'United front ' on ethnic rights

Hawaii

Native Hawaiians gather to formulate civil rights policy. By Ed Rampell

The Decolonisation Pro

cess that began with Western Samoa’s independence in 1962 has spread throughout the Pacific, and has now reached even Hawaii. Hawaii today the United States’ 50th state

was an independent Polynesian

kingdom until 1893; five years later it was ‘officially’ annexed by the USA and in the years since then, Hawaiians have become a disadvantaged minority in their own land. Ninety years later,

however, they are again speaking out

on the issue of self-determination.

On December 4 and 5 last year, six Hawaiian groups participated in a Hawaiian Sovereignty Conference held at the State Legislature building, Hawaii’s seat of political power. More than 200 indigenous panelists and participants discussed programs for Hawaiian self-determination in an

event sponsored by the University of

Hawaii’s centre for Hawaiian Studies.

A group calling itself Ka Lahui Hawaii the Sovereign Hawaiian Nation proposed the creation of a ‘nation within a nation’. According to Ka Lahui Kia Aina (governor) Mililani Trask (see Pacific Islands Monthly, November and December 1988), this would give Hawaiians the same rights and legal status as American Indians, who live on reservation lands under tribal systems. Many Indian tribes are exempt from numerous US federal laws and can make rules of their own native American lands, enjoying a uni que ‘government to government’ rela

tionship with Washington.

While Ka Lahui advocates a demo cratic representative form of govern ment to guarantee self-determination,

other conference participants disagree.

Two islander groups, Onana O Hawaii and the Council of Hawaiian Orga nisations, call for the restoration of deposed royalty and the establishment of a constitutional monarchy (under which Hawaii was ruled throughout most of the 19th century).

The United Nations-linked Institute for the Advancement of Hawaiian

Affairs advocates outright independ

ence, while a fourth separatist group, Na O Iwi O Hawaii, favours setting aside two or three of the archipelago’s islands for the exclusive use of Hawaiians. But most conference parti

cipants point out that independence

from the United States is unrealistic that the US would do anything to pre vent secession.

Fifteen groups in all were invited to

take part in the conference, based on expressions of their stand on the sovereignty issue within the past year.

Most such as the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, a state agency declined to send a representative. Others, such as the Hou Hawaiians an

ancestral indigenous extended family

were not invited on the grounds that organisers were not aware if the Hou had a position on sovereignty.

However, according to Hou elder counsel Kamuela Price, the tribal group does have a stand on sovereignty that is strongly reflected in the Hou’s legal and legislative work on behalf of the native Hawaiians. “We’ve always believed that we already have sovereignty,” asserts Price. “It is implicit in Washington’s inclusion of Hawaiians in the Native American Religious Freedom Act.”

Price believes that full Hawaiian sovereignty can be realised through

the legislative and legal framework'of

the American democratic process: the

Hou is currently in federal court seek ing access to up to 486,000 hectares of land set aside to benefit Hawaiians in the Statehood Admissions Act.

The various Hawaiian groups dis agree on what form sovereignty should take; some believe sell determination should be only for those with 50 per cent or more Hawaiian blood, while others feel anv body with any Hawaiian blood should be entitled to play a role in the pro cess. However, all stress the import ance of the return of land to the mainly landless Hawaiians as essential, and concur that islanders need greater political empowerment and that self determination is the way to achieve it.

Until now the Hawaiian movement has been divided and without a uni

fying leadership. Ihe Hawaiian

Sovereignty Conference may have provided a significant step forward in creating the united front needed to

continue Hawaii’s indigenous political

and land rights struggles.