A World Quest for Independence Now Surges Into the Pacific Basin : Island Women Succeed in Thwarting America’s Residual Cold War Plans : Palau: Residents have seven times rejected ‘free association’ with the United States, fearing subjection to unfettered U.S. ‘security’ demands.

Faith in the end of the Cold War is a simple matter of perspective. Where the student perched atop the Berlin Wall imagines political openings, military withdrawals and the fading away of spheres of superpower influence, the person standing on the seawall of Icebox Park in this Pacific island nation has presentiments of crueler and, for the Third World, more persistent possibilities.

The area immediately facing this park, bordered on one side by a center for the captive breeding of endangered sea life, is being coveted for a United States “defense site.” Barbed wire would keep out the local population, and 40 acres of clear waters would be transformed into a military pier and solid shore-side expanse, the landfill gouged from a nearby pit or dredged from the rich coral beds below.

The adjacent deep harbor would be able to accommodate nuclear-powered Trident submarines. A few miles to the north, Palau’s main airfield would be extended 9,600 feet and 65 acres of tropical woodland set aside for the exclusive use of the U.S. military.

Farther north the United States would conduct jungle-warfare training, and farther south command another airfield. For reasons of “security” the United States could claim anyone’s land anywhere in the islands; the Secretary of Defense would have the last word on appeals from evicted inhabitants.

Any environmental standard or procedure could be waived for proposed U.S. actions in Palau if the President declared that such an exemption was “in the paramount interest of the government of the United States.”

All of these prerogatives and more were negotiated by the United States in a document intended to set the terms of the future status of Palau, which since 1947 has been a United Nations trust territory under U.S. administration. That document, misnamed a “Compact of Free Association” and purporting to grant Palau independence in domestic affairs while ceding to the United States responsibility for security, was rejected by voters here in a plebiscite on Feb. 6. But because of circumstances unique to Palau, the compact cannot with confidence be discussed in the past tense.

About 20 years ago the Palauan leadership approved the idea of “free association” as at least an interim step toward self-government. But as the pleasing concept of free association became in actuality an agreement to annexation, popular opposition grew. Six times the people were asked to vote on the compact, and six times they denied it the 75% approval necessary to pass.

The compact itself, a confusing and highly legalistic document, remained unchanged in its fundamentals throughout these contests, yet it was brought before the people a seventh time, the combined result of American insistence, Palauan government weakness and international impatience that the trusteeship be dissolved.

On Feb. 6 it again gained only a simple majority, the smallest ever, and in places such as Koror and Airai State, where people have had easy access to independent information about its details, it was defeated soundly. Still, even before all the votes were counted, and despite an unambiguous court ruling upholding the constitutional requirement of 75% approval, Palauan leaders, their careers directly subsidized by U.S. budgetary allocations, were saying they would take steps to amend the constitution and present voters with some kind of referendum within the year.

This is more than an argument over percentages. By approving the compact, Palauans would override a crucial provision of their constitution which, alone in the world, bans nuclear weapons and nuclear energy in any form and for any purpose. By conceding to U.S. control even “public” land (itself a matter of constitutional dispute involving the rightful owners), they would also be negating a prohibition on the use of eminent domain “for the benefit of a foreign entity.”

Although the constitution was ratified by 92% of the electorate in 1979, the United States has consistently refused to negotiate a compact that would respect the supreme law of the land in Palau. Instead it has tinkered with the terms of compensation: $5.5 million for military access to Palauan lands (about 2 cents per square meter, compared with the going local rate of about $165 per square meter), and a total 15-year package of close to $500 million which, after subtracting numerous fixed costs, some analysts say would leave the country bankrupt a few years after the last payment stopped.

Now with the latest and most emphatic defeat, compact opponents, most prominently women, are calling for a moratorium on further voting and a full review of alternatives for self-determination. And they ask an important question: “Why is the United States so interested in Palau that we have had to vote seven times and defend our constitution against attack?”

What is seemingly irrational is resolved in the logic of the Cold War. For years the United States has identified Palau as a primary fallback position should American bases lose their lease in the Philippines, 500 miles to the northwest. But even if that was not a possibility, and even if people continue to talk about the end of the Cold War, the United States would still want Palau. For America’s determination to assert its political and economic self-interest in the Third World remains unshaken.

In the Pacific that means preserving a policy of “strategic denial” (against a non-existent though still convenient foe) and protecting free transit for the U.S. Navy; it means maintaining a host of radar tracking stations and testing sites without hindrance; it means securing for U.S. commerce easy exploitation of the region’s resources.

That this amounts to colonialism is manifest in the story of Palau. Under its U.N. mandate, the United States was to foster economic and political development in the islands, the end being self-sufficiency and self-government. But 43 years and millions of dollars later, Palau is an economic dependency, rich in resources but without developed agricultural or fishing enterprises, without a small productive sector, heavily indebted and reliant on the U.S. government for about 90% of its annual budget.

A net exporter of food under Japanese occupation before World War II, Palau is now a net importer. Infrastructure is deplorable. In the capital, running water stops at 9 p.m.; on the southern island of Angaur, water is available for only 1 1/2 hours a day; electricity flows only at night. For eight inhabited islands spread over a 125-mile arc, populated by more than 14,000 people, there is only one public high school.

Over the years much of the political leadership has been tainted by scandal and implicated in violence. Like other businessmen in Palau, President Ngiratkel Etpison is busy negotiating deals with foreign investors, claiming that the best economic model for this exquisitely beautiful country is a new wave of world tourism.

Standing against all this, and for the integrity of their land, their culture and their independence, are the traditional women of Palau, whose persevering house-to-house work has defeated the compact seven times and whose desire for true self-determination--and for the disinterested fulfillment of obligations under the original trusteeship agreement--should now be heeded.