Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 17, Number 2, 1 February 2000 — INOUYE'S LEGACY TO HAWAIIANS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

INOUYE'S LEGACY TO HAWAIIANS

Bv Mililani Trask, OHATYuste®.

On November 1 0, 1 999, the Honolulu Adverti$er ran a front-page article titled >lOHATrustee D(sparages lnouye." The article was part of a well-orchestrated plan cor»celved within OHA and supported by lnouye and the Honolulu Advertiser to deflect media attention from the Reconciliation Hearings and to discredit the current leadership in OHA at the time. The leadership had refused to kowtow to (nouye's control over Hawaiian federal legisIation and hundreds of mitlions of || federal doltars, a control, whieh he has held for over 40 years .

How the Advertiser Campaign was Conceived and Executed On October 13, 1999, at a meeting of the OHA Governmental Affairs and Sovereignty Committee, of whieh I was the Chair, I reported how lnouye, the one-armed bandit,had taken control of the meeting in Washington D.C. of the U.S. Departments of lnterior and Justice, pushing Senator Akaka to the back. The process created in DC excluded all Neighbor lslands from hearings and limited Hawaiians' testimony to three minutes eaeh. Immediately following the October 13, 1999 Governmental Affairs and Sovereignty meeting, Trustee Colette Machado, Dan lnouye's campaign coordinator on Molokai, ordered a transcript of the tape that had been made of the meeting. Working with Trustees Frenchy DeSoto and Haunani Apoiiona, Machado arranged to have the transcript sent to Dan lnouye's office in DC to use in a public media attack on me. lnouye agreed to release the transcript, and Yasmin Anwar and the Advertiser, were then contacted to arrange for the media slur. The decision was made to "hold" the story for Veteran's Day for maximum impact. Two days prior to the story's release, Anwar sent an email to me asking for an explanation. The written response < that I sent to Anwar of the Advertiser related the real story of the origin of Dan lnouye's niekname -"the one-armed bandit" given to him by his own army comrades. The niekname was given to lnouye because he had stolen jewelry from the dead in the war and later lost the arm that was adorned with the stolen jewelry. It was "bachi" said the veterans - his bad karma. The Advertiser decided not to include my response and instead published a lie — that it had received no response from me. The Advertiser had several days earlier arranged for interviews with lnouye to be included in the November 10, 1999 article. The truth eame out when I called my own press conference the day of the story and distributed the response I had e-mailed to Anwar. This forced the Advertiser to admit the following day that it had received my response but did not run it, that the story about the niekname was true and that it had previously killed a story by Jerry Burris on lnouye's scandalous thefts. The Advertiser continued its eampaign against me by selectively publishing more letters of criticism than support for me. Machado, Apoliona and DeSoto assisted by contacting the HSEC/Ha Hawaii and other Hawaiians who were recipients of lnouye's pork barrel allocations to write and eall the Advertiser and OHA and express their support of lnouye. Dan lnouye's press secretary joined in by sending out a press release claiming that lnouye had gotten millions of dollars for Hawaiians over the last 1 0 years. The media smear was an effort on the part of lnouye and his OHA Trustees (Haunani Apoliona, Colette Machado, and Frenchy DeSoto) to get the OHA Board and myself to change our vote on the OHA amendments and instead vote for what lnouye and Papa Ola Lokahi wanted in Congressional legislation on Hawaiian Health. Machado, DeSoto and Apoliona had tried unsuccessfully to change their vote for lnouye at a meeting held at lnouye's Honolulu office on October 27th. When this failed, Machado used the media smear to threaten and pressure me to hold a committee meeting so that they

could change their votes on the federal legislation on Native Hawaiian Health. I refused. Later, Dr. Naleen Andrade, who attended the October 27th meeting at lnouye's office, wrote a lengthy pieee for the media disclosing what really had occurred and pointing out that the OHA amendments demanded for the bill were necessary to improve Hawaiian heakh. As a result, lnouye was forced to hold public hearings on the Health measure. lnouye's Record on Reparations and Political Status Dan lnouye went to the US Senate 40 years ago with a promise to obtain redress for Hawaiians and with the support and vote of thousands of Hawaiians who believed him. Although he carried the ALOHA Organization's Reparations measure to the Congress, he never introduced it. Instead, he held the measure for over 15 years while the Democrats were in power. It was not until Jimmy Carter was voted out of office that he requested the lame duck president to eall for a "Study Commission" on the overthrow. lnouye knew that the Republicans would re-appoint a

new commission dominated by DC Republican bureaucrats who would file a negative report. lnouye killed the Aloha Bill and the money transferred into a Japanese Reparations bill. The Study Commission Report vindicated the US of any wrongdoing relating to the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. It would be over 10 years before a Hawaiian Senator, Dan Akaka,would introduce legislation thatwould eventually lead to passage of the Apology Bill. Throughout the past 40 years, several Hawaiian initiatives were sent to lnouye in DC. Ka Lahui Hawaii, ALOHA organization, the monarchial heirs, and others proposed and submitted legislation for introduction and hearings. None of these initiatives ever saw the light of political day. Rather than support Hawaiian initiatives, lnouye sought support for his own measures based on lndian legislation — to eonvert OHA into a state nation. Because the issue of Hawaiian political status was never addressed, Hawaiians remained in an uncertain and vulnerable position, subject to challenges of unconstitutionality. These challenges were pursued years later by Freddie Rice, the Pacific Legal Foundation, and the Coalition for A Color Blind America. In 1 998, lnouye sent draft legislation on Hawaiian sovereignty to Hawaii but not to the Hawaiian peoples. It was sent to Myron Pinky Thompson,Winona Rubin, and a handful of well-connected "pork barrel" Hawaiians who had been in control of ail federal funds for Hawaiians for years. The Hawaiian sovereignty bill was also sent to the State Democratic Party Convention, where it was disseminated by the HSEC/Ha Hawaii Hawaiians who had been appointed by Democratic Governor John Waihee to create a state-controlled Hawaiian Nation. According to Pat Zell, lnouye's DC aide, the bill didn't actually eome

from the US Senate Select Committee, but was created by Zell and her husband Miehael Cox at the "request of Pinky Thompson." By Memo dated May 13, 1 999, Zell admitted the measure was oniy"shared with the Hawaii service institutions and agencies." Thompson and the "pork barrel" Hawaiians were also members of the HSEC/Ha Hawaii movement and were slated to become delegates to the Hawaiian Convention. The lnouye/Pinky Thompson draft legislation and the "concept" paper prepared by lnouye's aide Pat Zell called for a Native Hawaiian Convention and provided for no land, no revenue and no power for the Hawaiian nation. The Zell memo calied for federal agencies to participate in the convention process to address "parameters"! The Zell memo also indicated that the money for the scam could be obtained from the Administration for Native Americans (ANA). Shortly after the lnouye/Thompson legislation was circulated, the State Democrats passed a resolution of support for it. A few months later, ANA funded the HSEC/Ha Hawaii Convention and the "pork barrel" Hawaiians, including Pinky Thompson, Momi Cazimero and Charles Maxwell, were elected as delegates to the newly named Native Hawaiian

Convention. No congressional bill was ever presented to Hawaiians. The Native Hawaiian Convention was supported by 4% of Hawaiian voters, 96% of eligible Hawaiian voters did not support the Convention. The Hawaiian Convention is the State Democratic Party's effort to create a state nation. Most of the Hawaiians supporting the HSEC/Ha Hawaii Convention work for Hawaiian service agencies or programs receiving federal money from lnouye. On january 14, 2000 the OHA Board voted to send reconciliation testimony to the U.S. asking that they control Hawaiian selfdetermination and support of the Native Hawaiian Convention - I was the only one who voted no. The Lucrative Side ofWardship lnouye press releases elaim that lnouye has obtained over 300 million federal dollars for the Hawaiian people. Nothing could be further from the truth. The record indicates that federal funds for education, including higher education, went to the Kamehameha Schools and that the arrangements were made while Pinky Thompson was a Trustee at KS/BE. Federal funds for job training and community services went to Alu Like, a non-profit of whieh Pinky Thompson served as chairman of the Board and for a time its Executive Director. Federal funding for Culture and the Arts went to the Native Hawaiian Culture and Arts Foundation, whieh had both Pinky Thompson and his son Nainoa on the Board. Later, the funds were disbursed for a eanoe project for Thompson's son and for construction of the Pier facility, with a restaurant bar and grill and a Wax Museum under the direction ofTommy Holmes. Both

There Ls no doubt that Dan Inouye, the State Democratic insiders, and the Hawaiians who benefit rtchly from the patronage system of wardship wiil continue to use pressure, press smears and threats to maimain themselves and their power base in Hawai'i.^

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projects involved and were controlled and operated by members of the Polynesian Voyaging Society. The record reveals that mueh of the federal funding coming to Hawaii for Hawaiians has benefited a few Hawaiians with political connections to Dan lnouye. OHA Trustee Colette Machado's Limu Project on Molokai receives significant federal funding. The project employs Machado's boyfriend and his daughter, but has not become economically self-reliant or provided mueh eeonomie benefit to Molokai lsland. Machado also sits on the Kahoolawe Commission, whieh has received 400 million dollars from lnouye. Over the years, hundreds of millions of US dollars have gone to support and maintain several service agency bureaucracies and programs. These bureaucracies depend on "wardship" and have a vested finaneial interest in maintaining "wardship." The fiscal allocations, whieh lnouye provides to the service agency Hawaiians eome in the form of appropriations under congressional bills. In order to maintain "wardship" and the political pay-off process, lnouye and his loeal dependents need to control the congressional process on Hawaiian bills. The Battle of the Bills ■ •• - <-^^-^iiCTWiMM0ffllWW8S88SS88S888S8JWlWUWHllW>>wMBHSIWWWWBWBBWHHBBWBWWHWWWBWBBI For eight months, OHA has been at odds with Dan lnouye on the three federal bills before the Congress. When OHA trustees went to Washington after the last election, Dan lnouye made it clear that OHA should not hire a lobbying team - presumably because he controlled the Hawaiian legislation. According to lnouye, OHA's role was not to endorse and support the Senator's version of the federal bills. OHA did not follow lnouye's advice. Instead, OHA hired the firm ofVerner Liipfert Bernhard McPherson & Hand, who employ powerful ex-Senators Bob Dole and George Mitchell Miller to lobby for the bills.

OHA also proposed amendments to the Health, Education and Housing bills, whieh strengthened the measures and expanded benefits to Hawaiians. In several instances, the OHA amendments broadened the process for fiscal allocation and fiscal policy-making in the bills. The OHA amendments to all three bills were based on beneficiary input, beneficiary need and the advice of Hawaiians with expertise in Heakh, Housing and Education. All of the OHA amendments were reviewed and approved by the OHA Board of Trustees. Following this, the amendments were sent to the Hawaii Congressional Delegation and to the OHA lobbying team in DC. None of the OHA amendments bring federal money to OHA. All of the amendments expanded benefits to Hawaiians. All of the OHA amendments were approved by the Governmental Affairs and Sovereignty committee and the OHA Board ofTrustees. All trustees supported the amendments - but Dan lnouye did not. lnouye viewed the OHA proposals and lobbying efforts as a direct threat to his power base. After the vote was taken at the Board level, lnouye moved to get his trustees (Apoliona, Hee, DeSoto and Machado) to change their votes regardless of the impact on Hawaiian Heakh. When this effort failed, he initiated the press smear and moved to re-organize the OHA Board. On January 1 3, 2000 the reorganized OHA Board voted to rubber stamp the lnouye/Thompson health amendments. I was the only Trustee who voted no. Throughout his life, Dan lnouye has become embroiled in incidents that reveal his true character. The theft of jewelry from war victims is only one example. lnouye's defense of the Keating 5, his coverup of the lran-Contra drug trafficking by the US, the rape and assault allegations of Lenore Kwoek and the payment of thousands of dollars under the table to an lnouye aide by Gulf Oil are other examples of who

the real Dan lnouye is. lnouye's true character is also revealed in his acts of desecration of sacred Hawaiian places, or na wahi pana. lnouye supported the bombing of Kahoolawe for 3 1 years. During this time, the heiau and archaeological sites of the island were significantly damaged. After Pat Saiki, a Republican, went to George Bush to halt the bombing, lnouye moved a pork-barrel plan for the US military industrial complex to receive 400 million dollars,with most of the money earmarked to restore the sacred places destroyed by the bombing. lnouye funded the destruction of Kukuiokane Heiau and the Hale O Papa and Luakini for the construction of the $ 1 .2 billion H-3 fiasco. When we went to court seeking the protection of federal laws, lnouye pushed through a bill to allow the destruction to continue. Over the last 30 years, lnouye has constantly funded the development and destruction of Mauna Kea. Elected officials, myself included, receive the endorsement and support of our voting constituents because the people expect us to do the job of our office. Great power is provided to us — the power of the people. It's wrong to use that power to promote the existing system of political patronage to the detriment of the peoples who have put their faith and trust in us and who depend on us to do the right thing. Many Hawaiians fought for and worked on the Congressional legislation for Hawaiians. Dan lnouye wants people to believe he did it single-handedly, but the record of his life demonstrates otherwise. There is no doubt that Dan lnouye, the State Democratic insiders, and the Hawaiians who benefit richly from the patronage system of wardship will continue to use pressure, press smears and threats to maintain themselves and their power base in Hawaii. It is time for us to stand up and say, "NO MORE!" PAU. *