RESETTLEMENT OF PEOPLE
1961 continued
zone" for incoming Inter-Continental
Ballistic Missiles shot from California.
the 750 acre island, or about $10 per
acre a year, and provides that the U.S.
will “improve the economic and social
conditions of the Marshallese people,
“,..at is the conviction or the
United States that it has the reSponsibility not only to its people
but to all the peoples of the free
world to maintain at a maximum its
capacity to deter aggression and
preserve peace. Thus it believes
that...further tests are...absodutely necessary for the eventual
well being of all the people of
this world.”
U.S.
statement to U.N.
Trustee-
ship Council in response to a
petition from Marshall Islands
ee@aders (April, 2956).
1963 Kwajalein: A case of polio in the
American population on Kwajalein starts
an epidemic in the northern Marshall
Islands. Although the polio vaccine
was discovered 8 years earlier, no one
had been given shots.
212 cases of
severe residual paralysis resuitring
from polio are recorded among the
18,000 inhabirants of the Marshall
Islands.
The rate in the U. S. is
about one patient with severe residual
paralysis per 1,000 cases of polio.
particularly at Ebeye..."
Kwajalein: The central two-thirds of
Kwajalein's lagoon becomes a new "impact area'' for missiles.
Faced with
several hundred inhabitants on the
islands bounding this area, known as
the "Mid-Corridor,'’ the Defense and
Interior Departments decide the "most
practical and economic solution to the
range safety problem’ is to relocate
the people to Ebeye Island.
The Amny
begins an “Ebeye Improvement Project,”
which includes the construction of 78
cement block units each containing
four one-room apartments, and also a
sewer system, fresh and salt water
distribution systems, and a power plant.
No funding, however, is budgetced for
maintenance and upkeep of these faciiities.
DECEMBER Kwajalein: The first 28
apartment units are completed and asSigned to the Mid-Corridor people.
"We cannot make enough copra.
The reason :s that the people have
to eat it, and the rats also eat
2t...We also need sail cloth and
"Land means a great deal to the
Marshallese.
It means more than
just a place where you can plant
your food crops and build your
houses; or a place where you can
. bury your dead.
It is the very
life of the people.
Take away their
dand and their spirits go also."
Petition from Marshall Islands
j@aders to United Nations, March
1956.
1964 Kwajalein: A 99 year lease for
Kwajalein Island (the command base of
the Pacific Missile Range) is signed
by the Kwajalein landowners and the
U. S. Government.
The. lease provides
$750,000, in <qppensation for use of
JUUEtELUU
other materials to equip our ca~
noes...The conditions on Ujelang
are worse now...there are more
people now, especially children
who are too young to work or to
work hard, but who must also eat.
We did not complain when the Navy
told us we had to leave our atoll
of Enewetak...We cooperated with
the Americans...Now we need help
badly, we ask America for help in
our suffering.
Help us, or send
us home,"
Enewetak leader on Ujelang,1969.
1965 JANUARY Kwajalein: Marshallese from
the 13 inhabited Mid-Corridor islands
(continued on page 17)