Marshalls In Showdown With U.S. Over Kwajalein ("Star Wars" test site)

[maddezmom]

Unhappy Marshall Islanders who host the Pentagon’s most important missile testing base say they’d rather lose $20 million than sign an unfair deal to extend American use of the facility to 2086. The standoff could result in the U.S. shutting down a testing range that has been at the center of so-called “Star Wars” and theater missile defense development.

A special escrow account has been building up since the end of 2003 with rent money for landowners at the Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands that this week totals $18.4 million. The fund by the December 18 deadline for signing a new pact will top $20.5 million. The funds are the difference in rental rates from the existing lease, which expires in 2016, and a newer disputed agreement for extended use of the base.

“If there is no signed land use agreement (LUA) by December 18, 2008, the money in escrow plus interest will be returned to the U.S. Treasury,” U.S. Ambassador to the Marshall Islands Clyde Bishop said Thursday. “Once the money is returned to the U.S. Treasury, there will be no way to retrieve such funds in connection with any eventual agreement on an amended or new LUA.”

Kwajalein Senator and traditional chief Michael Kabua said that landowners “just want a fair deal.” But he made it clear that the landowners aren¹t going to jump for the $20 million if it means signing the current deal on the table.

more:http://www.pacificmagazine.net/news/2008/04/18/marshalls-in-showdown-with-us-over-kwajalein

[MrModerate]

1. The Marshallese are trying to play hardball . . .

They can't survive without the military/technical presence on Kwaj (which delivers a substantial quotient of social services to local people in addition to economic benefits). On the other hand, given how much it costs to do anything down there, and how much the US has invested, a little increase in the rent hardly seems out of line.