Hawaiian independence m[?]ovement gains momentum

The Region

The election council begins its pam

phlet with the widely accepted

premise, “In 1893, the United States illegally overthrew the Hawaiian Government.”

Now many natives want it back: the pineapple groves, the national seashores, the military bases. All told, they’re asking for about 42 per cent of Hawaii’s land, plus up to SUSIO billion in reparations. Some want statehood renounced.

On the islands, the beat of the sover eignty movement is as constant as the surf.

Many native Hawaiians believe the US Government should return land and self determination to them, likening their situ ation to the American Indians’.

But the question of how that should happen has produced more than 50 politi cal factions. It also has brought predictions of success from their legal adviser and denunciation from non-native Hawaiians that the whole idea is “filled with bal coney”.

Trying to pull together the various pro sovereignty factions is Tara Lulani McKenzie, executive director of the Hawaiian Sovereignty Elections Council.

“I like to call it a nation-building office,” she said.

State lawmakers created the council in 1994 to conduct an election of native Hawaiians - about 180,000 residents of Hawaiian ancestry are still living there and another 74,000 in the continental United States. The other one million residents of Hawaii are not eligible to vote.

The ballot, expected to be mailed out next year, is seen as the first step in recog nition and organisation. It asks one ques tion: do Hawaiians want to create and elect their own government?

“The plebiscite is an event to bring peo ple together,” McKenzie said.

She said a large voter turnout and over

whelmed support would provide the public showing needed to build a framework for sovereignty. Delegates would be selected and a convention held to draft a self-gov

ernance plan.

The plan eventually would be presented

to the state and federal governments - per haps as early as 1997, McKenzie said.

At this point, the support of non- Hawaiians becomes crucial. The legisla ture would have to pass a state constitu tional amendment to award control of land and laws of native Hawaiians, which state voters would then have to approve.

Congress also would have to recognise sovereignty, McKenzie said.

“The process is unique to us. We don’t have the land. We don’t have the treaties.

What we’re trying to do is something dif ferent from anybody else,” McKenzie said.

The sovereignty movement has been percolating since 1893 when American troops, supported by US businessman and planters, overran the islands and deposed Queen Liliuokanlani, who was trying to restore her monarchy. US officials said they wanted to maintain control over the islands for military purposes.

By 1898, the United States had annexed the islands, including 400,000 hectares of land formerly ceded by King Kamehameha 111 to his people. That acreage amounts to about 42 per cent of the land in Hawaii.

Over the years, legal and political efforts to restore the ceded lands of Hawaiians sputtered along. But in 1993,

marking the 100-year anniversary of

American military action. Congress passed

a resolution offering a formal apology to Hawaiians for the invasion.

That ceremonial vote renewed the sov ereignty movement.

Legal consultant Francis A Boyle, a law

professor at the University of Illinois- Champaign, has advised those involved with the sovereignty movement that they could win a claim before the World Court.

With the apology resolution, “the US government admitted that we stole Hawaii and illegally deposed their queen and have inflicted conditions tantamount to geno

One faction of the

cide”, Boyle said.

He said he believes Hawaiians can per suade Congress to return the islands to them through non-violent resistance.

Thurston Twig-Smith, who is writing a book on the sovereignty movement, said such thinking was divorced from reality.

“The idea of seceding from the union and becoming an independent nation is

something that’s just totally wacky,” said

Twigg-Smith, chairman of the Honolulu Advertiser.

Twigg-Smith, who is not of Hawaiian ancestry, said the entire premise was “dri ven by revisionist history”, fuelled by “political power-plays” and based upon an ill-conceived congressional resolution that is “filled with baloney”.

He noted that colonialism was rampant world-wide during the late 1800 s and that the Hawaiian monarchy had been tinged

with dishonesty and corruption.

Arguments over the confiscation of land were rejected by the US Supreme Court in the early 1900 s, he said. If native

Hawaiians want to pursue the claims again, he said, they should use the federal courts.

Thus far, there is no unity on a first step

toward sovereignty.

One group, Ka Lahui, is asking Hawaiians not to participate in the plebiscite because the state is helping to fund it, thereby violating the idea of an

independent election;

There are plenty of disagreements over