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Voting is under way right now for about 100-thousand Native Hawaiians. The election is both historic and contentious.
For the first time since the U.S. government took control of the islands more than a century ago, Native Hawaiians have a chance to regain sovereignty similar to Native tribes on the mainland. But some Native Hawaiians believe the state-sanctioned process doesn’t go nearly far enough. There are concerns about the Hawaiian Roll Commission’s list of eligible voters and the process that led up to this vote. What’s at stake in the Hawaiian election this month?
Also mentioned on the show today: Veterans History Project
Guests:
Bill Meheula (Native Hawaiian) – legal counsel for Na’i Aupuni
Walter Ritte (Native Hawaiian) – activist and former candidate as a delegate for the constitutional convention
Moses Haia (Native Hawaiian) – Executive director of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation and candidate for the Oahu delegate spot
Break Music: Ke Aloha I Ka Pu’uwai / He ‘Ili ‘Ula Au a He Hawai’I (song) Mark Keali’i Ho’omalu (artist) Call It What You Like (album)
The process for federal recognition for historic tribes is in fact apartheid! Federally Recognized Tribes do not enjoy true sovereignty, they only have a right to federal contracts as contractors, tribal constitutions and tribal ordinances must be submitted to the Secretary of Interior for approval, where is the sovereignty in that?
The overthrown Kingdom of Hawai’i violated customary international law respecting the sovereign independence of Hawai’i.
Statehood for Hawai’i was achieved in violation of UN General Assembly Resolution 9(i). of 9 February 1946 and Resolution 66(i). of 14 December 1946 which specifically obligated the United States to decolonize Hawai’i under Article 73 of the UN Charter.
The last legal order of the Queen was restore sovereign independence, this process of federal recognition fails to comply with restoration of sovereign independence.
The Declaration of Independence makes reference to… the merciless Indian savages… that justified slaughtering many millions of Indigenous Peoples all across the continental United States and Alaska, when Capt. James Cook arrived in Hawai’i in 1778 there were 1.5 million Kanaka Maoli Indigenous Hawai’ians, by 1920 when the Hawai’ian Homelands Act was passed there 20,000 Kanaka Maoli barely surviving the genocide, the political consideration for victims of genocide is liberation from the powers responsible for this genocide.
Decolonization through restoration of sovereign independence and justice in the interests of all humanity is the proper course of action to remedy the overthrow of Hawai’i.