Burned to the ground: Marshall Islands president vows to rebuild the parliament building

The Marshall Islands' parliament building, known as Nitijela, was burned to the ground on Tuesday morning. Photo courtesy of Chewy Lin

By Mar-Vic Cagurangan

Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine promised to immediately rebuild the parliament building, known as Nitijela, which was burned to the ground early Tuesday morning.

In her video message in Marshallese, Heine said, “the authorities are doing their best to explain to us what happened.”

“Although there has been a great deal of destruction in the making of our law, let us remember that the foundation of our freedom and culture will never be shaken and our work of hard work and diligence will never be lost in any way,” the president added.

Chewy Lin, a freelance photographer and filmmaker who lives near the Capitol building, arrived on the scene with his camera when the fire broke out around 1:10 a.m.

He said the blaze started from a shipping container behind the parliament building.

Firefighters managed to put out the fire between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. Photo courtesy of Chewy Lin

“I could see it from outside the gate, but I wasn’t too worried. I thought the fire would be dead soon, but I was there for two hours, and it was still going,” Lin said in a phone interview with the Pacific Island Times.

By 2 a.m., he said, the wind changed direction toward the parliament building and started blowing huge smoke.

Lin said that since the town's fire truck has been inoperational for several months, responders had to call a fire truck stationed at the airport, which is a 30-minute drive away from the capital.

"But for them, it's probably slower, so it came one hour later," he added.

In the succeeding hours, the blaze continued to engulf the parliament building before firefighters managed to put it under control between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m.

Lin said it wasn’t known who owned the container and what caused it to go up in flames.

“It’s been there for a while. In the Marshall Islands, we use containers as storage. I’m not sure what was inside that container,” Lin said.

Photo courtesy of Chewy Lin

He posted the scene photos on Facebook while the fire was taking place, with a note that reads: “I was literally inside the Nitijela this afternoon to take a photo and now that will be the last photograph of the Nitijela.”

In her video message posted on Facebook, Heine said, “I promise that the work of building the Nitjela meeting house will begin within this year.”

More information will be released in the coming days, she added.

“The Nitjeḷa is a symbol of freedom, a place where our leaders come together, where the laws are made, and it is the highest house of the Marshallese people,” the president said.

“The vision of the Nitijeḷa is not only about its glory, but its vision lives in the hearts of the people, in the knowledge of the elders, the voices of the youth, in the hands of those who work for the betterment of our world,” she added.

In an interview with RNZ Pacific, journalist Giff Johnson said the building was completely engulfed by the time the fire truck arrived on site.

He said the parliament chamber and offices, the library and all the archives, “have been all destroyed" and "everything’s wiped out. All the records are gone."

The Nitijela was the seat of the unicameral parliamentary system established by the 1979 RMI constitution.

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