Hawaii Tribune Herald reports on protests in Hilo against statehood. Uncle Sam Kaleleiki is quoted:
Sam Kaleleiki, 73, represents Puna in the House of Representatives of the Reinstated Lawful Hawaiian Government. He’s a big, outspoken man, with the commanding presence of a retired sergeant major in the U.S. Marine Corps. When he speaks, he repeats important points for emphasis. Kaleleiki served for 30 years, in Korea and Vietnam, and then worked 25 more years as a distributor for This Week magazine, retiring in 2003.
He now lives off the grid near the Maku’u Market in Puna, on a plot of land that serves as a meeting place for na kanaka maoli, or the Native Hawaiians.
“The theft continues. And they all know it. All the officials know it,” Kaleleiki said, naming the Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustees and Hawaii’s two U.S. senators. “These are all crooks.”
Also Soli Niheu:
Kihei Soli Niheu, 66, who lives in the Pu’ukapu district near Waimea, said the last legal constitution was promulgated in 1864. Instead of starting from the beginning, citizens should amend the old constitution, he said.
Like Kaleleiki, Niheu served in the military. He was a specialist in the Army Signal Corps in the early 1960s, repairing nuclear weapons and radar installations. Then he studied engineering and travel industry management at San Jose State and the University of Hawaii, graduating in 1968. Niheu traces his education about the colonization of Hawaii to this period. An appreciation of the Hawaiian culture will not free you from bondage, he said. The political aspect must also be pushed.
“If you have an understanding of a culture, that will not release you from the oppression of the colonization,” he said. Many people today have no idea what colonization is.
Niheu’s vision of a Hawaiian government comes from the 1864 Constitution, which has no racial component.
“It wasn’t a race-based government,” he said. “It’s government based upon human rights. I want to make this perfectly clear. Human rights.”
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