Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0210/02100.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 25KB | 414 lines

$Unique_ID{COW02100}
$Pretitle{294G}
$Title{Kiribati
Chapter 1.    General Information}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Frederica M. Bunge}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{islands
kiribati
tarawa
banaba
island
government
line
phosphate
gilberts
gilbert}
$Date{1984}
$Log{}
Country:     Kiribati
Book:        Oceania, An Area Study: Kiribati
Author:      Frederica M. Bunge
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1984

Chapter 1.    General Information

Official Name        Republic of Kiribati
Political Status     Independent state (1979)
Capital              Tarawa (Bairiki is
                       administrative center)
Population           61,400 (1984
                       midyear estimate)
Land Area            690 square kilometers
Currency             Australian
                       dollar ($A)
Main Islands         Banaba, Gilbert
  and Island           Islands, Line Islands
  Groups               Phoenix Islands

     Kiribati has an exceptionally large ocean area. Its phosphate resources,
formerly the backbone of the economy, were exhausted by 1979, and its hopes
for an economically independent future lay largely in the promise of the
marine resources within its immense ocean boundaries. Internal regional
development has been highly uneven, favoring the Gilbert Islands and its
principal atoll, Tarawa, the political and economic center of the country.

Physical Environment

     Kiribati (pronounced Kiri-bas) consists of 33 tiny islands; all but one,
Banaba (formerly Ocean Island), are clustered in three principal groups
separated by immense stretches of water. Their combined total land area is
only about 10 times the size of the District of Columbia; but the total ocean
area over which the islands are distributed measures, by various estimates,
from 3.5 to 5 million square kilometers. The predominant Gilbert Islands group
straddles the equator on the western side of the international date line,
northeast of Tuvalu and southeast of the Marshall Islands. Banaba lies
approximately 440 kilometers farther west. At the other extreme end of the
country, the eight Line Islands are located far east of the date line; the
main island of the group, Kiritimati (Christmas), is situated some 2,100
kilometers southeast of Honolulu. Between these extremes are the eight Phoenix
Islands, which lack permanent populations.

     All the islands are low-lying coral atolls, the single exception being
the raised limestone island of Banaba, which rises to a height of 81 meters.
Kiritimati, covering 363.4 square kilometers, is one of the largest coral
formations in the world, but most of the others are patches of sandy, rubbled
coral. Many islands enclose a lagoon. Extensive reef areas, nearly dry at low
tide, surround the atolls, severely limiting access by boat. Foreign vessels
calling at the main overseas port on Tarawa must be served by tugs and barges
from offshore anchorages.

     The difficulty of approaching many atolls by sea, as well as Kiribati's
remoteness and far-flung geography, makes air transport an important means of
communication. Overseas and domestic airlines connected Tarawa's Bonriki
Airport with Nauru, Fiji, and Hawaii during the early 1980s. Expansion of
domestic airline service to the outer islands has been aided by government
support for the construction of airstrips. As of mid-1984 there were
approximately 17 airstrips in the outer islands, most receiving regularly
scheduled domestic flight service.

     The Gilberts are covered with coconut palms and smaller numbers of
pandanus (screw pine) trees that provide construction materials for
traditional buildings. The soil is poor, and organic materials must be added
so that taro and other subsistence crops can grow.

     Northeast and southeast trade winds flowing toward the equator converge
in the area of the Gilberts to form a belt of low-pressure tropical air that
moves across the islands in a regular pattern, dominating the climate. The
mean annual temperature is 27C. Rainfall is heaviest from December to
February, when the doldrums bring disturbed, showery weather. Rainfall in
general is uncertain, however, showing considerable variation not only
seasonally but also within short distances.

     Drought is a problem, especially in the central and southern Gilberts and
in the Phoenix Islands, where a British attempt at resettling some Gilbertese
in the late 1930s had to be abandoned because of water shortages. Other
environmental hazards include occasional storms that can create severe wave
surges. The absence of high ground-only Banaba rises higher than four meters
at any spot-renders freshwater reserves liable to inundation by salt water.

Historical Setting

     Although archaeological artifacts indicate that certain of the Line and
Phoenix islands were at one time inhabited-probably by Polynesian peoples-at
the time of the arrival of the Europeans, only the Gilberts and Banaba were
settled. The origins of the I-Kiribati, as the Gilbertese people are called
locally, remain obscure. Their own oral tradition associates the evolution of
contemporary society with the arrival of Polynesian peoples from the Samoa
Islands centuries ago and their interfusion with indigenous inhabitants. Based
on their present-day physical and cultural attributes, however, both the
Gilbertese and the Banabans are generally classified as Micronesian, having
some degree of Polynesian admixture. It is assumed that they reached the
islands as migrants from the west, possibly from Indonesia.

     Before the arrival of the Europeans, rivalry between various kingdoms and
family alliances created a climate of uncertainty and intermittent warfare.
Invaders attacked from the north, and Gilbertese themselves raided the Ellice
Islands (present-day Tuvalu) to the south. (On the island of Nui, in that
group, a Gilbertese dialect became the lingua franca.) On most islands
authority rested with a group of kin elders, but on two atolls dominant
chieftains held a firm grip on the populace. Struggles for power and control
over land among the various groups were frequent, and continuing rivalry
between the northern and southern sets of islands carried into the late
twentieth century.

     Kiritimati was the first island to be encountered by European explorers.
The Gilberts were first sighted in 1823, the last of the Phoenix group in
1825. After their discovery the islands were regularly visited by whaling and
trading ships. Protestant and Roman Catholic missionaries converted most of
the population to Christianity during the mid- and late nineteenth century,
leaving the Gilbertese about equally divided between the two major branches of
the faith. The islands themselves offered little of value to any colonial
power, given the paucity of their resources, apart from coconut palms. From
about 1850 to 1875, however, blackbirders raided local settlements to kidnap
islanders for use as laborers in Fiji, Tahiti, Hawaii, Australia, and Latin
America. Gilbertese offered fierce, but usually vain, resistance.

     In 1892 Britain established a protectorate over the Gilbert Islands and
the nine nearby Ellice Islands, placing them under the jurisdiction of its
high commissioner for the western Pacific, then based in Fiji (see Fiji, ch.
2). In the Gilberts themselves there was only a small British staff; therefore
the local headmen and magistrates retained considerable authority over their
own affairs. Banaba was annexed in 1900 on evidence of its rich phosphate
resources. In 1916 Britain announced the formation of the Gilbert and Ellice
Islands Colony (GEIC). Banaba and two of the northern Line Islands were
included almost at once, Kiritimati was added in 1919, and the Phoenix Islands
in 1939. A joint British-United States administration of two islands of the
Phoenix group was agreed on in 1939 in partial settlement of conflicting
British and United States claims to the Line and Phoenix groups.

     Apart from copra production, the colonial economy was based