Peace Without Poison

17 October 2014Tommy RemengesauPresident of Palauinfo@palaugov.org, https://www.facebook.com/tommyforpalauPresident Remengesau,619 | P a g eRe: immediate cessation of covert depopulation measuresThe United States, which has administered the Palau Islands as a UN Trust Territory from 1951to 1994, began subverting the reproductive rights of the Palauan people in 1960 and the totalfertility rate declined from 9 to just 3 children per woman by 1980.In June 1996, just two years after gaining its independence, Palau formally joined the UNcoordinated Global Depopulation Policy when “the President of the Republic, by an executiveorder, created the Palau National Committee on Population and Children”, which developed“the National Population Policy (Population and Development: Toward a Palau National Policyfor Sustainable Human Development)” that “covers a wide range of population issues, includingmany of the main concerns of the International Conference On Population and Development(ICPD).” However, the Palau National Congress refused to adopt the Policy, which is why thefertility of the Palauan people levelled off and stalled during the 1990s.In 1999, at the Hague Forum, Palau issued “The Country Statement on the ICPD POA” andcalled again upon the Palau National Congress to adopt the National Policy for SustainableDevelopment and begin implementing the population control measures chosen by the NationalPopulation Policy. I could find no publicly available information that the Palau NationalCongress ever adopted the Policy, but the total fertility rate began decreasing again at thebeginning of the 21 st century, reached 2.47 children per woman by 2005 and sank belowreplacement level shortly thereafter. As of 2014, Palau’s TFR stands at 1.7 children per woman,the lowest in the region.Since Palau’s contraceptive rate is only 21%, the country’s below replacement level fertility ratecould not be the result of contraceptive use, as the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)acknowledges.The answer for the unexplained decrease in Palau’s total fertility rate can be found in the nation’sfood insecurity and in its near total dependence on food imported from the US, which, accordingto the 2006 Household Income and Expenditure Survey, amounts to 97% of all food consumed inPalau. This data appears in the “Mauritius + 5 Status Report: Republic of Palau” from 2010,which also states that the population of Palau in pre-contact times “was in the range of 50,000 to100,000 people” and that “all of these people were fed, clothed, and housed using local