Jack Nidenthal, former RMI Secretary of Health & Human Services and Bikinian by marriage, recently wrote in The Pacific Island Times about the recent mishandling of the Bikini Claims Trust Fund and Resettlement Trust Fund. In it, he addresses the “moral, unending responsibility” of the United States to the nuclear victims of the Marshall Islands, in particular the misuse of Bikinian trust funds after the U.S. Department of Interior ended their oversight of the trust fund. He argues that this responsibility and commitment is not colonialism as some have suggested; it is the reverse of colonialism. He remains adamant that this commitment is “forever” just as the nuclear damage is forever.
He explains that from 1982-2016 the United States and Bikini maintained two trust funds, “a well-honed system that that was something to be proud of.” Quoted in a Pacific Islands Times article in April 2023, Niedenthal said when his term ended in 2016 as the government’s trust liaison, “we were fully auditable and held $128 million in trust in two different funds.” He said the trust funds were spent on the construction of almost 200 concrete houses, medical treatments and scholarships, among other successful social services. They also managed a dive program on Bikini where people could see the USS Saratoga and the HIMJS Nagato that were sunk during Operation Crossroads as target vessels.
However, in 2017, the U.S. Department of Interior under the Trump administration, based on a hastily devised resolution from the KBE Council (Kili-Bikini-Ejit), disengaged from oversight of the dwindling US-provided trust fund. This decision was made without a public hearing in the Marshall Islands or advisement to the U.S. Congress which had created the trust fund. Alson Kelen, former mayor of Bikini and head of the Bikini Council for three years following the global financial collapse of 2008, expressed concern at the time that the fund could be bankrupt in a few years. U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) rebuked the DOI for the unilateral decision to wash its hands of trust fund management that she said she learned of “via a press release.” The Resettlement Trust Fund is now gone, from a total of $71 million the last time the fund was fully audited in 2016 to zero in 2023 with no transparency nor accountability at all.
The New York Times reported on the mishandling of trust funds in May 2023. After the Trump administration lifted spending limits, the KBE Council purchased a small aircraft and two cargo ships as well as construction equipment to build protections against rising seas. Anderson Jibas, mayor of the council, has acknowledged that some trust fund money was used for personal expenses and with difficulty attempted to defend the purchase of 283 acres of land in Hawaii, an apartment complex in Majuro, and multiple new vehicles for the personal use of Bikini council members. Trust funds were also used to pay for regular trips to the United States, and Jibas has been accused by a top Marshall Islands official of receiving kickbacks from an investment manager. The Marshall Islands’ banking commissioner has also accused Jibas of accepting $50,000 from a local bank manager who is being prosecuted on suspicion of unlawfully investing Bikini funds and laundering money.
Jibas began refusing to disclose council finances to the Marshall Island’s auditor general in 2018, and the police seized council documents in 2021. Lani Kramer, now challenging Jibas for the mayoralty, said council members had used public funds for personal spending and grocery shopping, “bringing receipts for diapers and chewing gum.” After former Secretary of Health Jack Niedenthal, wrote officials warning them about the depleted trust fund and requesting their intervention, the Department of Interior began to look into the council’s recent budgets.
Earlier this year, the Biden administration promised to provide the Marshall Islands $700 million in a one-time aid and to continue underwriting much of the government’s budget. Under a treaty, the United States controls the country’s defense policy, which the American government considers crucial to countering China in the region. However, the aid has not yet been approved and with recent U.S. debt limit negotiations this aid remains uncertain.
After leading one of the world’s best and most successful Covid-19 responses through a 38-month state of health emergency, the Public Service Commission cancelled the two-year extension of Niedenthal’s contract with the Ministry of Health for breaching diplomatic protocol. Niedenthal, however, continues to advocate as a Marshall Islands citizen, registered voter for Kili Island, and husband of 34 years, father to five children and grandfather of seven grandchildren, all Bikinians. In the Pacific Island Times, he calls for the United States and the RMI to amend this grievance and create trust funds that have “ironclad rules, restrictions and reporting requirements that will adequately ensure the long-term viability” of funds and allow the nuclear victims in the RMI to do their own “budgeting within those restrictions” with the ultimate goal of “fairness to as many of the beneficiaries as possible.”
Read the original news article of U.S. disengagement of trust fund management in 2017 reported by Giff Johnson in Radio New Zealand: US Senator moves to keep US control of Bikini trust fund.
Read the original editorial in The Pacific Island Times written by Jack Niedenthal: America’s dilemma: US is torn between its responsibility and the Marshalls’ economic freedom.