Kauanui: Three key arguments against Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act (“Akaka Bill”)

Kauanui’s Comments on Three Key Points Re: H.R. 2314, The Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2009, Passed by the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources on December 16, 2009 (Introduced by Rep. Abercrombie):

THE NAME OF THE BILL ITSELF PERPETUATES A LIE

Why is the bill called the “Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act” instead of “The Native Hawaiian Government Organization Act”? To name this legislation in this way misconstrues the government to government relationship the United States had with the Kingdom, which was distinctly different from the nation-to-nation relationship between the United States and tribal nations within what are now known as the 48 contiguous states. Under the U.S. Constitution, the Hawaiian Kingdom was regarded as a foreign nation, an independent sovereign state. The bill offensively refers to the treaties between the U.S.A. and the Hawaiian Kingdom to try and claim Native Hawaiians as a Native Nation with the special political and legal relationship to the U.S.A. like the relationship the U.S. government asserts in relation to tribal nations. This bill attempts to graft our political genealogy of independence onto a different political lineage with regard to how the U.S.A. treats “Indian tribes” and “foreign nations” differently under U.S. law.

DO PROPONENTS OF THE BILL UNDERSTAND SECTION 8?

This section titled “Reaffirmation of delegation of federal authority, negotiation, claims” reaffirms the U.S. government’s position that it delegates U.S. authority to the State of Hawai`i to address condition of Native Hawaiians under the Hawai`i state admissions act. With regard to negotiations, this section specifies that after the Native Hawaiian governing entity is created, both the United States and the State of Hawaii may enter into negotiations with the Native Hawaiian governing entity. This sets the bill apart from other forms of federal recognition of Native Nations, which do not typically allow the state into any part of the negotiations with the exception of matters related to Indian gaming.

In this bill, the state of Hawai`i is allowed to sit at the table to negotiate over matters including: the transfer of lands, natural resources, and other assets, and the protection of existing rights related to such lands or resources; the exercise of governmental authority over any transferred lands, natural resources, and other assets, including land use; the exercise of civil and criminal jurisdiction; the delegation of governmental powers and authorities to the Native Hawaiian governing entity by the United States and the State of Hawaii; any residual responsibilities of the United States and the State of Hawaii; and grievances regarding assertions of historical wrongs committed against Native Hawaiians by the United States or by the State of Hawaii.

Notice that none of these things are guaranteed in the bill—no land, no jurisdiction, no assets, no governmental power. They are all up for negotiation once representatives of a Native Hawaiian governing entity sit down with the federal and state agents. There is no equal footing here. All negotiations must take place within the framework of U.S. federal law and policy with regard to Indian tribes and under U.S. plenary power, where the U.S.A. asserts total and complete power.

This section of the bill also includes a disclaimer that states that nothing in the Act can create a cause of action against the United States or any other entity or person, nor alter “existing law, including existing case law, regarding obligations on the part of the United States or the State of Hawaii with regard to Native Hawaiians or any Native Hawaiian entity.” Further more, it states that nothing in the bill can create any new obligation to Native Hawaiians under federal law. It also specifically outlines and protects the federal government through sovereign immunity to prevent lawsuits for breach of trust, land claims, resource-protection or resource-management claims, or similar types of claims brought by or on behalf of Native Hawaiians or the Native Hawaiian governing entity.

It also protects the state of Hawai`i by asserting that it “retains its sovereign immunity, unless waived in accord with State law, to any claim, established under any source of law, regarding Native Hawaiians that existed prior to the enactment of this Act.”

DO PROPONENTS OF THE BILL UNDERSTAND SECTION 9?

This section titled “Applicability of Certain Federal Laws,” clarifies that certain laws pertaining to federally recognized Indian tribes would not apply to the Native Hawaiian governing entity. Note that all of these laws that exclude the Native Hawaiian governing entity happen to be laws that greatly benefit tribal nations. The Native Hawaiian governing entity would not be allowed to claim rights under Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. The Native Hawaiian governing entity would not be allowed to have the Secretary of the Interior shall not take land into trust on behalf of the native Hawaiian governing entity. This is important because only land held in trust by the federal government on behalf of Native Nations is allowed to be used by Indian tribes as part of their sovereign land base where they can assert jurisdiction. The Native Hawaiian governing entity would not be allowed to rely on The Indian Trade and Intercourse Act to challenge how the State of Hawaii acquired the Hawaiian Kingdom Crown and Government Lands. No other Native Hawaiian group would be eligible for recognition under the Federal Acknowledgment Process. The Native Hawaiian governing entity would not be eligible for Indian Programs and Services.

Most notably, this section of the bill (e) states that “Nothing in this Act alters the civil or criminal jurisdiction of the United States or the State of Hawaii over lands and persons within the State of Hawaii.” It further states that “The status quo of Federal and State jurisdiction can change only as a result of further legislation, if any, enacted after the conclusion, in relevant part, of the negotiation process established in section 8(b).” In other words, when the representatives of the Native Hawaiian governing entity sit at the table to negotiate with the federal and state agents, they cannot negotiate for and civil or criminal jurisdiction over any land. In order to do so, there would need to be more legislation passed.

–pau–

December 16, 2009December 16, 2009

Lingle turns against Akaka Bill

After Hawaiian independence activists protested on Monday, joined by a chorus of right wing anti-Hawaiian think tanks and media outlets to denounce alleged secret plans to slip the Native Hawaiian federal recognition bill (Akaka Bill) into the Defense Appropriations Bill, Senator Inouye publicly denied that such a rider was in the works.

Now Governor Lingle has come out against the latest markups of the bill, which the administration claims would grant Native Hawaians “inherent powers and privileges of self-determination”. This is laughable on two counts: 1) The Lingle administration contradicts itself, saying it suppports Native Hawaiian self-determination through the Akaka Bill, but objecting to too much self-determination under the proposed latest amendments; and 2) The Akaka Bill was never meant to truly provide for self-determination; it was always about pre-determining the shape and status of a Hawaiian governing entity, limiting the powers and claims of Native Hawaiians and terminating future claims to land and restoration of Hawaiian independence.

The Akaka Bill should be called the “Hawaiian Sovereignty Termination Bill”. At the heart of the conflict over Hawaiian sovereignty is the U.S. interest in securing its hold on Hawaiian land for use by the military. For more than a hundred years, this is all it’s been about.

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http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20091216/NEWS01/912160333/Hawaii+governor+opposes+Akaka+bill+revisions

Posted on: Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Hawaii governor opposes Akaka bill revisions

Governor opposes latest draft, which would make

December 15, 2009

Inouye denies Akaka Bill ‘sneak attack’

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20091215/NEWS21/912150347/+Sneak+attack++claims+dismissed

Posted on: Tuesday, December 15, 2009

‘Sneak attack’ claims dismissed

By John Yaukey

Gannett Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Sen. Daniel K. Inouye denied accusations yesterday by a group of mostly Native Hawaiians that he is trying to avoid public scrutiny of legislation that would grant them historic new status by hiding it in a defense bill.

The legislation in question — known as the Akaka bill for its author, Hawai’i Sen. Daniel Akaka — would grant Native Hawaiians the same status as American Indians. It would create a process for Native Hawaiian self-governance.

“I have never suggested that the Akaka bill be passed and adopted as part of the defense appropriations process,” Inouye said. “I don’t know where this nonsensical suggestion originated.”

The accusations and response come as the decade-old Akaka bill approaches perhaps its best chance for passage yet.

It is scheduled to come before key House and Senate committees this week for votes that would open it up for full congressional consideration. President Obama has promised to sign it.

The group of critical Native Hawaiians, which includes separatists, accused Inouye of a “sneak attack” yesterday and said he was trying to avoid “any public review or input” on the bill.

About 100 people gathered for a demonstration opposing the Akaka bill process yesterday morning at the state Capitol.

‘Ehu Cardwell, a spokes-man for the group, said protesters want Hawai’i’s lawmakers to hold public hearings on the Akaka bill in Hawai’i.

“We need to get the feedback of the people,” he said. “What we’re asking for is a transparent process.”

Akaka was as unhappy as Inouye about the accusations.

“It is very frustrating that opponents intentionally seek to spread misinformation about the bill,” Akaka spokesman Jesse Broder Van Dyke said last night. “This should call their credibility into question once again.”

The Akaka bill has strong support among some Native Hawaiians, but others oppose it for multiple reasons. Separatists, who believe Hawai’i should be released from statehood, don’t believe it goes far enough.

Other critics say they are worried about how claims for land under the Akaka bill would be handled.

The legislation would develop a process for organizing a Native Hawaiian government. It would rewrite the political landscape in Hawai’i, giving Native Hawaiians virtually the same rights conferred on American Indians and Native Alaskans. Eventually, it could give Native Hawaiians greater control over their highly valuable ancestral lands — some 1.8 million acres annexed in 1898.

Some prominent members of the Native Hawaiian legal community have issues with the Akaka bill, although their objections focus on details and not the overall thrust of the legislation.

In a four-page analysis of the legislation, the Native Hawaiian Bar Association said some provisions would grant the federal government too much immunity against potential claims by Native Hawaiians, especially for land.

“The bill’s provisions on claims and federal sovereign immunity appear to be overly broad and may prohibit lawsuits by individual Native Hawaiians,” the bar association wrote. “They create an extraordinarily unusual circumstance in which Native Hawaiians are barred from bringing an action.”

Congress has taken up the legislation seven times since it was first introduced in 2000. The bill has passed the House twice but has never cleared the Senate, where legislation sometimes requires 60 of 100 votes, and where a single senator can place a hold on a bill.

Akaka has said he expects he’ll need 60 votes to eventually pass the bill.

Opponents of the legislation, which has changed shape several times, say the bill challenges the American principle of equality and opens doors to political volatility among Native Hawaiians.

In 2006, the Justice Department under President George W. Bush argued that the Akaka bill would “divide people by their race.”

Justice Department officials from the Obama administration have been negotiating with the Hawai’i delegation about fine points in the bill, but the department support

December 14, 2009December 14, 2009

Opponents of Akaka Bill stage protest, accuse senator of ‘back-door’ tactics

This morning approximately forty Hawaiian sovereignty supporters staged a demonstration at the State Capitol in response to reports that Congress might amend the Defense Appropriation Bill to include the controversial Native Hawaiian federal recognition bill (Akaka Bill), thereby expediting its passage. A press release stated:

BULLETIN – AKAKA BILL SNEAK ATTACK

A few select individuals headed by the Hawai`i delegation in Washington DC and locally are working to “sneak” the Akaka Bill into the Defense Appropriations bill this coming week.

These individuals have scheduled mark-ups of the Akaka Bill in both the House and Senate Committees for this coming week, which will allow them to “jam” a version of the bill into the Defense Appropriations Bill or similar piece of legislation.

It should come as no surprise that this attempt is spearheaded by none other than Daniel Inouye, who is the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

If they are able to do this, the Akaka bill will pass and become law.

Where is the voice of the people in this process? Why are the people not allowed to review bill mark-ups and share their input to those who are elected to serve us? Why is the Akaka Bill being snuck into the Defense Appropriations or any other bill?

Everyone needs to be alerted, so they can voice their concerns and opposition. Please forward this email to your friends and family.

Everyone should be outraged at these individuals who are working overtime to sneak the Akaka Bill into the Defense Appropriations Bill, while the issues such as: war, homelessness, unemployment, health care, and education are unresolved issues.

One would think that these individuals would be spending their efforts towards resolving these crises, rather than forcing the Akaka Bill down our throats. It?s obvious these individuals are doing “business as usual”, behind closed doors and without transparency. What happened to CHANGE?

Whether you live in Hawai`i or not, whether you?re Hawaiian or not, now is the critical time to help, especially if you see your representative?s name and contact info below.

Please, everyone should begin Monday morning contacting as many of the following individuals via phone calls and written testimony as you can to express your outrage.

Tell them you demand a transparent and open process for the Akaka bill as stand alone legislation. Insist that they not bury it by attaching it to any other bill.

Also visit http://StopAkakaBill.com and http://FreeHawaii.Info for the latest updates and information.

The demonstration was sparked by a tip from anonymous Washington D.C. sources that once the markup on the Akaka bill was completed this week, the bill would be amended to the Defense Appropriations Bill to ensure a speedy passage, a familiar trick in Congress. While it is impossible to know for sure that such an amendment was in the works, the action surely preempted that possibility.

Senator Inouye issued the following statement in response to the accusations:

“I have never suggested that the Akaka Native Hawaiian Recognition Bill be passed and adopted as part of the defense appropriations process. I don’t know where this nonsensical suggestion originated. The Akaka Bill for the past many years has been considered under what we call the regular order. It has had hours upon hours of hearings, many, many revisions and amendments and has gone through the scrutiny of three administrations. We have had hearings in Washington and in Hawaii. It is not a measure that has been shepherded in the dark of the night. It has been fully transparent.”

Pro-Hawaiian independence groups have opposed the Akaka bill because it will ‘settle’ (read ‘extinguish’) sovereignty and land claims while subordinating Native Hawaiians to the Department of the Interior. Meanwhile, right wing anti-Hawaiian groups such as the Grassroots Institute, Aloha For All and the Heritage Foundation have opposed the Akaka Bill as “race-based” “special rights”. What gets confusing is that there is a Christian Right element active in the Hawaiian independence movement, some of whom have worked closely with the right wing Anti-Hawaiian groups like the Heritage Foundation. In fact, the “sneak attack” language of the protest, troubling because of its oblique reference to the Pearl Harbor attack and its tinge of anti-Japanese racism, was consistent with the theme emanating from the right wing think tanks. And it seems that it was the conservative media here and here that carried the story far and wide on the internet, causing Inouye’s angry response. However, this episode raises important questions for the Hawaiian independence movement: Do you know who you are in bed with?

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http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=11676367

Opponents of Akaka Bill stage protest, accuse senator of ‘back-door’ tactics

Posted: Dec 14, 2009 2:04 PM Updated: Dec 14, 2009 4:47 PM

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Opponents of the Akaka Bill staged a protest Monday morning near the Hawaii State Capitol, accusing Senator Daniel Inouye of planning to “jam” the Native Hawaiian recognition bill into a defense spending measure, virtually guaranteeing its passage. Senator Inouye’s office responded quickly, calling the suggestion “nonsensical”.

Ehu Cardwell of the Koani Foundation said in a statement that Inouye was “planning to insert the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2009 into the Defense Appropriations Bill or one of several others coming before Congress this week.

“The effort would virtually guarantee passage of the Akaka bill through a “back-door” tactic, thus circumventing any public review or input” Cardwell said.

In his statement, Inouye referenced the numerous hearings and proposed amendments that the bill has undergone since it was originally proposed in 2000. He said the proposed law “has gone through the scrutiny of three administrations…it has been fully transparent.”

The Akaka Bill is officially known as the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2009. It would establish a process whereby Native Hawaiians would be able to set up a governing entity similar to those of numerous Native American nations on the mainland.

December 1, 2009December 1, 2009

Revealing Hawaiian ‘secrets’, facilitating Hawaiian acquiescence

In July 2009, Chinook helicopters whisked a group of Kanaka Maoli leaders to Makua valley, purportedly to visit cultural sites and gain an understanding of the Army’s cultural preservation efforts. As the choppers descended on the valley from the sea, you could imagine Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries over the signature slow, dull thud of the Chinook rotors. When the Hawaiian leaders got off the chopper, however, they were mobbed by a flock of reporters who snapped photos and video to tout the Army’s outreach efforts to Native Hawaiians. The incident caused significant pilikia (trouble) in the Hawaiian community. The image of renowned leaders in the Hawaiian movement were used to sell the message that Kanaka Maoli support the Army’s return to training in Makua.

At the time, it was not known that this publicity stunt was part of an aggressive community relations campaign by the Army to win over Kanaka Maoli support for its training. In March 2008, the Army awarded a hefty two-year “Facilitation Services Contract” (W912CN08C0051) to Annelle Amaral, a former state legislator, long time women’s rights advocate and leader in the Hawaiian community. The first year award was $246,272 a year, up to a total of $492,544.

A half-million dollars ought to buy a lot of facilitation services. The question is what is the scope of work under the contract, and why did she, a civil rights leader in the community, accept a contract that in essence helps the military better control the Hawaiian community as they are being assaulted with desecration, environmental destruction and land grabbing. Over the past several years, Ms. Amaral facilitated a number of public meetings on military environmental impact statements, including the controversial Stryker brigade EIS hearings where some of us were arrested for bringing signs and visual displays into the meeting. Perhaps it was this willingness to be tough with activists that won her this half million dollar deal. But it was terribly sad and deeply troubling to have Kanaka Maoli facilitators doing the dirty work of shutting down their own people and shielding the military from the well-deserved wrath of the community.

It seems from the article below, the services also include “proactive” outreach where leaders in the Kanaka Maoli community build ties with military leaders. While teaching the military about Hawaiian culture can seem harmless enough, even beneficial in some instances, the problem arises when these activities are part of an orchestrated campaign to mask real conflicts and grievances and to blur the contradictions between the interests of the military versus the Kanaka Maoli community. It is also a way to identify and organize those individuals in the community who support the military’s position, and attempt to neutralize or marginalize potential opponents. In community organizing, this is called “counter organizing”. In military doctrine it is “counter insurgency”. The goal is to establish control of a population.

Whether or not Ms. Amaral truly believes that she is helping Hawaiians by sensitizing the military to Hawaiian concerns, at the end of the day, her services help the Army to divide the community and suppress opposition, in essence to deliver her own community to military control.

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http://www.army.mil/-news/2009/09/06/27035-way-of-the-warrior-native-hawaiian-lecture-series-reveals-ancient-secrets/

Way of the Warrior: Native Hawaiian lecture series reveals ancient secrets

Sep 6, 2009

By Bill Mossman, U.S. Army Garrison-Hawaii Public Affairs

SCHOFIELD BARRACKS, Hawaii – The much-anticipated Native Hawaiian lecture series got off to a rousing start, Friday, as military leaders were introduced to one of Hawaii’s best-kept secrets: the ancient fighting art known as lua.

Practiced by the chiefs’ elite fighting forces in olden times, lua went underground for decades before resurfacing in recent years, thanks in part to event guest speaker Dr. Mitchell Eli.

An olohe (master) lua, Eli is a former student of Charles Kenn, the man credited with preserving the martial art for today’s generation of students.

“One thing about Hawaiians is that we are very good at keeping secrets,” explained emcee Annelle Amaral, Native Hawaiian liaison for U.S. Army Garrison-Hawaii (USAG-HI), to about 120 guests as they dined at the Nehelani, Schofield Barracks. “We have had to keep secrets, under self-preservation and the need to protect that, which is sacred … for too many generations.

“But what we have learned in contemporary days,” she continued, “is that within the telling of secrets, in the sharing of the knowledge of our kupuna, we have made our young people proud of their kupuna, made them proud of who they are.”

When it was his turn to speak, Eli first thanked the U.S. Army for a forum in which to share the history of lua. Then, after briefly discussing his background and familiarity with the Wahiawa community, Eli informed the Army’s senior leadership that they would be treated to a 35-minute film that would best explain the Hawaiian martial art.

Hosted by Green Beret Terry Schappert, the action-packed film, which first aired back in May on the History Channel, featured Schappert’s introduction to lua – a complex fighting system specializing in bone-breaking and joint-dislocating strikes with the hands and feet, as well as mastery over a slew of ancient weapons.

For Eli, a chiropractor who rarely speaks about lua in public, the film was an opportunity to demonstrate that members of differing cultures could come together for a common cause. Or as he put it, the video production was made possible through “the combination of good works between our culture, the military and those who assisted us.”

Following the presentation, Col. Teresa Parsons admitted the film was an “eye-opening experience” for her.

“I’ve always seen replicas of the war instruments, but I never knew of the skill sets of the Hawaiian warrior,” explained Parsons, who’s in her third tour of duty in Hawaii and currently working out of Tripler Army Medical Center. “I’m in awe, and have a new respect for another aspect of the Hawaiian tradition.”

Parsons was particularly fascinated by the leiomano, a handheld weapon fashioned with serrated tiger shark teeth on one end and a spear on the other. In the film, lua warriors demonstrated how the weapon could be used for lethal blows that tear away at not only flesh and sinew, but even bone.

“They made some serious holes with that weapon,” she commented. “I don’t even know if today we could repair the injuries that they have the ability to cause.”

Sponsored by USAG-HI through a $5,000 donation from the Kamehameha Schools, the event brought together the military community, including host Col. Matthew Margotta, commander, USAG-HI, and Hawaiian leaders from various Royal Hawaiian Societies charged with preserving Hawaiian culture

Societies in attendance included the Royal Order of Kamehameha, Hale O Na Alii, Ahahui Kaahumanu and the Daughters and Sons of Hawaiian Warriors, also known as Mamakakaua.

“We intentionally set up our tables so that there would be military and Hawaiians at them,” Amaral noted. “This will hopefully help when it comes to exchanging ideas with one another.”

The evening program began with Rev. William Kaina of Kawaihao Church offering the pule (prayer), in which he thanked the Soldiers in attendance for their dedicated service. Noted kumu hula Wayne Kahoonei Panoke followed. He offered a chant to introduce members of the Royal Order of Kamehameha, Chapter VIII, who were dressed in full regalia.

The members then offered a lei as hookupu (gift given in exchange for spiritual power, or mana) to a picture of Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole – as did Col. Margotta, who honored the Hawaiian monarch with a maile lei.

According to Amaral, Prince Kuhio is not only credited with restoring the Royal Societies following the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, but with also being olohe lua to Kenn

Amaral added that she’s hoping to have Nainoa Thompson speak in September, when the second of a four-part lecture series resumes. Thompson is a Native Hawaiian navigator famous for commanding two double-hulled canoes, the Hokulea and Hawaiiloa, on voyages from Hawaii through Polynesia. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees for the Kamehameha Schools.

October 14, 2009

Kehaulani Kauanui to speak and launch book: Hawaiian Blood

JOIN US FOR AN EVENING WITH THE AUTHOR OF

HAWAIIAN BLOOD: COLONIALISM AND THE POLITICS OF SOVEREIGNTY AND INDIGENEITY

In the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1921, the U.S. Congress defined “native Hawaiians” as those people “with at least one-half blood quantum of individuals inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands prior to 1778.” This “blood logic” has since become an entrenched part of the legal system in Hawai’i.

Hawaiian Blood is the first comprehensive history and analysis of this federal law that equates Hawaiian cultural identity with a quantifiable amount of blood. J. Kehaulani Kauanui explains how blood quantum classification emerged as a way to undermine Hawaiian sovereignty. Kauanui provides an impassioned assessment of how the arbitrary correlation of ancestry and race imposed by the U.S. government on the indigenous people of Hawai‘i has had far-reaching legal and cultural effects.

October 23rd, 2009

6:00 PM – 8:00 PM

Native Books / Na Mea Hawai‘i

Ward Warehouse (Ewa end, under the Old Spaghetti Factory)

1050 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 1000, Honolulu, HI 96814

Phone (O‘ahu): (808) 597-8967

Toll-free (Neighbor Islands): 800-887-7751

Fax: (808) 596-7742

J. Kehaulani Kauanui is an associate professor of anthropology and American studies at Wesleyan University. Currently, she is working on her second book titled, Thy Kingdom Come? Gender & Sexuality in Hawaiian Nationalist Politics–a critical study on gender and sexual politics vis-à-vis state-centered Hawaiian nationalism and the disavowal of Hawaiian indigeneity. Kehaulani was part of the founding steering committee for the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, established in 2008, and is currently a council member serving a three year term. She is the producer and host of a public affairs radio program, “Indigenous Politics: From Native New England and Beyond,” on WESU that is syndicated on five other stations through the Pacifica-radio network.

October 9, 2009October 9, 2009

‘Ike: Historical Transformations: Reading Hawai’i’s Past to Probe Its Future

Download the event flyer

DATE: Saturday, October 24th, 2009, 10am-5pm

FEATURED PRESENTERS:

Kamana Beamer
Lorenz Gonschor
Kūhiō Vogeler
moderated by Lynette Cruz

Kekuni Blaisdell
Ikaika Hussey
Terri Kekoolani
Jon Osorio

J. Kehaulani Kauanui
Maivân Clech Lâm
Keanu Sai
moderated by Jon Osorio

and others yet to be confirmed:

Kamakakuokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies (Map/Directions)

2645 Dole St. Honolulu, HI 96822

Info: Attendance is free.

1. Recovering our Political Past: Who Votes? For What Political Status? As Hawaii continues to experience a series of political transformations first launched by its contact with the West and continuing now through the introduction of the Akaka Bill in the U.S. Congress, we focus on two key issues that substantially shaped those transformations: WHO made the decisions that produced the transformations, and what CHOICES did they consider and not consider? Key historical moments will be presented through speeches as might have been delivered in 1882, 1888, 1893, 1898, 1959, 2000, 2009. Presenters include Kuhio Vogeler, Kamana Beamer, Lorenz Gonshor, and others TBD. Moderated by Lynette Cruz.

Co-sponsored by Ka Lei Maile Ali’i Hawaiian Civic Clubs. 10:00 am.

2. History of Hawaiian Political Activism: 1887 to the Present. Kekuni Blaisdell, Ikaika Hussey, Terri Kekoolani, and Jon Osorio examine the various individuals and/or historical developments that were key to the several political transformations of Hawaii since Kamehameha I first established it as a united kingdom. Exploring among others, some of the various political groups in the 19th century Hawaiian Kingdom, the Ku’e petitions, the 1960 land struggles, the 1993 Sovereignty Tribunal, as well as contemporary examples as to how current political activism might redefine the map of Hawai’i’s political future.

Co-sponsored by M.A.N.A. and Kanaka Maoli Tribunal Working Group.12:30 pm.

3. International Routes: De-occupation, Decolonization and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Keanu Sai, J. Kehaulani Kauanui, and Maivan Lam discuss the modern trajectory of the Hawaiian Islands within the context of, among other topics, Hague Regulations on the law of occupation, the U.N. Decolonization Protocols, and the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This panel seeks to assess the relative merits that are rooted in international relations and international law, and which offer far fuller redress for the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy than is contemplated in, for example, the U.S. Congress’ Akaka Bill.

Co-sponsored by Ka Pakaukau. 3:00 pm.

‘Ike: Historical Transformations is presented by Kamakakuokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies and ‘Imi Pono Projects.

All times subject to change, please check back for confimation.

For more information contact arnie@imipono.org

stills/photos by Jon Brekke, unknown and David Ma

September 16, 2009

Sovereignty advocates disrupt Akaka Bill presentation

Who speaks for Hawaiians?

A meeting on the Akaka Bill reveals a divided community

By Alan D. Mcnarie
Wednesday, September 16, 2009 10:30 AM HST

“We don’t want nobody to give huhu,” said ILWU business agent Wallace Ishibashi. “We agree to disagree on that issue….”

“That issue” was the Akaka Bill, which would set up a framework for creating a native Hawaiian governmental body that the U.S. would recognize. With the Obama Administration’s support, the long-stymied bill now appears to be headed for passage. Ishibashi had organized a series of meetings with native Hawaiian leaders at the ILWU’s leadership hall to disseminate information and exchange views about the bill. The ILWU’s state leadership supports the bill, but the Hilo meetings recognized both sides of the issue. In one meeting, union members had talked with OHA Trustee Bob Lindsey, who supports the bill; another had tapped the views of Hawaiian sovereignty groups that opposed it.

The Sept. 7 meeting, where Ishibashi made his “no huhu” remark, brought the opposing sides together: Lindsey shared the podium with Jade and Robin Danner of Hawaiian Homestead Technology, Inc., who had testified on the bill and who supported the it with some amendments; the audience held far more sovereignty activists than union members. The idea of the meeting was for the Danner sisters to brief everyone on the exact contents of the current bill, which had undergone major revisions over its 10-year history. But Ishibashi’s “no huhu” dream was quickly shattered, as the meeting turned from a briefing session into an acrimonious debate, and sometimes into a literal shouting match between supporters and opponents.

“That’s treasonous,” said one sovereignty activist of the bill. “You’re creating a native uprising among our countrymen.”

Over the course of the five-and-a-half-hour meeting, the Danners outlined how the bill would grant recognition to a government formed by Native Hawaiians. First, the U. S. Secretary of the Interior would appoint a nine-member commission to create a list of eligible Native Hawaiian voters who wanted to participate in the new government. “Native Hawaiian,” here, is defined by a 27-line-long description, but basically would be determined by whether or not someone could prove he had an aboriginal ancestor in Hawaii prior to the overthrow, or who could trace an ancestor who was “eligible in 1921 for the programs authorized in the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act.” No blood quantum would be involved. Those Native Hawaiian voters would then elect an assembly to create a constitution, which would then have to be ratified by the voters on the eligibility roll and accepted by the Secretary of the Interior. After that, a native Hawaiian “governing entity” would be elected, whose powers would include authorization to negotiate with the “federal, state and local governments and other entities,” to protect the civil rights of participating Native Hawaiians, and to “prevent the sale, disposition, lease or encumbrance of lands, interests in lands, or other assets of the Native Hawaiian Governing Entity.”

That “governing entity” would still fall well short of a sovereign state, however. It could not, for instance, negotiate treaties with foreign governments or raise a standing army. And, thanks to a Bush-era concession, it could not authorize gambling.

The Danners’ presentation was repeatedly interrupted by sovereignty supporters who disagreed with the bill’s language and/or content. The Danners and audience members sometimes argued over who had interrupted whom.

Kale Gumapac of the Kanaka Council said that the account of Hawaiian history included in the bill skipped a large section of history that was key to the case for sovereignty. Others asked why the document hadn’t been translated into Hawaiian, why kupuna councils hadn’t been consulted, and why the nine appointed commission members were not required to be Hawaiians themselves. The answer, according to Jade Danner: Originally, the panel members were required to be Hawaiian, but that language was deleted in order to avoid a legal challenge, such as the ones Kamehameha Schools and OHA had faced about racial discrimination. Instead, the bill requires a person to know the Hawaiian language and to have at least “10 years of experience in the study and determination of Native Hawaiian geneology.” Most of all, the bill’s opponents challenged the right of any government to take over lands and assets that, they claimed, belonged to the Kingdom of Hawai’i.

Among those assets, according to Lindsey, would be those controlled by OHA, which gets revenues from former crown and government lands — lands usually called “ceded lands,” but which some sovereigns call the “Mahele Land Trust.”

“The Office of Hawaiian Affairs, once this government is created, disappears. It will be absorbed,” Lindsey said, though Jade Danner disagreed that OHA’s demise was inevitable.

“That is a likely outcome of the negotiations, but it’s not an absolute,” she told the Big Island Weekly afterward.

Also up for negotiation could be the property administered by Department of Hawaiian Homelands — which raises the stakes for everyone in the state, because of the DHHL’s habit of leasing its land for public and commercial facilities. In Hilo, for instance, DHHL land sits beneath the airport, the sewage treatment plant, and Prince Kuhio Plaza, Wal-Mart, Office Max, Ross, Home Depot, and the future Safeway and Target sites, among other assets.

Many sovereignty supporters maintain that those assets still belong to the Kingdom of Hawai’i, which they claim was illegally overthrown and so, according to international law, still exists.

They disagree among themselves about who exactly the legal heir to the kingdom is — several different groups claim to be the true successors — but few people in the union hall audience seemed to think that those assets should belong to a government set up under the Akaka Bill.

The Danners argued that the bill would not extinguish any claims of the Kingdom; that it was federal law, dealing with the assets and problems of Native Hawaiians under an existing federal framework.

Jade Danner said she supported the reinstatement of the Kingdom of Hawai’i. But she argued that re-recognition of the kingdom was a long-term project that could take a century or more. When one Hawaiian elder suggested that “What we need is the blue hats (United Nations peacekeepers)” to come in and enforce Hawaiians’ rights, Danner said currently 75 percent of the “blue hats” were U.S. troops, and the U.S. was hardly likely to send them in to fight its own troops. A long-term campaign was needed, she said, to change the American peoples’ minds.

In the mean time, she contended, Native Hawaiians could use the Akaka Bill to tackle problems such as the high rate of diabetes among their people, and give legal weight to their own customs, such as the reconciliation process of ho’oponopono.

She didn’t appear to win many converts.

“You’re actually allowing the perpetuity of an illegal system,” argued one sovereignty supporter.

“It’s just another form of capture,” said another of the Akaka Bill framework.

“It’s as though you’re creating a wholly separate government for a fictitious Hawaiian people,” said Gumapac.

“The people who are pushing this bill are trying to divide the Hawaiian people,” contended Rev. Ron Fujimoto, a non-Hawaiian who has worked for years with Hawaiian groups.

But others recognized that Hawaiians were already divided, and their internal conflicts were making them easier for outsiders to exploit.

“As long as we are as divided as we are, Congress is saying, hey, let us go….” said one elder. “There is a wealth of knowledge here. Let us come together as one common force.

But as the meeting broke up, that unity had yet to be achieved. Toward its end, when one Hawaiian corrected another about the origins of the Hawaiian flag, Ishibashi sighed.

“We can’t even get together on one flag,” he said.

Source: http://www.bigislandweekly.com/articles/2009/09/16/read/news/news01.txt

September 1, 2009September 1, 2009

Inouye hooks Native Hawaiians with military earmarks

Last week, Senator Daniel Inouye was a keynote speaker at the annual conference of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement (CNHA).

He began his speech with a classic Inouye-esque statement, an understated and oblique put down of recent protests of the statehood commemorations:

The shaping of public policy can occur in many different ways. It can be done gently and by consensus. It can come as a result of negotiation and compromise. It can occur violently, amid hostile protest. As it relates to setting the course for a more hopeful policy for the benefit of Native people, of Native Hawaiians, it is important that we know our history.

He seems to imply that those who choose the path of protest don’t know their history and that he will give them the correct history. The problem is that it is he who confuses the history. He states in the speech:

Native Hawaiians are Native Americans.

Hawai’i is not a part of America. It is an archipelago more than 2000 miles away. Native Hawaiians are indigenous people to the Hawaiian islands and the independent nation state that they created, the Hawaiian Kingdom.

He then erroneously equates the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom to the termination of Native nations by the U.S. government:

And, like the Native tribes whose federally recognized status was terminated, Hawaii’s monarchy was also terminated and the Native Hawaiian government illegally overthrown. As such, the Native Hawaiian people never voluntarily gave up or extinguished their sovereignty. The Hawaiian protests on Statehood day dampened the commemoration of our 50th anniversary. There was a sadness, as it bruised our conscience. It made clear to me that reconciliation is long overdue.

The sovereignty of an independent nation state cannot be terminated in the same way the U.S. government can terminate its recognition of domestic dependent native nations. The U.S. had no legal basis to assume sovereignty over the Hawaiian islands without a proper treaty of annexation between two legitimate sovereign governments.

What I found revealing was the examples he chose to highlight of Native Hawaiian successes. The first two were the Native Hawaiian heads of two military projects:

I was on Maui last Friday for a few events. The first was to celebrate the designation of the Maui Supercomputer as an official resource center of the Department of Defense because of their outstanding performance. What began as an earmark is today a budgeted Pentagon asset. The man in charge – a Native Hawaiian. Gene Bal.

The next Maui event was also to celebrate an earmark – the Joint Information Technology Center – becoming an official $20 million dollar program of the Department of Defense. The President & CEO – a Native Hawaiian. Vaughn Vasconcellos.

So military contracts is one of the selling points for federal recognition. The Maui Supercomputer, which is run by the University of Hawai’i, is a boondoggle that supports the dangerously provocative missile defense programs that are tested over the Pacific. 95% of its work is military related. The Joint Information Technology Center is a military owned system that is managed by Akimeka, a Native Hawaiian owned military technology company. Akimeka is one of the leading companies that have cashed in on special contracting set asides for Native owned companies. Under the normal 8A set asides for minority and women owned companies, the contract amounts are capped and the procurement process is competitive. Under the ‘special’ 8A for Native American, Native Alaskan, and Native Hawaiian owned companies, the contracts are sole source awards (i.e. noncompetitive) and unlimited in amount. This has led to problems with fraud and abuse with some of the Alaska Native owned companies that turned out to be fronts for large defense contractors.

The dope of military earmarks is an powerful temptation. We’ll see who will line up for their fix.

August 10, 2009August 10, 2009

Is it now a crime to be poor? Honolulu among top ten ‘meanest’ cities

Honolulu made the top ten list for America’s ‘meanest’ cities to the homeless. Why are we surprised? Because we believed the saccharine propaganda about ‘aloha spirit’? The homeless, or houseless are mostly Kanaka Maoli, Native Hawaiians who really constitute an internally displaced population, one of the ‘gifts’ of statehood. I guess that is why the government tries so hard to sweep them under the rug, or into the sea. They are the painful reminder of the crimes the United States committed against the sovereign nation of Hawai’i and the tragedy it has wrought on the Kanaka Maoli people.

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August 9, 2009

Op-Ed Contributor

Is It Now a Crime to Be Poor?

By BARBARA EHRENREICH

IT’S too bad so many people are falling into poverty at a time when it’s almost illegal to be poor. You won’t be arrested for shopping in a Dollar Store, but if you are truly, deeply, in-the-streets poor, you’re well advised not to engage in any of the biological necessities of life – like sitting, sleeping, lying down or loitering. City officials boast that there is nothing discriminatory about the ordinances that afflict the destitute, most of which go back to the dawn of gentrification in the ’80s and ’90s. “If you’re lying on a sidewalk, whether you’re homeless or a millionaire, you’re in violation of the ordinance,” a city attorney in St. Petersburg, Fla., said in June, echoing Anatole France’s immortal observation that “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges.”

In defiance of all reason and compassion, the criminalization of poverty has actually been intensifying as the recession generates ever more poverty. So concludes a new study from the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, which found that the number of ordinances against the publicly poor has been rising since 2006, along with ticketing and arrests for more “neutral” infractions like jaywalking, littering or carrying an open container of alcohol.

The report lists America’s 10 “meanest” cities – the largest of which are Honolulu, Los Angeles and San Francisco – but new contestants are springing up every day. The City Council in Grand Junction, Colo., has been considering a ban on begging, and at the end of June, Tempe, Ariz., carried out a four-day crackdown on the indigent. How do you know when someone is indigent? As a Las Vegas statute puts it, “An indigent person is a person whom a reasonable ordinary person would believe to be entitled to apply for or receive” public assistance.

That could be me before the blow-drying and eyeliner, and it’s definitely Al Szekely at any time of day. A grizzled 62-year-old, he inhabits a wheelchair and is often found on G Street in Washington – the city that is ultimately responsible for the bullet he took in the spine in Fu Bai, Vietnam, in 1972. He had been enjoying the luxury of an indoor bed until last December, when the police swept through the shelter in the middle of the night looking for men with outstanding warrants.

It turned out that Mr. Szekely, who is an ordained minister and does not drink, do drugs or curse in front of ladies, did indeed have a warrant – for not appearing in court to face a charge of “criminal trespassing” (for sleeping on a sidewalk in a Washington suburb). So he was dragged out of the shelter and put in jail. “Can you imagine?” asked Eric Sheptock, the homeless advocate (himself a shelter resident) who introduced me to Mr. Szekely. “They arrested a homeless man in a shelter for being homeless.”

The viciousness of the official animus toward the indigent can be breathtaking. A few years ago, a group called Food Not Bombs started handing out free vegan food to hungry people in public parks around the nation. A number of cities, led by Las Vegas, passed ordinances forbidding the sharing of food with the indigent in public places, and several members of the group were arrested. A federal judge just overturned the anti-sharing law in Orlando, Fla., but the city is appealing. And now Middletown, Conn., is cracking down on food sharing.

If poverty tends to criminalize people, it is also true that criminalization inexorably impoverishes them. Scott Lovell, another homeless man I interviewed in Washington, earned his record by committing a significant crime – by participating in the armed robbery of a steakhouse when he was 15. Although Mr. Lovell dresses and speaks more like a summer tourist from Ohio than a felon, his criminal record has made it extremely difficult for him to find a job.

For Al Szekely, the arrest for trespassing meant a further descent down the circles of hell. While in jail, he lost his slot in the shelter and now sleeps outside the Verizon Center sports arena, where the big problem, in addition to the security guards, is mosquitoes. His stick-thin arms are covered with pink crusty sores, which he treats with a regimen of frantic scratching.

For the not-yet-homeless, there are two main paths to criminalization – one involving debt, and the other skin color. Anyone of any color or pre-recession financial status can fall into debt, and although we pride ourselves on the abolition of debtors’ prison, in at least one state, Texas, people who can’t afford to pay their traffic fines may be made to “sit out their tickets” in jail.

Often the path to legal trouble begins when one of your creditors has a court issue a summons for you, which you fail to honor for one reason or another. (Maybe your address has changed or you never received it.) Now you’re in contempt of court. Or suppose you miss a payment and, before you realize it, your car insurance lapses; then you’re stopped for something like a broken headlight. Depending on the state, you may have your car impounded or face a steep fine – again, exposing you to a possible summons. “There’s just no end to it once the cycle starts,” said Robert Solomon of Yale Law School. “It just keeps accelerating.”

By far the most reliable way to be criminalized by poverty is to have the wrong-color skin. Indignation runs high when a celebrity professor encounters racial profiling, but for decades whole communities have been effectively “profiled” for the suspicious combination of being both dark-skinned and poor, thanks to the “broken windows” or “zero tolerance” theory of policing popularized by Rudy Giuliani, when he was mayor of New York City, and his police chief William Bratton.

Flick a cigarette in a heavily patrolled community of color and you’re littering; wear the wrong color T-shirt and you’re displaying gang allegiance. Just strolling around in a dodgy neighborhood can mark you as a potential suspect, according to “Let’s Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice,” an eye-opening new book by Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor in Washington. If you seem at all evasive, which I suppose is like looking “overly anxious” in an airport, Mr. Butler writes, the police “can force you to stop just to investigate why you don’t want to talk to them.” And don’t get grumpy about it or you could be “resisting arrest.”

There’s no minimum age for being sucked into what the Children’s Defense Fund calls “the cradle-to-prison pipeline.” In New York City, a teenager caught in public housing without an ID – say, while visiting a friend or relative – can be charged with criminal trespassing and wind up in juvenile detention, Mishi Faruqee, the director of youth justice programs for the Children’s Defense Fund of New York, told me. In just the past few months, a growing number of cities have taken to ticketing and sometimes handcuffing teenagers found on the streets during school hours.

In Los Angeles, the fine for truancy is $250; in Dallas, it can be as much as $500 – crushing amounts for people living near the poverty level. According to the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union, an advocacy group, 12,000 students were ticketed for truancy in 2008.

Why does the Bus Riders Union care? Because it estimates that 80 percent of the “truants,” especially those who are black or Latino, are merely late for school, thanks to the way that over-filled buses whiz by them without stopping. I met people in Los Angeles who told me they keep their children home if there’s the slightest chance of their being late. It’s an ingenious anti-truancy policy that discourages parents from sending their youngsters to school.

The pattern is to curtail financing for services that might help the poor while ramping up law enforcement: starve school and public transportation budgets, then make truancy illegal. Shut down public housing, then make it a crime to be homeless. Be sure to harass street vendors when there are few other opportunities for employment. The experience of the poor, and especially poor minorities, comes to resemble that of a rat in a cage scrambling to avoid erratically administered electric shocks.

And if you should make the mistake of trying to escape via a brief marijuana-induced high, it’s “gotcha” all over again, because that of course is illegal too. One result is our staggering level of incarceration, the highest in the world. Today the same number of Americans – 2.3 million – reside in prison as in public housing.

Meanwhile, the public housing that remains has become ever more prisonlike, with residents subjected to drug testing and random police sweeps. The safety net, or what’s left of it, has been transformed into a dragnet.

Some of the community organizers I’ve talked to around the country think they know why “zero tolerance” policing has ratcheted up since the recession began. Leonardo Vilchis of the Union de Vecinos, a community organization in Los Angeles, suspects that “poor people have become a source of revenue” for recession-starved cities, and that the police can always find a violation leading to a fine. If so, this is a singularly demented fund-raising strategy. At a Congressional hearing in June, the president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers testified about the pervasive “overcriminalization of crimes that are not a risk to public safety,” like sleeping in a cardboard box or jumping turnstiles, which leads to expensively clogged courts and prisons.

A Pew Center study released in March found states spending a record $51.7 billion on corrections, an amount that the center judged, with an excess of moderation, to be “too much.”

But will it be enough – the collision of rising prison populations that we can’t afford and the criminalization of poverty – to force us to break the mad cycle of poverty and punishment? With the number of people in poverty increasing (some estimates suggest it’s up to 45 million to 50 million, from 37 million in 2007) several states are beginning to ease up on the criminalization of poverty – for example, by sending drug offenders to treatment rather than jail, shortening probation and reducing the number of people locked up for technical violations like missed court appointments. But others are tightening the screws: not only increasing the number of “crimes” but also charging prisoners for their room and board – assuring that they’ll be released with potentially criminalizing levels of debt.

Maybe we can’t afford the measures that would begin to alleviate America’s growing poverty – affordable housing, good schools, reliable public transportation and so forth. I would argue otherwise, but for now I’d be content with a consensus that, if we can’t afford to truly help the poor, neither can we afford to go on tormenting them.

Barbara Ehrenreich is the author, most recently, of “This Land Is Their Land: Reports From a Divided Nation.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/opinion/09ehrenreich.html?_r=1&emc=eta1&pagewanted=all