A long-standing agreement that gives the US military access to the Marshall Islands in exchange for financial aid and other benefits lapsed on September 30, The South China Morning Post reported on Monday.
The Post quoted Cleo Paskal, a fellow at the hawkish Foundation for the Defense of Democracies think tank, who claimed that what just expired with the Marshall Islands was the “financial and federal services component” while the “defense right continues,” signaling the lapsed agreement does not mean the US has to give up its military presence.
The Compact of Free Association (Cofa) agreement between the US and the Marshall Islands was signed in 1986. The US also has Cofa’s with Micronesia and Palau, but the Biden administration was able to negotiate a renewal of those deals.
The issue with the Marshall Islands is that the Pacific Island nation wants more compensation and an apology for the 67 nuclear tests the US conducted on its territory between 1946 and 1958. “What the United States must realize is that Marshallese people require that the nuclear issue be addressed,” Marshallese President David Kabua said at the UN General Assembly on September 20.
The Biden administration has pledged $7 billion for the three Cofa nations, including $2.9 billion for the Marshall Islands, but the Marshall Islands has not accepted the deal, and negotiations are said to be ongoing. Aumua Amata Radewagen, a delegate to the US House for American Samoa, told Voice of America that negotiators are hoping to reach an agreement this month.
According to Howard Hills, who was previously a member of the US Cofa negotiating team, the only hold-up is the State Department’s legal view of the nuclear funds. The US paid a $150 million settlement to the Marshall Islands in 1986 that the State Department said was the “full settlement of all claims” related to US nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands.
While the $150 million fell well short of what’s needed to clean up all the radioactive debris the US left behind, the State Department won’t let any funds be designated for that purpose. “If it were not for the State Department legal position, this could have been done in 2020. It could have been done in 2021. It could have been done in 2022,” Hills said.
The US views renewing the Cofas as key to its strategy against China in the region. The US claims that the Cofa agreements give it the right to keep other militaries out of the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of the Pacific Island nations, which extend 200 miles from their coastlines, a huge swath of the Pacific Ocean.
According to international law, as defined by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), all countries have the right to navigation in EEZs of other nations. The US never ratified UNCLOS so it is not a party to the treaty, but the US has also rejected China’s claims to the South China Sea using UNCLOS, an example of the US international law only where it suits its interests.
So the US is sending radioactive (depleted uranium) munition to Ukraine as well as particularly civilian-deadly cluster bombs as part of the billions of $$ of proxy-war support (meaning Ukrainians die, US soldiers don’t, US pols & armaments make mucho $$s). Meanwhile the Ukraine countryside is already so heavily mined it will take hundreds of years (really) to demine. And the pencil-necks at legal can’t scratch their little brains and release some additional aid to the Marshall Islands, whose beautiful lands and people the US rained hell on in the form of repeated, excessive nuclear tests. Oh, no, we didn’t do that HERE in the mainland US. Heavens, no. To see the kind of “education” and “agreement” the islanders gave, watch the documentary The Atomic Cafe. Beware Americans making promises and smiling.
Pilger’s documentary the coming war on China too.
https://johnpilger.com/videos/the-coming-war-on-china
Marshall Island should sue US government and not renew the stupid agreement no matter what amount of compensation…!
re: “the US has also rejected China’s claims to the South China Sea”
China has never made claims to the South China Sea. It has released the ‘nine dash line’ map occasionally just to pull US’s chain, but it has never made claims concerning it.
The US State Department in a 2014 study:
Here’s an example of US rhetoric in recent Pentagon news:
So now there are “attempts to claim vast areas of the South China Sea.” — not a claim, but an attempt to claim — you can’t make this stuff up (but the Pentagon does)
China will again attempt to move in to the impoverished Marshalls. Kiribati, which lies immediately south of the Marshall Islands, cut ties with Taiwan in favor of China in 2019, and signed as many as 10 agreements deepening relations during a visit by China’s foreign minister.
May have signed the Status of Forces with the U.S. We stay. Will will NOT clean up our messes. U.S. personnel committing a crime there will be brought to the U.S. to have his/her wrist slapped. Island will not have right to prosecute. That is the way it is with all countries we have basses in. Pretty nifty, eh?
Yes – from the Status of Forces “Agreement” —
“The Government of the United States has the right to exercise within the Republic of the Marshall Islands criminal and disciplinary jurisdiction over United States personnel for offenses punishable under the laws of the United States. In lieu of criminal or disciplinary proceedings in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Government of the United States may elect to remove United States personnel for such proceedings elsewhere.” . .here