Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 10, Number 1, 1 January 1993 — 100 years after the overthrow — a time for healing, justice and sovereignty [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

100 years after the overthrow — a time for healing, justice and sovereignty

by Moanike'ala Akaka Trustee, Hawai'i On November 20, we trustees of OHA look an oaih of office

before Supreme Court Judge Klein, who swore in the nine trustees individually, first in Hawaiian and then in English. When it eame to my tum, I stated, as in previous swearings-in -only this time, my words could

be heard clearly as there were not nine tmstees' voices jointly taking the oath-that "I, Moanike'ala Akaka, do solemnly swear that I will defend the Hawaiian people and land and the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Hawai'i, and that I will faithfully discharge my duties to (you) the Hawaiian people as your tmstee." I felt compelled to take the oath in this manner-not because I was trying to grandstand-but because I was elected by you, the Hawaiian people, to represent your best interests and not those of the govemments who took our country and identity, and mismanaged our resources and precious 'āina, leaving many Hawaiians homeless on the beach. The last state legislative session agreed that they owed us Hawaiians 5112 million and more to be negotiated. To this day, we have received not a penny of this amount. The U.S. Constitution is a great political document, partially taken from

the Iroquois Nation of Native Americans and from European thinkers of the Enlightenment. Unfortunately, many of those fine words are not being lived up

to by the United States today. On Jan. 17 at 'Iolani Palaee and through this year we will be eommemorating the centennial of the overthrow. The historical facts speak for themselves. President Cleveland was out-

raged at the injustice done to our Hawaiian nalion by the U.S. govemment. This year marks a century since our Hawaiian nation was seized, and little has been done to rectify the injustice. Our dismal social-economic statistics tell the plight of our people. We must look at this eommemoration as not only a time for sorrow and mueh healing and reflection about the moral and physical obligations owed to our Hawaiian people, but also we must look with mueh hope and optimism to a more equitable future Hawai'i that will be more equitable for kanaka maoh. This perspective will benefit all Hawai'i's residents as well as those on the mainland. There is optimism today wilh the eleehon of President Clinton, since President Bush was not open to Hawaiian justice. It should also be remembered that the 1992 Democratic Nalional Convention took a position to support the U.S. government tmstee obhgation "to the inhabi-

tants of Hawai'i and to Native Hawaiians in particular. Federal recognition and restoration of our Hawaiian sovereignty is exactly what is needed at this time. With it we ean begin to heal the pain suffered by the demise of our Hawaiian nation. In the 1970s and 1980s, there was mueh talk of federal reparations for the Hawaiian people; we have been trying to deal with the concept of reparahons for years. Its purpose was to repair the injury done to the Hawaiian people from loss of our nationhood. Some services and programs materiahzed. Hawaiians need more than reparations alone to repair our injuries resulting from loss of sovereignty. To repair that injury, we must gain federal recognition and a restorahon of our sovereignty. We need a land base and must begin to control and manage our own resources under our own Hawaiian sovereign nahon. I believe that the OHA should also be a part of that sovereign nahon and should evolve away from the state, but it is ulhmaiely the Hawaiian people that will decide what that sovereign nation will be. A Hawaiian Constituhonal Convention will be a part of the process. You are not a sovereign nahon without a land base and management of your own resources. The CNN cable network on Dec. 5 did a special entitled "Native Indigenous Peoples - Struggle for Survival." In it, nahve peoples pointed out their need to have their own land base and to

control access and the resources. The need for wise land management was voiced by nahve leaders from different parts of the world. Aloha 'āina is wise environmental management and a universal native cultural value, living in harmony with nature. This special acknowledged that native indigenous people deserve certain rights including a land base, and that there is a link between their land base and the right to control their own deshny (whieh is self-detennina-uon, self-government, and sovereignty), whieh helps to ensure their survival. If there is no land base to live on, to develop and to prachce one's culture on, then there is no destiny for us as native peoples! We as aboriginal people must negotiate and legislate with the governments that haveoverthrown us. We must get to our resources in trying to settle our land rights problem. I agree that we must co-exist with others who have moved to our shores. The closing statement of this documentary was, "Globally we ean leam a lot from indigenous cultures. The indigenous cultures ean and must survive if we are to survive!" Amen! Bill Paty, head of the Department of Land and Natural Resources, wrote an arhcle for the Nov. 29 Honolulu Adverhser on the overthrow stating, "For a nahon, there needs to be a corpus of land. ... In my opinion, Kaho'olawe should be managed and controlled by a Hawaiian government. Other unused federal lands could be added in time." I agree that sacred Kaho'olawe should become a

part of our sovereign nation. However, we need other lands as well, for our people nded an island-wide land base to live on and manage where we Hawaiians live. It is unthinkable to relegate our nahon to only Kaho'olawe and eventually unused federal lands, as Paty states, while the state controls 1.4 million acres of Hawaiian ceded lands. Total federal holdings are 476,000 acres, including both ceded and non-ceded lands. This includes almost 25 percent of O'ahu. The Cold War is over; the military must return Hawaiian lands on the islands we reside on. We Hawaiians deserve better for the aloha we have shared with those who have eome to our shores. The time for tokenism is over! It is in everyone's best interest that the injushces of the past be rechfied so that we may co-exist in harmony. There is a healing of a nahon to get on with; the hme is right and the hme is now! The idea of nahonalism, in our case sovereignty, is not in itself a solution to the problems that beset the Hawaiian people; but there ean be no resolving our social, spiritual, and cultural plight without an applieahon of our ideas about land use upon our own land base. Hawaiians today are educated and worldlywise; we have mueh to offer this troubled world, and we will be able to carry out our global responsibilities through examples of how we use our reacquired lands. We believe in Ua mau ke ea o ka *āina i ka pono. Mālamapono.