From many islands to one

Published 2:00 pm Saturday, June 3, 2006

The Marshalls president and his entourage visit the Northwest.

The president and his entourage stepped from a motorcade of black SUVs outside City Hall Wednesday, surrounded by shifty-eyed Secret Service agents.

But this president and a half- dozen senators and ministers weren’t visiting Bainbridge to stump for tax cuts or a social security overhaul.

They were simply here to shake hands with fellow islanders.

“This is a beautiful place,” said his Excellency Kessai Note, the two-term president of the Marshall Islands. “It is very clean here, well maintained and with so much greenery.

“And it has an island feeling, just like home.”

The tiny Pacific island republic’s top officials visited Bainbridge during the first leg of a tour of Oregon and Washington.

The delegation was invited by U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee and the Bainbridge Island Japanese-American Com­munity for brief tours of City Hall and the Japanese Internment Memorial site on Eagle Harbor.

The Marshellese were so impressed with Bainbridge, a few said they may return.

“When the greenhouse gasses makes the sea level rise, we’ll paddle over here to your island,” said a broadly smiling Rein Morris, the Marshall Islands’ minister of internal affairs.

Morris was only half-kidding.

Note and other Pacific island states have lobbied the U.S. government to reduce greenhouse gasses blamed for global warming and the melting of the polar ice caps.

The Marshall Islands have seen most of the coastline on 29 atolls erode in recent years, according to the South Pacific Regional Environment Program.

The United Nations predicts rising sea levels will submerge 80 percent of the Marshall Islands within the next century.

Despite bearing much of the brunt of global warming, the Pacific islands produce just less than 1 percent of the world’s emissions.

The island nation of Tuvalu, where rising tides have already claimed numerous homes, has threatened to sue the U.S. and other major contributors of greenhouse gasses.

“The fact that their islands are sinking under rising sea levels should interest the United States,” said Inslee, a Bainbridge resident. “It shows their survival is tied to our Congress and the actions we take as citizens. This interest unites us.”

While a flood of global warming refugees may be imminent, the trickle of Marshellese to the United States has long been a right of passage for islanders seeking a better life.

“This is the land of opportunity, where you can find everything,” said Morris, who graduated from Azuza Pacific University in California.

A 1986 Compact of Free Association between the United States and the Republic of the Marshall Islands allows Marshall Islands citizens to live, work and study in the United States visa-free.

“On the Marshall Islands there is not as much to do: coconut farming, fishing, handicrafts,” said Senator Helkena Anni, who estimates there are 15,000 Marshellese in the U.S. “We need an educated population and here you can go to school and become a productive citizen. We hope one day they come back.”

The U.S. is the Marshalls’ primary source of income, offering $57 million every year until 2023.

But the subsidy has come at a high price. The U.S. conducted a series of nuclear weapons tests on the Marshall Islands after capturing the territory from the Japanese during World War II.

Nuclear tests forced the evacuation of numerous islands, including Bikini Atoll which was destroyed in 1954 by the most powerful hydrogen bomb ever detonated by the U.S.

“Our islands are contaminated,” said Anni. “Many people have cancer and must come to the U.S. because medical costs are so high.”

The National Cancer Institute estimates about half of the island’s population alive during the test years, 1946 to 1957, will develop radiation-related cancer in their lifetime. As of last year, about half the cases have already occurred, according to an NCI study.

The Marshellese delegation found particular meaning in the slogan hung over a model of the future internment memorial now taking shape on Eagle Harbor’s south shore.

“‘Let it not not happen again,’” said Morris, reading a placard as other members of the delegation shook hands with the Bainbridge residents of Japanese decent who were interned during World War II. “That means a lot to us too. We’re all humans and we need to respect each other.

It’s a reminder for us all that we need to be steadfast with the Constitution, with our rights and due process,”

For President Note, the memorial will serve as a poignant reminder for both American citizens and international visitors.

“Under the circumstances, it’s the best we can do,” he said. “We can’t rewrite history, but we can learn from it.”

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Island nation

Marshall Islands facts:

• Population: 60,422

• Area: A total of 70 square miles scattered over 770,000 square miles of ocean

• Highest elevation: 20 feet above sea level

• Ethnic groups: Micronesian

• Gross Domestic Product: $115 million

• Per capita income: $2,300

• Independence: October 1986 (from a U.S.-administered United Nations trusteeship)