Tokelau takes on America over 'cursed' island

Telegraph | News | Tiny Tokelau takes on America over 'cursed' island: "As the tiny South Pacific territory of Tokelau decides whether to embrace self-government, it already has a complicated diplomatic row on its hands - with the United States.

In a scenario reminiscent of the vintage Peter Sellers film The Mouse That Roared, the people of the scattered archipelago are taking a tough line with Washington, demanding the return of a "cursed" island they say belongs to them.

Tokelau, which consists of three coral atolls, is awaiting the outcome of a United Nations-monitored referendum on whether its citizens wish to regain the sovereignty they lost to Britain in 1889. With just 1,500 residents, it would become the smallest self-governing state by population, except for the Vatican City, which has 770 inhabitants.

Now it has emerged that New Zealand, to which Britain transferred the administration of Tokelau in 1926, surrendered sovereignty of a disputed fourth island to America 26 years ago.

Known as Olohega to the people of the Pacific, and Swains Island to the Americans, the atoll measures only a mile and a half from east to west, and one mile from north to south, with a large, landlocked lagoon at its centre.

Drawing up a draft constitution for the embryonic nation, the Tokelaun assembly, the General Fono, has defied the wish of embarrassed officials in Wellington by including Olohega as an integral part of its territory.

In the unlikely event that the Pentagon is quaking with alarm at the news, it should be pointed out that Tokelau has no military forces, airports or even a capital. But the islanders lack nothing in determination.

"At the dawn of time the historic islands of Atafu, Nokonunu, Fakaofo and Olohega were created as our home," the territory's new constitution declares.

Tokelau's leaders have even asked the leader of a well-known South Pacific pop group, Opetaia Foa'i, to write a song about the struggle to have Olohega returned.

"Any country would feel an injustice to have an island taken from them, it doesn't matter when," Mr Foa'i said yesterday. "Apart from being traditionally Tokelaun it would really help the population, which is on four square miles. It's a little bit overcrowded. We could do with another island."

Neil Walter, who may turn out to be the last Kiwi administrator of Tokelau if islanders vote for self-government, conceded that the inclusion of Olohega was an "interesting issue". The US embassy in Wellington said it had referred the matter to Washington.

The dispute is the latest twist in a tortuous saga of ownership of Olohega. The island was discovered by a Portuguese navigator, Pedro Fernandes de Quiros, in 1606, who named it Isla de la Gente Hermosa, or the "island of handsome people". It was later conquered by a raiding party from Fakaofo, 100 miles to the north, who killed the men, took the women as wives, and incorporated the atoll into Tokelau. In his dying moments, the island's last chief is said to have placed a curse on the island.

In 1856 it was acquired by a New Yorker, Eli Jennings, who established a successful coconut plantation.

In 1925 a joint resolution of the United States Congress extended sovereignty to the island, and placed it under the jurisdiction of American Samoa. New Zealand surrendered its claim to the atoll in 1980 when the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, a British colony, became the independent states of Kiribati and Tuvalu. Tokelau and Olohega had been administratively part of Gilbert and Ellice.

The current population of Olohega is about 37, most of them descendants of Jennings.

In The Mouse That Roared, a 1959 British comedy, the fictional Duchy of Grand Fenwick pursued a dispute with the US by declaring war and sending an invasion force armed with chainmail and crossbows to New York."