08/30/00 (Pictures Updated 11/22/00 - from Yahoo Gallery)
The series, “mook’s the tale of 57 cities” will have black headers.
(Because today’s writing is too long, I’m writing this Japanese and English separately ^_^;)
Since I’ve luckily had several chances to get “free travels”, I’ve been in 8 countries & 14 cities in Asia, 8 countries & 11 cities in the Pacific Rim, 8 countries & 13 cities in Europe, and 3 countries & 18 cities in the American continent. (It’s a coincidence that I’ve visited 8 countries each in all areas except in AC ^_^;) Because it was not I won a lottery or something, I always had some missions to do in those countries. Therefore, in fact, I’d almost never had a chance to enjoy their domestic lives there, and sometime I didn’t even have a chance to sightseeing in those countries. However, for some countries and cities, I still have something to write about. I hope you’d enjoy my monologues of my travel experiences.
The first tale is about “Republic of Palau”, which is the first foreign country I’ve visited in my life. To tell the truth, I have too many things to talk about this country…(^_^;) I wrote almost 300 pages of my college thesis and directed a TV documentary about Palau, but those are still not enough for me to talk about this country. Palau is such a profoundly fascinating country I have to say…
The pollution is less than 20, 000 people, and it locates in between Guam and Philippines. The name Palau is actually the English name. It’s originally called Belau in their native language. It is well known as one of the best scuba diving spots in the world. However, not many people know that it’d had a “bloody history” via occupied by Spain, Germany, Japan, and US in tern until they got finally independent.
After Germany lost WWI, Japan had received the territory of whole Micronesia without loosing anything. Then Japan occupied Palau for almost 30 years until the US army took there over after WWII. Therefore, there’re still some people who can speak Japanese fluently in Palau, and the president of Palau, Kunio Nakamura is the 2nd Japanese decent president in the world.
However, that is not only the reason why I’m so into Palau. Palau is actually very famous in the world as the first country, which established “Nuclear-Free constitution”. The reason why they decided to have the constitution is simply that they’ve seen what happened at Bikini Islands in Republic of Marshall Islands. The US government had hundreds of nuclear bomb tests at Bikini after the war.
The biggest feature of this constitution is that it has a sentence, which is “No one can bring any kind of nuclear weapons into the territory of Palau, unless more than 75% of voter says “Yes” at an election” (This is not the original sentence in the constitution) . Thus, the US military, whose priority of Nuclear strategy in the Pacific Rim were Guam and Philippines in 1970 and 80s, strongly opposed this constitution. (Even though the land territory of Palau is nothing, their sea territory is huge. And it was going to be a huge loss for them to take a detour between Guam and Philippines)
The first president was assassinated, and the second president died unnaturally (officially, they say it was suicide). Some people said CIA was doing all that. So…the tiny island country became hopeless chaos in politics.
Although even more than 70% of people voted “Yes” once (There was also a huge economic pressure by US at that time), the people in Palau put up with their constitution! As the US had to change their international policy, they finally decided to take their hands off from Palau. A tiny island county unbelievably overcame the biggest powered country in the world with non-violent weapon, called People’s Election!!!
The members of the nuclear-free grassroots group “Krutarren (means “take a hand to a hand” in Belauan )” are mostly housewives in their 30~50s. They, in fact, were nominated for the Novel Peace Prize in 1989. (Actually the winner was M Golvachov, who, I don’t know how to spell, is the former president of USSR.)
The people in Palau, who are surrounded by the beautiful ocean, never think “We have beaten the empire of America”. I think that’s the reason why I cannot help loving them.
I haven’t been to Palau for 7 years since I came to NY. I’m dreaming of visiting Palau again nowadays to relax there without thinking anything…(^_^)
一時は核受け入れの賛成投票が７０％を越えてしまった時もありました。（治安だけでなく、経済的にも相当追い詰められていたので）それでも最後まで、パラオの人達は粘った〜〜〜！90年代に入り、世界情勢の変化と共にアメリカはこの”ゴリ押し政策”から事実上撤退。人口２万にも満たない小さな島国が、実に世界一の大国・アメリカに”住民投票”という非暴力で打ち勝つことが出来たのです！！！