ABSTRACT
The Rock Islands near Koror are one of the sights of the Pacific. The island was once headquarters of the Japanese colonial administration in Micronesia, and Koror was a sizeable Japanese town. Broadly speaking, younger political leaders with ties to the USA tend to favour the Compact of Free Association as the Americans want it, with nuclear and military strings attached; whereas older traditional leaders follow the anti-nuclear activists in defending the nuclear free constitution and opposing the military land options. The Americans and their supporters among the islands’ elite made a concerted effort to get the people to accept a Compact which would serve America’s military needs and force an amendment of the nuclear free constitution. The Kwajalein landowners’ most dramatic and successful protest was Operation Homecoming in 1982, when about 1000 landowners reoccupied their islands, including some which lie in the path of approaching missiles.
