Pacific atoll seeks amends from U.S. government
Source: Reuters
TAIPEI, March 14 (Reuters) - A Pacific island government is seeking speedy compensation from the United States over what it sees as second-class treatment of local citizens caused by a missile test site, an island official said. The newly elected Marshall Islands administration wants the U.S. government to accelerate a $55 million to $75 million plan for sharing power, water and sewer lines on the Kwajalien atoll, the biggest in the world, Foreign Minister Tony deBrum told Reuters during an official visit to Taiwan. The Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site has banished the rest of the 20,000-population atoll to an effective ghetto by taking the best resources, deBrum said. The base employs 1,200 people but the U.S. Army recently laid off large numbers in the unemployment-stricken South Pacific nation, he said. The U.S. government began testing atomic and hydrogen bombs in the Marshalls in the 1940s and in 1954 detonated the most powerful hydrogen bomb ever tested, according to a website under the Claremont Institute, a U.S. political nonprofit. A military use agreement between the United States and the Marshalls allows the U.S. government to use Kwajalein Atoll until 2066, with an optional extension to 2086. However, landowners on the atol have not approved the use beyond 2016 as the rental amount is unsettled. DeBrum said he was unsure whether an extension would be possible. "We've made our plan very clear," deBrum said. The atoll, which has been "badly damaged" ecologically by the base, might work better as a vacation resort or for fishing use in a country with one million square miles of ocean, he said. (Reporting by Ralph Jennings; Editing by David Fox)
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