The 23rd International Congress of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, 23 – 29 July, 1986 in Zeist, the Netherlands:

(from Res. on Right of all Indigenous Peoples, etc., adopted at 23rd Congress, 1986)

The Twenty-Third International Congress of WILPF, meeting at Zeist, the Netherlands, 23-29 July 1986,

Recognizing that the Belauan people have resisted some six referenda directed to restricting the nuclear-free provisions of the constitution,

Recognizing that the Kwajelein Atoll traditional landowners have non-violently occupied the US Kwajelein Missile Testing Base for five months after its lease to the USA expired in November 1985 in an attempt to regain their own lands and improve the overcrowded slum conditions the evicted population exists in on the Ebeye Island, entirely dependent on the USA for water, food, health facilities and employment,

Recognizing that the Rongelap Atoll landowners, who left homes in 1985 fearing radioactive contamination from US testing, have not received adequate compensation for the loss of their homes and the rebuilding of their food crops etc., and economy,

Recalling that the United Nations Strategic Trusteeships over Belau (Palau), Marshall Islands and Micronesia, granted to the USA after World War II, committed the administering body (USA) to promote the economic advancement and self-sufficiency of the inhabitants (Article 76 (b) of the United Nations Charter and Article 8 of the Trusteeship Agreement),

Believing that the Compacts of Free Association with the USA with which the Security Council of the United Nations is asked to replace the Trusteeships should not replace the Trusteeships until the Security Council is satisfied, on the independent evidence collected by a special visiting United Nations mission, that the Administering Authority has fully discharged its obligations to the United Nations in its treatment of the inhabitants of these Trust territories,

Urges WILPF International Executive Committee and WILPF sections to advise the President of the Security Council that the Trusteeships should not be terminated until the United Nations Security Council has satisfied itself independently as to the treatment of the inhabitants and landowners by the Administering Authority; and that the Administering Authority presents all three parts of these Trust territories for termination including Belau, simultaneously, as there is no precedent for only parts of a Trusteeship to be terminated.