[If anyone has a copy of the findings and recommendations of the
judges at the Tribunal, I would very much appreciate a copy,
either posted or FAXed to me. Thank you, Michele]
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Kaho'okolokolonui Kanaka Maoli
People's International Tribunal, Hawai'i
Prosecutor's Statement: Glenn Morris
August 20, 1993
Mahalo. Aloha.
I give my mahalo to the Kanaka Maoli Lahui, to the Tribunal
komike, to Kekuni Blaisdell, and to our compatriot and associate on
the advocacy team, Maivan Lam, for her work on this tribunal, her
assistance in the drafting of the charges and her valuable
contributions to the construction of this case.
When we arrived in the communities on the other islands and we
were chanted into those communities, and we were fed in those
communities and we were in every way welcomed into those
communities, I was reminded of a trip I took to Costa Rica, a
country where I was taught that all the indigenous people had been
exterminated.
And I arrived in an Indian community in Costa Rica and was
treated like a long lost relative, fed, feasted. There was a
celebration. As we were eating, I began to laugh and I put down my
food. And they asked what was so funny.
I said, "Well I have to tell you that in the United States, they
taught us that you were all dead." They were stern fir a moment and
they began to laugh as well. They said, "That's all right. We'd all
been taught you were all dead too."
It's known as the Big Lie. It's known as the Big Lie that keeps
indigenous peoples separated from one another. And part of the role
of this Tribunal is to break the Big Lie. It's to break the Big Lie
about the Kanaka Maoli. It's to break the Big Lie that all of them
are destroyed. That their nation is in shambles. And in part from
this Tribunal the Kanaka Maoli Lahui will arise.
The charges and allegations already mentioned by my colleague
are sufficient to sustain the charges we have leveled against the
United States. But the harms and the atrocities experienced by the
Kanaka Maoli certainly neither ended nor eased with the overthrow
of Queen Lili'uokalani.
In fact, the case of genocide becomes stronger when reviewing
the collusion between the government of the United States and
various Christian churches and their missionaries and transnational
corporations such as Castle and Cooke.
Experience shows that when the United States passes laws
claiming that they are for the benefit of indigenous peoples,
indigenous peoples must run for cover.
This is no where clearer than with the Organic Act of 1900 and
the Hawaiian Admission Act of 1959. As you heard, under the Organic
Act, one and three-quarter million acres of land were to be set
aside for the beneficial use of the Kanaka Maoli. Immediately after
the Annexation, the lands began to disappear, gone to military
bases, to plantations, to harbors, ports and airports, without any
benefit to the Kanaka Maoli.
By 1920, with the passage of the Hawaiian Home Commission Act, a
practical extension of the great Mahele, Kanaka Maoli had learned
that the stated help of the United States became nothing less than a
vicious and cruel joke. Theoretically approximately 200,000 acres
of land were to be set aside for Kanaka Maoli leases.
At location after location, you heard the testimonies. You heard
the testimonies from the victims of the Hawaiian Homes. After 72
years, less than 4,000 Kanaka Maoli families actually live on these
lands, using less than 18 percent of the land. Over 60 percent of
the land is used for commercial purposes by corporations, yielding
only an average of $26 per acre in fees per year.
At South Point, we learned that there are 20,000 acres of land
ostensibly for the use of the Kanaka Maoli. In fact, 25 acres of
land are used by the Kanaka Maoli.
As you saw in Hilo, from the time you landed in the airport,
this outrage and injustice continues to this day. The airport land
itself was stolen. The long industrial strip outside the airport,
including the sea port and several transnational corporate
operations are on this land.
And now I ask you to close your eyes and remember the scene as
we arrived for the Tribunal testimony at Onekahakaha in Hilo, where
scores of Kanaka Maoli families, forced to live in plastic tarp
shacks in their own homeland, is bad enough. But that it's done with
the full knowledge of the United States and its subordinate
sovereignty, the State of Hawaii, is, as my co-counsel
has already stated, nothing less than constructive intent for
genocide.
Kanaka Maoli in Hilo, at South Point, Kaua'i, Moloka'i,
everywhere we went, should be in the best economic and social condition
of these islands. Instead they are in the worst: the worst health,
the worst housing, the worst education, the worst unemployment
rate, the highest incarceration rate. Every socio-economic
indicator reflects their oppression.
This is no accident. This is not the result of negligence. This
is not the result of ignorance. This is the consequence of knowing
and intentional acts with predictable, premeditated actual
devastation of the life of the Kanaka Maoli.
I'm not going to stand here and torture you with the recounting
and the pain and the horror that you've already heard over the past
seven days. Nor am I going to walk us through each of the counts
of our charges. We've had plenty of opportunity to talk about the
charges, the details of the charges, the law of the United States
and international law as they apply to the charges, and we need not
do that here.
I'm not going to do that in an attempt to convince you of the
justness and the righteousness of the Kanaka Maoli claim. If you
have not been touched by the testimony of the people themselves to
this point, if you have not been convinced by the evidence of
ongoing genocide at this point, then nothing that I can say now
will convince you.
Nor am I going to try here to convince you that U.S. or
international law has been violated, although as we have argued
throughout, it has.
But even if there were no violation of the constitution, even if
there were no constitution at all. Even if there were no
instruments of international law, there was no genocide convention
at all. Even if those things did not exist, it would not matter.
Because even before the strangers arrived, even before there was
a Jesus for the missionaries to pray to, even before there was a
dollar for the corporations to worship, there was "I kahi i ke kahi,"
the oneness, the interrelatedness of the Kanaka Maoli vision. There
was pono, there was balance. There was Kanawai, the law. That
existed, that was legitimate. That's what matters here.
The sovereignty and self-determination of the Kanaka Maoli does
not come from the Hawaiian Homes Commission. It does not come from
the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. The sovereignty of the Kanaka Maoli
nation does not come from the United States Department of the
Interior. Nor does it come from the misguided or even malicious
proposal of the State for an appointed Hawaiian sovereignty
commission.
Kanaka Maoli sovereignty and self determination flows from the
maka'ainana, literally, "the eyes of the land," from the people. It
has flowed for over two thousand years of wisdom from this land. It
comes from the understanding that the aina, the land, is here for
the use of all and the common good. It comes from the respect for
the older brother, the taro that gives the meaning to life. It
comes from the principle that all decisions must be made keeping in
mind the effects of those decisions on the generations before them
and after them. It comes from the ethic that you don't invade what
supports the life of another.
And not surprisingly, those laws of the Kanawai, those laws came
into direct conflict with those imposed by the invaders.
The legitimacy of the right of the Kanaka Maoli to self
determination and sovereignty is not dependent on its recognition
by any other sovereign power. It is inherent in the people. It can
only be relinquished by the people voluntarily, which the Kanaka
Maoli have never done.
As you saw in the communities, the spirit and the will of the
Kanaka Maoli is strong, it has never been defeated, has never been
extinguished, We saw example after example of self-determining
people everywhere asserting themselves on the land, in the ocean
and in the air.
That does not however mean that all is well with the Kanaka
Maoli. Which leaves us with the question, "What is this tribunal to
do?"
It is clear that the Kanaka Maoli need not rely on international
or domestic law for the vindication of their rights. Your job,
however, is made easier because, although it is not necessary, you
have at your disposal sufficient Kanaka Maoli, international and
even constitutional law to find that the U.S. is guilty of the
charges that have been leveled against them in this complaint.
The testimony and factual record is overflowing with evidence
of genocide, ethnocide the destruction of their language,
spirituality, economic self-sufficiency, self-identification,
political sovereignty, of the guilt of the defendant.
In the complaint we cite Raphael Lemkin in his definition of
genocide. And I quote "Genocide has two phases: one the destruction
of the national pattern of the oppressed group and the other the
imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor."
We have seen that day after day after day after day in the
communities. Of this there can be no doubt: the United States and
the State of Hawaii are guilty. And now we ask that you bring your
collective wisdom and sense of justice and moral authority to bear
for the attainment of justice in this case.
You have the opportunity to tell the world of the crimes against
humanity that have occurred here and that are occurring here against
the Kanaka Maoli. You have the opportunity, expertise and moral
authority to suggest courses of action that will terminate the
state of bondage that the Kanaka Maoli find themselves in.
We therefore ask that you acknowledge and reaffirm the inherent
authority, the sovereign authority of the Kanaka Maoli people. And
that you recognize and affirm the right od the Kanaka Maoli to free
and unemcumbered right to the exercise of their self determination.
This means, among other things, the recognition of the legitimacy
and the primacy of Kanaka Maoli law, traditions and values in the
territory of Ka Pae'Aina.
One method that we recommend to this Tribunal is that the
United States be compelled to comply with the principle of
decolonization found in international law as outlined in Article 73
of the United Nations Charter and General Assembly Resolution 1514
of 1960. This can include the re-inscription of hawai'i on the list
of non-self-governing territories.
Also the territory of Kanaka Maoli must be returned to the
Kanaka Maoli and their jurisdiction in the territory, the
jurisdiction of Lahui Kanaka Maoli must be restored.
All sovereign authority, including administration of natural
resources and the determination of citizenship and self
determination rests in Lahui Kanaka Maoli.
Other wrongs, such as misappropriation, misuse or destruction of
the means of the economy, the political and social structure, must
be rectified by the United States, by reparations where
appropriate, but by other methods, methods that have been decided
by the Kanaka Maoli themselves.
The eyes and the hopes of the Lahui Kanaka Maoli are now on you.
As you arrive here at the crossroads, if justice is to be served,
you must reject the course of the status quo. For the Kanaka Maoli,
the status quo means their destruction. For justice to be served,
you must repudiate the past and the current practices that have
brought cause for this Tribunal.
Please recall the testimony of Kapuna Uncle Leslie on the beach
in Maui. He and his community, despite the strength of their
determination and their resistance, are so desperate for assistance
that he came to you with tears in his eyes, pleading with you on
his knees "Kokua, kokua, kokua" Sixteen times he asked for your
help.
Our brother Bert who was here with us day after day, watching
after our welfare, when we were in Hilo, stood with the courage of
his convictions and also asked "Kokua." Can we ever forget his
reminder on the shores of Onekahakaha, when he said, "My people are
dying and they are still waiting. My people are dying and they are
still waiting. My people are dying and they are still waiting. My
people are dying and they are still waiting."
Everywhere people asked what this Tribunal can do. In South
Point on the Big Island, Zimmerlyn Esperan asked if this Tribunal
should be considered the friend of the Kanaka Maoli. What will be
your answer to her?
Nalani Minton graciously testified that, because the Kanaka
Maoli are so attuned to their world, the kanawai, pono, that they
have 60 different names for waves. Waves that break diagonally,
waves with certain kinds of fish that live in them. Waves...all
kinds of waves.
After this Tribunal, perhaps there will be a 61st wave. Perhaps
there will be a word for that 61st wave, the newest wave, the wave
of Kanaka Maoli self determination.
You have witnessed that wave swelling yourselves. You have heard
the power of that wave through the voices and the cries and the
laughter of the Kanaka Maoli. Now the wave is upon you. Now you
have a choice.
Will you join the wave? Will you lend strength to the wave? Or
will you allow the wave to wash over you?
This Tribunal has an opportunity to be like every other
commission, every other group, every other governmental agency that
has visited the communities from Kaua'i to Hawai'i, or it can
assist in the irreversible and irresistible evolution of the
sovereignty and self determination of the Lahui Kanaka Maoli.
And so the choice is now yours. Given the evidence, given the
testimony that you've heard, will you advance justice and the
expansion of self determination in the world, or will you endorse
the blind, failed, genocidal policies of the past?
This struggle will be long enough and difficult enough and
strewn with enough obstacles, even with a strong decision. But we
know what you've heard. And we know that the truth and the 'aina
and the Lahui Kanaka Maoli and the pono will guide you.
We know that you will be the wave, with the people and with
justice.
Mahalo.
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"When we walk upon Mother Earth, we always plant our feet carefully
because we know the faces of our future generations are looking
up at us from beneath the ground. We never forget them."
-Oren Lyons, Onondaga Nation
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milo@scicom.alphacdc.com Michele Lord Alpha Institute
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