U.S. ratifies Pacific treaties

Press, 24 June 1983, Page 21

U.S. ratifies Pacific treaties

NZPA staff correspondent Washington The American Senate has ratified four contentious treaties of friendship with Kiribati, Tuvalu, the Cook Islands, and the Tokelaus. The voting was 96 to four, with the conservative Republicans, Senators Jesse Helms and John East (both North Carolina), Gordon Humphrey (New Hampshire) and Steven Symms (Idaho), voting against. Ratification of the treaties means that the United States gives up his-

torical claims to 26 islands in the four groups, including the northern Cook Islands, and New Zealand also gives up a claim, on behalf of the Tokelauans, to Swains Island, administered by America as part of American Samoa since 1925. The treaties also establish maritime boundaries and provide for consultation on fishing rights and military use of islands in the Kiribati and Tuvalu groups. One result will be that the National Geographic Society will have to redraw its map of the world: beside Tok-

elau, it now has printed in red: “Administered by New Zealand (claimed by United States).” The New Zealand Ambassador, Mr Lance AdamsSchneider, has been working hard to have the treaties ratified. They went through a Senate Committee hearing last year, but were torpedoed before they got to the Senate floor by Right-wing Senators who maintained that the islands were really American territories. “Abandonment of American sovereignty” would open the

way to establishment of Soviet bases there and would also undermine American efforts to establish deep-seabed mining rights and improved fishing rights, the Senators claimed. American military leaders told the Senate Committee, however, that the United States had no need for bases in the area, and State Department officials admitted America’s claims to the islands were weak. Mr Adams-Schneider said that the United States would gain much good will in the

region by ratifying the treaties, which in fact only codified the status quo in the region. The Prime Minister, Mr Muldoon, wrote a letter this year to say that New Zealand, on behalf of Tokelau, would not agree to any redrafting of that treaty, and that he believed the other nations involved would also be unlikely to agree to any redrafting. The result came yesterday, after New Zealand lobbying got the treaties to the floor and a vote.