebeye, where 15,000 people are crammed into a narrow strip of coral and sand, smaller than a golf course. Corcoran was given rare access to the Ronald Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Island on the atoll of the same name to see why the US Army regards it as vital to world peace. He also spoke to traditional Kwajalein chiefs about the difficulties of telling their superpower tenant that unless a better deal is forthcoming it may be time for them to go home. ABC News Online: http://www.abc.net.au/news/ |
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