Do people in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (or the U.S. government) really understand the true agenda of Republic of the Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony DeBroom?

This review borrows some material from an earlier post on freermi.wordpress.com and was recently published on the local RMI blog site:

“It would be madness to prolong the current situation on Ebeye for another 70 years. If the United States continues to use Kwajalein, it will be under different circumstances.” Senator Tony DeBlum, Marianas Variety, June 25, 2007.

Efforts to improve conditions in Ebeye reflect decades of success and failure in U.S. policy goals and in the national and local governments of the Marshall Islands. Conditions in Ebeye also reflect the fact that some of the traditional chiefs and their lawyers who control Ebeye payments and funds have more invested in Hawaii than in Ebeye. Tony DeBlum has made a fortune on behalf of the feudal lords of Kwajalein at the expense of the poor of Ebeye. Not even a true landowner in Kwajalein, he has collected huge fees from the chiefs, while many who are from Kwajalein and were born there have received next to nothing.

Now Tony claims to be a savvy, articulate, non-anti-American diplomat? Let’s look at the record.

The senior chiefs on Kwajalein who put Tony in office want more money, but a speech in 2005 expressing his own ideological views suggests that Secretary DeBrum may actually want the U.S. out of Kwajalein for personal ideological reasons, which is not friendly at all to the U.S. While the senior chiefs have also expressed the view that the U.S. should leave Kwajalein, most believe it is a negotiating tactic. But the chiefs who put DeBrum in parliament to get more money may find that he is using them to achieve his goals, rather than the other way around.

Specifically, on May 11, 2005, Mr. De Brum, now the Marshall Islands Foreign Minister and a paid lobbyist for the Kwajalein Chief, called not for an increase in lease payments but for an end to U.S. Army operations on Kwajalein. Speaking to an international audience at the Seventh NPT Review Conference, De Brum stated:

“After years of ICBM testing, the Marshall Islands is now hosting the U.S. government’s missile defense testing program. The U.S. government launches intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) into the Marshall Islands. Interceptor missiles are fired at incoming ICBMs from the Ronald Reagan Missile Defense Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll to test the interceptors’ ability to track and destroy incoming missiles… Kwajalein leadership efforts to prepare for the realities of the current agreement when it expires in 2016 have been largely ignored as the United States openly and callously discusses uses of our land beyond 2016 and into 2086… all without our consent… We call on the international community to lend a hand to the Marshall Islanders to free themselves from the legacy of the nuclear age and the burden of providing a testing site for weapons of mass destruction.”

translate:

First, Tony does not recognize that the procedures for ratifying the Military Compact and the Military Rights Agreement under the Constitution of the Republic of the Marshall Islands are the consent of the people under the laws of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and he believes that the refusal of the Kwajalein Chief to consent to the Military Rights Agreement overrides the consent of the people of the Republic of the Marshall Islands as a nation to the Military Compact and the Military Rights Agreement.

Second, he called on the United Nations and the international community to intervene and help the Kwajalein chief to stop the U.S. use of Kwajalein. The Iranian, Libyan, North Korean and Chinese governments all know how to interpret that “liberating” Kwajalein from the “burden of providing a testing site” means the U.S. withdraws from Kwajalein.

In this context, his most recent official statement as Minister (described above) was premised on “if the United States continues to use Kwajalein.” This may be inconsistent with good faith compliance with the agreement between his government and the United States. His call for “different circumstances” as a condition for the Marshall Islands’ recognition of continued U.S. military rights of use effectively indicates that the Marshall Islands is not prepared to honor its existing treaty obligations. He has publicly and explicitly refused to recognize fundamental treaty rights in the media.

That’s OK, at least in the US Congress. The US faced this situation head on back in 2003 and has not backed down. The treaty and its US implementing law provide for a process that would trigger if the Republic of the Marshall Islands does not comply with the treaty.

So, in a sense, the United States agrees with Tony DeBlum. It is indeed crazy to continue using Kwajalein Atoll under the current circumstances, with feudal lords ignoring the needs of the poor whom they designate as “commoners” and blaming the United States for their neglect. It is also crazy for the United States to make discretionary concessions to the Marshall Islands government when the government is controlled by the Kwajalein chiefs and will not fulfill non-discretionary obligations under the treaty.

Tony DeBrum is a hired agent of the Kwajalein chief, and the current president of the Marshall Islands has no control over his own foreign minister. Therefore, it is indeed crazy to continue normal relations with the Marshall Islands under the current circumstances. Under DeBrum’s leadership, the Marshall Islands are not the kind of ally that the United States wants or needs in this new era. “