On January 17, 1993, on the hundredth anniversary of the overthrow of the inde- pendent Hawai'ian Kingdom, more than 15,000 Kanaka Maoli-indige- nous Hawai'ians-marched to the site of the Kingdom's authority, Iolani Palace in Honolulu, demand- ing the restoration of Kanaka Maoli sovereignty.' The march reflected a renaissance in culture, language and traditions among people of Kanaka Maoli ancestry. This renaissance, coupled with increased political awareness and activism, has strengthened the resolve of these indigenous Hawai'ians to right the wrongs of the past. Later that year, the U.S. Congress passed a joint resolution signed into law by President Clinton apologiz- ing for the 1893 U.S.-backed over- throw of the independent govern- ment of the Kanaka Maoli. 2 The Apology Law acknowledged that the Kanaka Maoli never willingly relinquished their claims of sover- eignty as a people or their claims to their national lands-neither through their monarchy, nor through a plebiscite or referendum. Al- though limited by a disclaimer that the law is not intended to settle claims against the United States, the Apology Law is an admission of the illegal acts committed against the Kanaka Maoli. It thus validates their claim for unrestricted self- determination under international law. Today, Kanaka Maoli are orga- nized into various initiatives for na- tive sovereignty. Some, such as Ka Lahui Hawai'i, seek the establish- ment of a nation-within-a-nation. Jose Luis Morin is an international human rights attorney and a Visiting Professor at the Center for Hawai'ian Studies at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. He has previously testified before the UN Decolonization Committee on the ques- tion of Puerto Rico's political status and served as one of the prosecutor/advo- cates in the 1993 Peoples International Tribunal in Hawai'i. The year 1998 will mark one hundred years since the United States forcibly seized control over the Philippines, Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico and Hawai'i. For the native people of Hawai'i, who share with Puerto Ricans the common experience of direct U.S. domination, the right to freely determine their future political status remains a pivotal issue. Hawai'i Stirrings in the Colony BY Jost Luis MORIN Other groups, such as Ka Pakaukau as well as the Pro-Kanaka Maoli Independence Working Group, pro- mote complete independence for the Kanaka Maoli people through a process of peaceful decolonization and full self-determination that includes the option of indepen- dence. Others demand the restora- tion of the Hawai'ian Kingdom. While sovereignty groups differ as to their ultimate goal, most actively continue to resist state and federal government infringements on Kanaka Maoli cultural rights, including the desecration of their sacred sites for the sake of military and tourist development. U.S. interests in Hawai'i were advanced by Christian missionaries who arrived from Boston in 1820. After labeling the Kanaka Maoli as "savages," the missionaries em- barked on a campaign of mass Christian conversion and assimila- tion. 3 By the 1840s, the missionar- ies had acquired sufficient power and influence within the native government to begin restructuring Hawai'ian society to their political and economic advantage. Key to this restructuring was the supplant- ing of the system of communal land tenure-central to Kanaka Maoli culture and economy-with private land ownership. U.S. missionaries were eventually able to impose a legal mechanism for native land claims which left about 70% of the native population landless. 4 After the mid- 1800s, the desire to have Hawai'i annexed to the United States intensified. As the white for- eign minority aligned with U.S. NAC1A REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 10ESSAY/ HAWAI'I interests assumed local power, U.S. government officials schemed for annexation. In 1873, U.S. Secretary of State Hamilton Fish wrote to U.S. Minister to Hawai'i Henry Peirce that "[t]here seems to be a strong desire on the part of many persons in the islands, representing large interests and great wealth, to become annexed to the United States.... There are also those of influence and of wise foresight who see a future that must extend the jurisdiction and the limits of this nation, and that will require a rest- ing spot in the mid-ocean, between the Pacific Coast and the vast domains of Asia, which are now opening to commerce and Christian civilization.. Should occasion offer, you will, without committing the government to any line of policy, not discourage the feeling which may exist in favor of annexation to the United States." 5 In 1887, the "Bayonet Consti- tution," as it became known, was forced upon King Kalakaua by for- eigners intent on seizing political power. By imposing property and income requirements for political office and granting foreign residents the right to vote, this new constitu- tion assured white foreigners con- trol over the legislature and cabinet. Moreover, it disenfranchised most Kanaka Maoli by imposing land and wealth requirements for voting. Six years later, in 1893, with the assistance of U.S. Minister to Hawai'i John L. Stevens and U.S. Marines of the U.S.S. Boston, annexationist businessmen over- threw the independent and sover- eign Hawai'ian government, nam- ing Sanford B. Dole, a descendant of missionaries, president of the provisional government. On July 4, 1894, the provisional government proclaimed itself the Republic of Hawai'i, and following a native up- rising in 1895, Queen Lili'uokalani, the queen of the Hawai'ian King- dom, was imprisoned. In 1898, the United States, by Joint Resolution of Congress, annexed Hawai'i. In the process, the Dole Republic of Hawai'i ceded illegally seized Kanaka Maoli government and Crown lands to the U.S. govern- ment. A fate similar to that of Hawai'i was in store for the people of Puerto Rico, and some comparisons are worth recounting. Each of the two nations was coveted by the United Vol XXXI, No 3 Nov/DEc 1997ESSAY/ HAWAI'I States as integral to the consolida- tion of its global economic and mil- itary power. Hawai'i was significant for the opening of Asian markets to U.S. goods as well as for its military bases, while Puerto Rico was seen as a stronghold for U.S. economic interests in Latin America as well as a strategic military outpost in the region. The United States took pos- session of both Hawai'i and Puerto Rico with the use of armed force. The Treaty of Paris, which brought an end to the Spanish-American War, granted the U.S. Congress the power to determine the civil rights and political status of the people of Puerto Rico. As with the Kanaka Maoli, the people of Puerto Rico were never consulted about annexa- tion or about whether the United States should grant itself such absolute powers over the future of their nation. With annexation, the United States forged ahead with a policy of political domination, coercive cul- tural assimilation, military occupa- tion and economic exploitation of people deemed to be of inferior races in both Puerto Rico and Hawai'i. Foreigners controlled and governed the islands well into the twentieth century, imposing U.S. citizenship on Puerto Ricans and the Kanaka Maoli. As in Hawai'i, U.S. educational policies in Puerto Rico focused on assimilation. The use of the Hawai'ian language in schools was officially banned in 1896. In Puerto Rico, English was the official language in schools from 1898 to 1948, and teachers from the United States-many without any knowledge of Spa- nish-were recruited to carry out the U.S. English-only policy on the Island. 6 Economically, both Puerto Rico and Hawai'i were exploited for sugar and labor. Annexation meant a permanent lifting of U.S. tariffs for Hawai'ian sugar producers. For both countries, the accumulation of lands by U.S. business enterprises translated into the loss of economic self-sufficiency. While 1.75 million acres of land belonging to the Hawai'ian Kingdom were illegally ceded to the United States upon annexation, Puerto Rico's lands increasingly fell into the hands of absentee plantation owners and the U.S. military. By the 1930s, U.S. capital controlled 60% of sugar production, 80% of the tobacco production, 60% of public services and banks and 100% of maritime lines in Puerto Rico. 7 The U.S. mil- itary amassed land holdings that, as of 1939, were sufficient to establish the largest naval complex in the world in an effort to build a second Pearl Harbor in the Caribbean. 8 In 1946, following the establish- ment of the United Nations, Puerto Rico and Hawai'i were both recog- nized by the world community as colonized territories which had been denied the right to full self- government by the United States. As a result, they were declared Non-Self-Governing Territories by the United Nations along with Alaska, Guam, the Virgin Islands, the Panama Canal Zone and numer- ous other countries controlled by other colonial powers. 9 As provided for under the UN Charter and sub- sequent UN resolutions, these Territories were then to undergo a process of decolonization in which the right to self-determination could be exercised in a free and fair manner. In a maneuver which parallels Puerto Rico's experience, the United States engineered the plebiscite vote in Hawai'i in 1959 through Congressional legislation. The ballot offered a choice between becoming a U.S. state or remaining a territory-a U.S. colonial posses- sion. Other options, such as inde- pendence, required under interna- tional law, were not presented as choices on the ballot. Furthermore, non-Kanaka Maoli-who by 1959 outnumbered the indigenous peo- ple-were allowed to vote. Not sur- prisingly, many white settlers and their descendants voted for state- hood. The Kanaka Maoli, were again denied the right to decide the future status of their homeland. The 1959 plebiscite, nonetheless, produced the particular outcome for which it was designed-the incor- poration of Hawai'i into the United States as a state. As it had done with Puerto Rico in 1953, the United States used the 1959 plebiscite to declare to the United Nations that the people of Hawai'i had attained full self-government through the exercise of self-determination. Based on this misrepresentation, and without further investigation or monitoring of the election, Hawai'i -together with Alaska-was re- moved from the UN list of Non-Self-Governing Territories. Thereafter, the Kanaka Maoli have been hindered in their ability to use international law in the struggle for their rights. The 1996 Native Hawai'ian Vote represents the latest example of an attempt to undermine the Kanaka Maoli people's right to self- determination. Originally called a "plebiscite," the State of Hawai'i sponsored the Native Hawai'ian Vote of July-August 1996 posing the following question: "Shall the Hawai'ian people elect delegates to propose a Native Hawai'ian gov- ernment?" Only 37% of the people who were mailed ballots actually returned them. Only a small minor- ity of registered voters (27% or 22,294 voters) voted in favor of the election of delegates.10 All told, 60% did not participate, while 10% voted against the measure. These figures are due in large part to the success of a boycott against the plebiscite organized by Stop the State-Sponsored Plebiscite-a co- alition of Kanaka Maoli organiza- tions that refused to legitimate the vote with their participation. The coalition brought Kanaka Maoli sovereignty groups and supporters together in a campaign to expose the deceptive nature of the vote. As with the 1959 statehood plebiscite in Hawai'i, the outcome of the Native Hawai'ian Vote was orchestrated through various leg- islative maneuvers and fraudulent electoral practices. The entire enter- prise was created and financed by the state legislature-a body not representative of the Kanaka Maoli people. The state legislature dic- tated the time, manner, process and ballot question. It also granted itself the power to accept or reject the results of the vote as well as the outcome of the "Hawai'ian Consti- tutional Convention" that would allegedly follow the vote, by mak- ing explicit that no legal changes were possible without state appro- val. Similar language appeared in the bill proposed in the state legisla- Approximately 95% of all lands presently controlled by the state of Hawai'i were illegally ceded to the United States by the Stanford B. Dole Republic of Hawai'i upon annexation. ture earlier this year in support of a Hawai'ian constitutional conven- tion. In accordance with electoral state law, the process was handled by a state agency, the Hawai'ian Sover- eignty Elections Council (HSEC), whose 20 members were appointed by the governor. The state deter- mined the one and only question on the ballot, thus violating a long- established principle of interna- tional law that provides for the "[fJreedom of choosing on the basis of the right of self-determination of peoples between several possibili- ties, including independence."" Furthermore, an eleventh-hour change in the law eliminated lan- guage referring to the plebiscite as a process to "restore a nation"-lan- guage which embodied the primary goal of the pro-sovereignty move- ment. Instead, the law inserted the term "self-governance," a term fre- quently used by the U.S. govern- ment to refer to Native American tribes as "domestic dependent nations" under U.S. law. The State of Hawai'i's primary interest is to maintain and legitimate its control over illegally acquired Kanaka Maoli lands. Marion Kelly, an expert on land tenure at the University of Hawai'i, concludes that approximately 95% of all lands presently controlled by the State of Hawai'i were illegally ceded to the United States upon annexation by the Stanford B. Dole Republic of Hawai'i.1 2 With statehood, the United States transferred most of these ceded lands to the State of Hawai'i to administer in trust for native Hawai'ians and the general public. In view of the increasingly vocal and visible pro-sovereignty movement calling for the return of the "ceded" lands to the Kanaka Maoli people, the State of Hawai'i has seized upon the use of the elec- toral process in an effort to maintain its control over these lands. By engineering an election through which the State of Hawai'i can install a Native Hawai'ian gov- ernment-a scheme similar to that which led to the dependent com- monwealth government in Puerto Rico-the State of Hawai'i can insure its control over illegally ceded lands and establish the bureaucratic mechanisms to rule the Kanaka Maoli people in the future. The Office of Hawai'ian Affairs (OHA), the state agency fashioned after the Bureau of Indian Affairs, is the favored choice of the State of Hawai'i as the government for the Kanaka Maoli. A Native Hawai'ian government beholden to the State of Hawai'i for its creation and legiti- macy could cooperate in negotiat- ing away rights to Kanaka Maoli land claims in the same fashion that the pro-commonwealth Popular Democratic Party (PPD) in Puerto Rico has transacted the leasing of lands to the U.S. Navy for one dol- lar a year. The U.S. government, while liberally using the terms "self-determina- tion" and "sovereignty," continues to maintain its relationship with indige- nous peoples as one between a guardian and ward. As early as 1831, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that Indian tribes under the U.S. Constitution were "dom- estic dependent nations" that lived "in a state of pupilage." The relation- Demonstra ship between the tribes rate the 1 and the United States, Kingdom. ruled the Court, "resembles that of a ward to his guardian. They look to the U.S. government for protection; rely upon its kindness and its power; appeal to it for relief to their wants, and address the president as their great father." 1 3 The U.S. At- torney General's Office as recently as last year reiterated that wardship and Congress' plenary powers over Indian tribes remain the basis of U.S. policy toward Native Am- erican peoples today. The repercussions of this debate for the Kanaka Maoli may be harsh. If subsumed under a U.S. definition of indigenous peoples that does not recognize the right to self-determi- nation as defined by international tors bow their heads on January 17, 1983 to '00th anniversary of the overthrow of the law, Kanaka Maoli aspirations to choose among the complete range of political-status options may be thwarted. The decolonization process under current international legal procedures might thus become unavailable. The promo- tion of indigenous peoples' rights through The Native Hawai'ian Vote could possibly result in domestic dependent nation status under the plenary power of the U.S. Congress. That power would enable Congress to relocate Kanaka Maoli from their traditional lands and mine for minerals, store nuclear materials or conduct nuclear tests on their lands, as the federal government has done on Native American lands. For Hawai'i, as with Puerto Rico, the basic elements of U.S. colo- nial policy since annexation have not changed. These ele- ments include U.S. economic exploitation of land, labor and resources; the promo- tion of economic de- pendency and wardship status among the peo- ple indigenous to the islands; vast military commemo- occupation and degra- Hawai'ian dation of land and nat- ural resources; and U.S. cultural domination and forced assimilation. Under such condi- tions, it is inconceivable that any people could make a "free choice" regarding their future political sta- tus, much less decide their eco- nomic, social and cultural develop- ment. Thus, one hundred years after annexation, the ability to exercise the right to self-determination remains crucial to the Kanaka Maoli and Puerto Rican quest to break free from colonialism. 0 Notes 1. Haunani-Kay Trask, From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawai'i (Monroe, ME: Common Courage, 1994), p. 100. 2. Pub. L. No. 103-150, 107 Stat. 1510 (1993). 3. Lilikala Kame'eleihiwa, "The Role of the Missionaries in the 1893 Overthrow of the Hawai'ian Government: Historical Events, 1820-1893," in Ulla Hasager and Jonathan Freidman, eds., Hawai'i: Return to Nationhood (Copenhagen: IWGIA, 1994), pp. 108-112. 4. Marion Kelly, "The Impact of Missionaries and Other Foreigners on Hawai'ians and their Culture," in Ulla Hasager and Jonathan Freidman, eds., Hawai'i: Return to Nationhood, p. 104. 5. Rich Budnick, Stolen Kingdom: An American Conspiracy (Honolulu: Aloha Press, 1992), p. 30. 6. Regarding English language policies in Hawai'i, see Albert Schultz, The Voices of Eden (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i, 1994), pp. 339-382; For Puerto Rico, see The Language Policy Task Force, "English and Colonialism in Puerto Rico," in James Crawford, ed. Language Loyalties, A Source Book on the Official English Controversy (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1992), pp. 63-71. 7. Manuel Maldonado-Denis, Puerto Rico: A Socio-Historic Interpretation (New York: Vintage, 1972), p. 74. 8. Ronald Fernandez, Prisoners of Colonialism: The Struggle for Justice in Puerto Rico (Monroe, ME: Common Courage, 1994), p. 119. 9. G.A. Res. 66, U.N. GAOR, 1st Sess., at 24 (1947). 10. Hawai'ian Sovereignty Elections Council, Final Report, December 1996, p. 28. 11. G.A. Res. 742, U.N. GAOR, 8th Sess., Supp. No.17, at 22, U.N. Doc.A/2630 (1953). 12. Interview with Prof. Marion Kelly, Department of Ethnic Studies, University of Hawai'i in Honolulu, Hawai'i (June 12, 1996). 13. Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 30 U.S. (5 Pet.) 1, 17 (1831).
