rh, uF ve ms7 € ae <d - CALIFCRNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY PASADEN 4. CALIFORNIA 911080 . “. CIVIBION OF THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL scleNCcEs October 29, Mr. Theodore R. Mitchell Executive Director Micronesian Legal Services Corporation P.O. Box 826 Saipan, Mariana Islands 96950 . Dear Ted, 1974 . . ' I have now read through the three volumes of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement dealing with the Clean Up, Rehabilitation, Resettlement of Enewetak Atoll-Marshall Islands. One thing that you have going for you is that the peopleof Enewetak wish to return home, and have been pressing for this -return for years. Many of the stresses associated with the type of compulsory reiocation that I have studied including the undermining of local leadership, are simply not present although I would suspect a carry-over from the past. Another favorable factor has been the willingness of everyone involved to date (a) to listen to the local people (at least through theircouncil ‘of 12) and (b) to take into consideration their wishes in planning their return. On the other hand, any kind of settlement schemeinvolves stress to the settlers and as you note in your letter of October II, little attention has been paid to the potential impacts of this stress. 7 » Because my predictive theory deals primarily with compulsory relocation at the time of forced removal, rather than 28 years later!, I will have to cast the net wider (which of course is a much more risky business) and deal with settlement schemes in general, compulsory resettlement being an extreme example of this more general category. As lam sure you are well aware, the history of settlement schemes throughout the world is a grim one -- with probably over 90% being unsuccessful from the point of view of both settlers and settlement authorities. It is hard to imagine a more difficult task that creat from scratch new communities, which are both socially and economically viable. Though the situation is more favorabl people are willing participants, in the Enewetak case no se selection is possible since everyone who wishes to return and old, conservative and progressive, hard working and 1 Afrcariy. ‘