Mu’olea Point

By Trustee Rowena Akana
July 2004

Source Honolulu Advertiser Letter to the Editor

I appreciated Vicky Viotti’s July 29th article regarding the Trust for Public Land’s (TPL) $342,000 grant request to OHA for the purchase of a 70-acre parcel at Mu’olea Point on Maui. While she did an excellent job of summarizing the discussion, I would like to add a few points.

It is outrageous that TPL would request money from OHA, monies that are to be spent for the betterment of Hawaiians, so that they can purchase land and hand it over to the County of Maui. Why should OHA help pay for land that Hawaiians will never own?

The State of Hawaii and the County of Maui are derelict in their responsibility to protect and preserve the lands at Mu’olea Point. If the Hana community truly feels that the site is so important, why doesn’t the County of Maui condemn the land using their power of eminent domain?

The County of Maui has the power to seize the property for public use if they can prove that doing so will serve the public good. Cities across the country have been using eminent domain to buy private property at a fair market value so that they can build roads, schools, and even courthouses. That’s what the City & County of Honolulu did when it purchased Waimea Falls Park.

I believe OHA trustee Linda Dela Cruz made an excellent point at the Board table that in the past, many organizations have used a connection to Hawaiians to push various proposals and developments through but, after the dust settled, how many Hawaiians really benefited?

TPL has argued that there are many culturally significant Hawaiian sites on the property but, in the end, it is only the County of Maui that will truly benefit by acquiring the land. OHA has a fiduciary responsibility to all Hawaiians. I still don’t see how OHA giving $342,000 to TPL will truly benefit the Hawaiian community at large.

And let’s not forget that Hawaiians only receive 20% of the revenues from ceded lands. The State should think about using the 80% of ceded land revenues it takes to purchase and preserve the property. After all, it’s part of the State’s mandate.

There are many ways to save the Mu’olea Point property besides asking OHA for a bailout. The State needs to step up to the plate and the County of Maui needs to get more creative.

Also, our beneficiaries should know that the following trustees support giving $342,000 to TPL: Haunani Apoliona, Oswald Stender, Boyd Mossman, Dante Carpenter, and Colette Machado.

Land and Sovereignty

By: Trustee Rowena Akana
February 3, 1999

No two words have so captured the attention of this archipelago’s residents as “land” and “sovereignty”. Despite developments since the 100-year anniversary of the 1893 illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Monarchy, as well as the United States’ apology and admission of the illegality of the overthrow, many people do not grasp what either word means or will mean for their future.

The general goal of sovereignty advocates is the transfer of control of Hawaiian Home Lands and ceded lands directly to a native Hawaiian government. Currently, the state and federal government hold in trust about 1.2 million acres of land for the benefit of Hawaiians. Yet, the first people to these lands have seen very few benefits.

Hawaiian Home Lands are scattered tracts comprising about 197,075 acres, which Congress set aside in 1920 for native Hawaiian homesteaders. Ceded lands are the remains of an estimated 1.8 million acres of public, private and crown land illegally annexed by resolution from a provisional government to the United States in 1898.

Hawaiian land, once farmed communally, is now some of the most expensive real estate on Earth. Housing prices, driven up by mainland retirees and foreign speculators, are out of reach for Hawaiians living, working and raising families in the islands.

Hawaiian waters, once kept in ecological balance with humans through a complex kapu system, are now oversold to the highest bidder, or treated as a toilet for raw sewage.

Hawaiian culture, once a living history of genealogy, geography, and spirituality, was nearly obliterated by Calvinist missionaries and is usually obscured with tourist-pleasing luaus.

Today, 70-80,000 people (depending on the source) – of Hawaii’s more than one million residents are full-blooded Hawaiians. One fifth, or about 225,000 people claim some Hawaiian blood. Yet Hawaiians remain the poorest, sickest, least educated, worst housed, and most frequently imprisoned segment of Hawaii’s population.

Since Kamehameha the Great, foreigners have enjoyed some measure of control over Hawaiian land. The concept of land ownership was foreign to Hawaiians. How can you own what belongs to God? The king and his chief provided land grants to the people–some of them outsiders, who chose to grow large tracts of crops to be sold overseas, rather than to be eaten at home.

In 1825, when 12-year-old Kamehameha III ascended to the throne, the Council of Chiefs adopted the western practice of inheritance after the death of a king. However, foreigners, protective of their agricultural interest, sought more secure forms of land tenure. They and their governments applied considerable pressure on the young king.

In 1840, the year he drew up Hawaii’s first constitution, Kamehameha III granted the right to property by declaring that all land belonged to the chiefs and the people, with the king as trustee. In 1848, true ownership of land came to Hawaii, when the king accepted a land apportionment plan, called the Great Mahele, or division.

The Mahele completed the transition from a feudal redistribution land system to a fee simple land ownership system, by dividing the land among the king, government, chiefs and the people. The land was split into three parts: about 1 million acres of crown lands to which the king held title; 1.5 million acres of government lands for public use; and, the remaining 1.5 million of Konohiki lands set aside for individual ownership by the chiefs and the people.

The Mahele was an unmitigated disaster for the maka’ainana, the people of the land, or commoners. While the king intended to make available one-third of Hawaii’s lands to maka’ainana, they received much less than one percent of the total land. The maka’ainana’s land holdings and rights were further diluted in 1850, with the passage of additional legislation which authorized ownership and conveyance of the land, regardless of citizenship.

The stage was set for a massive land grab by Westerners. In the next half century, with a population no larger than 2,000, Westerners took control of most of Hawaii’s land, and manipulated the economy for their own profit.

Many Native Hawaiians pleaded with their last elected monarch, Queen Lili’uokalani, to protect the sovereignty of Hawaii. At the urging of her people, the queen attempted to regain some of the monarchy’s power, which had been lost during the reign of her predecessor and brother, King Kalakaua through the Bayonet Constitution.

Her efforts to change Hawaii’s Constitution and cabinet unnerved a group of the wealthiest American merchants and sugar planters. These men wanted to be part of the United States to avoid high import tariffs. So, backed by a contingent of 162 U.S. Marines, the businessmen imprisoned the queen, and took over the islands, including the acreage that was supposed to be available to the maka’ainana.

Despite Lili’uokalani’s steadfast belief that the United States government would honor its treaties with the Kingdom and reject the provisional government, Hawaii went from a sovereign nation to an American colony in five years. In 1898, under President William McKinley, Hawaii was annexed to the United States constellation, along with Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines.

President Grover Cleveland, who had opposed the coup, but failed to reverse it, wrote after leaving office: Hawaii is ours. But as look back upon the first steps in this miserable business, and as I contemplate the means to complete this outrage, I am ashamed of the whole affair.”

Meanwhile, the provisional government sold chunks of crown and Konohiki lands to fellow merchants and planters. When the islands were annexed illegally to the United States, Hawaii’s government acknowledged that this acreage (now 1.8 million acres) belonged to Native Hawaiians, and ceded it with the stipulation that it be held in trust for Native Hawaiians. The federal government summarily lopped off about 20 percent of the land for its own use, mostly for military bases and parks.

By 1920, the plight of the true inhabitants, Native Hawaiians, had become desperate. The population had dropped as much as 96 percent. Some scholars estimate that a one-time population of 1 million Hawaiians in pre-contact Hawaii had plummeted to 40,000.

However, a bill was being prepared that would allow Native Hawaiians to lease a small sliver of their former land. The Hawaiian Homes Commission Act began as a well meaning effort by Prince Jonah Kuhio, the Hawaiian territorial delegate to Congress, who saw urban slums and disease rapidly killing off Hawaiians, and hoped that returning Hawaiians to their aina, their agricultural land, could save them. In 1920, he said: “The Hawaiian race is passing, and if conditions continue to exist as they do today, this splendid race of people, my race, will pass from the face of this earth.”

No sooner did Prince Kuhio float his plan in Congress than it was co-opted by pineapple and sugar planters, who saw it as a way to secure their own uncertain futures. Their leases on 26,000 fertile acres were about to expire, and a general homestead law threatened to transfer their lucrative holdings to other hands.

So the planters struck a deal with territorial politicians: Get rid of general homesteading, allow us to keep our lands, and in exchange, you may allot 200,000 acres of “fourth class” lands to native Hawaiians for homestead. This land was arid, inaccessible, soilpoor, without infrastructure, and otherwise unfit for cultivation. Before long, Hawaiians abandoned agrarianism, and the bulk of homestead awards became simple house lots.
The sugar planters ensured that the Hawaiian Home Lands’ first executive was an ally. Its executive secretary was George Cooke, of Castle & Cooke, one of the Big Five plantation powers. The planters even pushed the 50 percent Hawaiian blood requirement, believing that interracial marriages would dilute the native population to extinction.

After statehood in 1959, responsibility for managing the homestead program was transferred from the federal government to the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL). Because the state failed to appropriate sufficient funding, until recently, the DHHL’s main source of revenue to manage and improve the land was income from general use leases granted non-Hawaiians on land “not immediately needed” for homestead. As a result, DHHL leased more land to non-Hawaiians than to Hawaiians.

For decades, the administration of the Hawaiian Home Lands trust went unquestioned. Subsequent investigations revealed mismanagement of the trust by both the federal and state governments. DHHL estimates that territorial and state governors issued between forty and sixty executive orders, which set aside Hawaiian Home Lands for military use. In 1978, a federal district court ruled that all governors’ executive orders were illegal.

In 1984, Governor Ariyoshi rescinded nearly thirty of these illegal acts, covering 30,000 acres. The Hawaii Attorney General also decreed that the U.S. Navy’s occupation of 1,400 acres of prime homelands near Honolulu was a “fundamental breach of trust”.

Rather than evicting the offending land users, which included state and federal agencies, the DHHL opted for monetary settlements totaling less than $10 million.

As of June 30,1997, only 6,428 homestead leases were awarded statewide, representing a mere 20.5 percent of the total Hawaiian Home Lands property. Meanwhile there are an estimated 29,162 qualified applicants on the Hawaiian Homes waiting list, many of whom have been waiting for forty years or more. Many have died waiting.

In 1959, when the Admissions Act turned responsibility for the remaining 1.5 million acres of ceded lands over to the new State of Hawaii, the federal government “retained” several hundred thousand acres for its national parks and military installations. Today, more than 100 facilities crowd the eight Hawaiian Islands, a land area approximately the size of Rhode Island and Connecticut combined. All the military bases occupy some ceded lands, and at least six occupy Hawaiian Home Lands, without consent or compensation.

Responsibility for these ceded lands rests with the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR). For the state’s first twenty years, DLNR managed ceded lands without scrutiny. Among other abuses, it allowed use of ceded lands by other state departments without compensation. It also executed a slew of summary land swaps.

State and federal laws already mandate that Hawaiians receive priority for water, to support development, traditional agriculture, and gathering rights over subdivisions, hotels and golf courses — promises seemingly forgotten. The state’s Commission on Water Resources has ignored the “Hawaiian Rights” clause of the water code, the clause that guarantees adequate reserves of water for current and foreseeable development of Hawaiian Home Lands.

At the 1978 Constitutional Convention, the state admitted that it was derelict in its duty to provide for the Hawaiian community. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) was created to receive 20 percent of all revenue generated by ceded lands for use for the benefit of Hawaiians.

Between 1980 and 1990, instead of 20 percent, OHA only received about $12.5 million in such proceeds. In 1993, OHA received $129 million from the state in settlement of those claims, including interest for back payment of monies owed by the state from 1980 – 1990, during the Waihee Administration.

In 1994, OHA initiated litigation to require the state to pay OHA past due amounts owed to Hawaiians that were not included in the $129 million settlement. In October 1996, Judge Heely granted OHA’s motion for partial summary judgment. The State filed an appeal. In December 1998, the Hawaii Supreme Court directed the parties to try to resolve the matter expeditiously. Negotiations continue.

As indigenous and first people to these islands, Hawaiians have essentially been under siege since foreign contact. In November 1993, President Clinton signed a Joint Resolution, which recognized the illegal procedure by which Hawaii was annexed to the United States, and apologized to Native Hawaiians on Behalf of the United States for the Overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii. This legal recognition has offered Hawaiians a unique opportunity to lead a renewed battle for the resurrection of the powerful principle of sovereignty. Sovereignty is not a foreign concept to Hawaiians, to Native Americans, or to states in general.

To the great nineteenth century orator, Stephen Douglas, states incorporated legally into the Union were co-equal and sovereign unto themselves. In his celebrated debates with Lincoln (echoing the Declaration of Independence, which states that “these United States are, and of right ought to be Free and Independent States”), Douglas said:

“THIS GOVERNMENT WAS MADE UPON THE GREAT BASIS OF THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE STATES, THE RIGHT OF EACH STATE TO REGULATE ITS OWN DOMESTIC INSTITUTIONS TO SUIT ITSELF, AND THAT RIGHT WAS CONFERRED WITH THE UNDERSTANDING AND EXPECTATION THAT INASMUCH AS EACH LOCALITY HAD SEPARATE INTERESTS, EACH LOCALITY MUST HAVE DIFFERENT AND DISTINCT LOCAL DOMESTIC INSTITUTIONS, CORRESPONDING TO ITS WANTS AND INTERESTS.”

Native governments have formed under the federal government through the Department of the Interior. There are hundreds of recognized nations within the territorial United States, in which the United States is but one. The others consist of American Indians. If it is OK for American Indians to form sovereign nations, why not Hawaiians? Failure to do so would, in fact, be discrimination against Hawaiians.

As indigenous people, Hawaiians are seeking recognition from the federal government of their right to sovereignty and self determination. Hawaiians have no desire to be dependent on the state or federal government. If Hawaiians had control of their lands, they could take care of their own people. They would not be a drain on the economy. There would be no homeless Hawaiians.

Fundamental to any sovereignty concept is control over land. Hawaiians have never prospered on land held on their behalf, but outside their reach. Lands at issue consist of the 1.2 million acres currently under the control of the state and federal government, as well as lands set aside as Hawaiian Home Lands. Hawaiians are not talking about privately owned land.

Makua: Target State Not Military

By: Trustee Rowena Akana

Source: Kai Wai Ola o OHA, August 1997

Last month, the U.S. Marines had planned an amphibious landing at Makua Beach. The five-day exercise was to begin with an amphibious assault on the beach, followed by live-fire training in the valley. The community was outraged, and rightly so. The Wai’anae Coast Neighborhood Board, Hui Malama o Makua, Pastor Kaleo Patterson (organizer of the demonstrations leading up to the day of the scheduled landing) and the Hawai’i Ecumenical Coalition rose to protest the intrusion of the military onto sacred land at Makua. The protest caused Governor Cayetano to meet with Admiral Prueher (commander-in-chief, Pacific Command), and a meeting with representatives of the community ensued. The military changed its plans and landed at Bellows Air Force Station instead. While Frenchy DeSoto proclaimed this a major victory, this was anything but a victory. All it did was postpone the inevitable.

The military has not ruled out future training activities in the area which is held sacred by Hawaiians. Using live ammunition, and firing into a beautiful sacred valley in the middle of thriving communities is insane. Would the military try this in other states for 65 years? Let’s see if other communities in America will allow them to do this.

The people of Hawai’i must become more involved in what our state officials are doing on our behalf.

One could argue all day about being ready for war, but let’s be realistic. If there is a third world war, no one would be fighting in hand-to-hand combat. The fight would be a nuclear one and none of us would have to worry about Makua Valley, or anywhere else.

In 1964, the state leased Makua to the Army for $1 for 65 years until the year 2029. The lease allows the military to use the beach for maneuvers, but in doing so, it infringes on the community’s public access rights.

During 1ast year’s legislative session, the governor and the legislature decried the poor condition of state finances and how departments and programs would have to tighten down to run more efficiently with less money. But while they are selling the sob story of “no money,” they, at the same time, give away prime lands at $1 for 65 years, denying us -the constituency and beneficiaries – our fair share of revenues: 20 percent – OHA beneficiaries; 80 percent – general public beneficiaries. This debacle allows potentially millions of state dollars to be lost.

The protest at Makua raises questions, not only about access, but about state accountability in meeting its responsibilities to the public trust.

* Shouldn’t there be a review of state land leases? Because of the state’s rationale for low lease rent, an impartial third party should do the review.

* For how much of our valuable ceded lands are we not receiving proper compensation? When potential revenue is allowed to slip away, we get short-changed in education, human services, health and other benefits.

* Why weren’t access requirements considered in the lease of Makua? The state must let the military know that it cannot lease valuable land for bombings, live ammunition firing and training. Although the governor met with Admiral Prueher to change the landing site, this wasn’t resolved when the lease was given in 1964. The target of protest should be the administration, not necessarily the military, because the state can revoke the lease at any time.

* The state doesn’t own lands; it is the trustee for these lands. Shouldn’t it be more accountable for their management of these lands?

It’s time we (the public) demand that the state take its responsibilities seriously as trustee of our public trust. We have allowed them to mismanage our lands for too long! Should we be considering hiring private counsel to investigate the state for their mismanagement of our public land trust?

Answers are Sorely Needed in State Dispute with OHA

By: Trustee Rowena Akana
May, 1997

Source: Star Bulletin; Letters to Editor

Your editorials on state OHA payments from the airport fund continue to ignore the unfortunate reality of government’s slipshod accounting and disbursement methods.

Conspicuously omitted from your bias is the FAA’s conclusion that the state had misused airport funds for a whole gamut of illegal purposes — race tracks, highways and so forth.

Your newspaper has yet to inform the public about how this whole incident occurred. Furthermore, you have never demanded an accounting for the ceded land income pouring into the state general fund.

How does the state spend the sovereign income, 100 percent of which is thrown into some state pot? How is the state’s 80 percent of ceded land revenues being spent?

Why did the state decide to pay OHA’s share out of a federal grant intended for airports when it has the ceded land revenue stream?

If the right questions were asked, I suspect you might find that the same irresponsible practices that led to OHA payments from airport funds also caused our state’s terrible fiscal straits.

Give Back Bellows

By: OHA Trustee Rowena Akana

Source: Star Bulletin: Viewpoint, May 6, 1993

The commander of Hawaii’s second-largest industry recently said he would ask a Marine brigade be pulled out of Kaneohe if he lost the use of the land at Bellows.

Honolulu’s other daily paper spent five Sunday pages fretting over his threat. Really, is Bellows all that vital to the military? Or, for that matter, is the military all that vital to Hawaii?

Adm. Charles Larson broke decades of virtual military silence to counter claims made by Rep. Abercrombie, myself and others that Bellows belongs and should return to the Hawaiian community. Our kind of talk, he implies, might trigger decisions that would damage the islands’ economy.

“Frankly, without an amphibious training site, the Marines (and I) would be hard-pressed to justify their continued presence at Kaneohe — especially since other states that do offer adequate training are [eager] to beef up and protect their own bases,” the admiral wrote.

He means Camp Pendelton, Calif. where the land, resources and residents presumably are more accommodating. The 8,900-member 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade could go there for its amphibious assaults and inland maneuvers, but then the admiral and his Marines couldn’t rest and recreate all over Windward Oahu.

Larson rationalized that the Bellows station “helps satisfy a major morale and welfare requirement.” Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) at Kaneohe MCAS already provides the Marines with barbers, BayFests, Beach Bashes, bowling, child care, dining, disco, golf, karaoke, pool tables, private surfing, sailing, scuba diving, shopping, swimming, tailors, a theatre and weight rooms to name a few subsidized perks. Does it also really need a l,500-acre, $88 million playground?

Yes, the admiral would say, and don’t you forget the Marines contribute substantially to the local economy. His assumption, the media’s foregone conclusion, should be scrutinized.

Since the armed services pay almost no property taxes for bases here, contributing to the local economy means leaving base and paying local prices. To avoid this “severe financial hardship” (the admiral’s words), MWR strives to provide all the on-base dining, shopping and playing the military community will ever need — blunting any real financial contribution.

Whatever the military does pump into the local economy, no one bothered to estimate what it sucks out in natural resources (aquifer stores, energy consumption and prime ceded soil), federal taxes (22.5 % COLAs, subsidized off-base housing and commissary and exchange privileges) and aloha spirit (traffic congestion, school overcrowding, environmental pollution and criminal activity).

The military brass trumpets the many jobs Kaneohe MCAS offers the Windward community. Many of those jobs, however, are filled by military dependents and recent Mainland transplants. Logic dictates if the Marines go to Camp Pendelton, so do the jobs. With the Marines then go the dependents and with the jobs go the transplants, thus muting the cries of mass local unemployment.

There is no reason why Larson’s military pullout should cripple the Windward community. Islanders are not invalids, we do not need to be force-fed a military industry for an economy.

The state has already zoned the Bellows land for 5,000 single-family units and an equal number of agricultural plots. If Bellows returned to a sovereign Hawaiian nation, native Hawaiians could build a land base for a self-sufficient economy.

As a master-planned community, Bellows could include cottage industries, taro farms or any number of activities that would offer Hawaiians and other community members the opportunity to improve their lot well beyond military dependence. At the same time, human resource agencies could offer their life-support programs to other needy areas.

It is at our own expense Hawaii residents subsidize the military industry’s occupation of Hawaiian lands.

The admiral says the Marines might ship out if we don’t shape up.

Frankly, without enough affordable housing sites, Hawaiians would be hard-pressed to tolerate the Marines’ continued presence at Kaneohe — especially since native Hawaiians are eager to beef up and protect their own causes.

“I can assure you that your military cherishes our special relationship with the people of Hawaii,” Larson wrote. “In the past 20 years at least nine military sites have been conveyed to the state or sold.”

Perhaps. But admiral, do you know of the military’s special relationship with the indigenous people of Hawaii? Hawaiians never asked you to come, yet you came. Hawaiians never gave you Bellows, yet you took it. Hawaiians never wanted you to dominate the economy, yet now you threaten it.

Do us all a favor, give back Bellows. It’s not yours and you don’t need it.

We do.

A Bellows Community We Can All Live With

By Trustee Rowena Akana
April, 1993

Source Ka Wai Ola O OHA

As the federal government debates whether to demilitarize Barbers Point, it continues to harbor another base far less important but far more valuable — Bellows Air Force Station.

Bellows occupies 1,493.15 acres of Windward Oahu, of which 1,456.93 acres is ceded lands held in trust for Hawaii’s inhabitants. The station’s current estimated value is more than $88 million. On the open market, the Bellows land could be worth several hundred million dollars more. As a Hawaiian-managed and planned community, the land value would be priceless for so many with so few housing options.

The time has come to make Bellows available for Hawaiians’ housing needs.

Bellows, unlike much of Hawaiian Home Lands, is a fairly large parcel of land resplendent with utilities, roads and water in place. The state has zoned the land for 5,000 single family units and an equal amount of agricultural plots. Rentals are less expensive than most of Honolulu and houses sell for half the average single family home prices, added to which most of the area is flat, on or near the beach and only two miles from Kailua.

As early as 1966, the federal government realized it did not really need the Windward land base. The Director of the Bureau of the Budget determined “… that the [Bellows] property hereinafter described is no longer needed by the United States …” (Deed dated July 25, 1966, P. 2)

Since then, the military has made no serious attempts to defend the recreation facility as a necessary military activity and has admitted the communications facility could be easily relocated. The Marine Corps small unit exercises, if ever all that vital, could continue on a permit basis as they do on other state lands. Hoarding land for no other reason than its pretty to look at seems a bit foolish when compared to the dire needs in the Hawaiian community for housing.

Aside from the operational specifics, there remains the more fundamental question: to whom does the land belong? The Bellows property, formerly public lands of the Kingdom, then the Republic, then the Territory of Hawaii, was subsequently commandeered by the president for the War Department in 1917 and 1928, and last used as an airfield during World War II.

The Admissions Act of 1959 and the Conveyance Procedures Act of 1963 require ceded lands be returned when no longer needed for federal purposes. Hawaiians are entitled to revenues from ceded lands, and failure to move on the reversion of Bellows denies Hawaii’s original inhabitants their rightful benefits. In any event, the military states a weak case for federal retention and the people of Hawaii have a strong, legitimate claim on the property.

And Hawaii already employs in its place a state agency to manage revenues from the ceded lands trust for the betterment of Hawaiians, an agency mandated to promote a body responsible to the needs of the indigenous community — a Hawaiian government.

A Hawaiian government, with a vested interest in the indigenous community, would do right by its people and prepare Bellows for a high-quality, low-cost master-planned community. Conveyances could be issued, orders given, documents signed, rules written and procedures installed to transfer control of the Bellows land to OHA or its constitutional successor which would contract to redesign and rebuild the land and its properties.

And perhaps in a short decade or two, a smartly planned, quality community would be ready to house and possibly employ several thousand Hawaiians.

Since the legislature still debates a Hawaiian ConCon, OHA remains the only existing agency that could kick-start the legislative process, hire the contractors, secure the proper papers and ensure the affordable Hawaiian housing is really housing Hawaiians can afford.

OHA has done more for the Hawaiian community than any other government agency, and is the only existing entity with the means to accomplish such a task.

But given the chance, a Hawaiian government certainly could do no worse than its predecessors with a ceded parcel of land. The military doesn’t need it, the state can’t handle it, so perhaps its time for a Hawaiian government to manage it.

The Abuse, Misuse, and Theft of the Ceded Lands Trust

By Trustee Rowena Akana
March 5, 1993

Ceded lands are the remains of an estimated 1.8 million acres of public, private and crown land annexed by resolution from a provisional government to the United States in 1898. Hawaiian Home Lands, once part of ceded lands, are scattered tracts comprising about 200,000 acres Congress set aside in 1921 for native Hawaiian homesteaders.

For the last 100 years, these land trusts have been impoverished through executive orders, lands swaps, sales and general theft. With each change of government trusteeship were agreements to provide for the needs of the land’s inhabitants: the Hawaiians. Each trustee government, in turn, has thoroughly mismanaged the inhabitants’ land. A few examples for your reading displeasure:

MILITARY

In 1959, when the Admissions Act turned responsibility for the remaining 1.2 million acres of ceded lands over to the new State of Hawaii, the federal government “set aside” several hundred thousand acres for its military installations.

Today, more than 100 bases crowd the eight Hawaiian islands, a land area approximately the size of Rhode Island and Connecticut combined. The armed forces control 10 percent of the state and 25 percent of O’ahu. All the military bases occupy ceded lands, and at least six occupy — without consent or compensation – Hawaiian Home Lands. Among those, Pohakuloa on the Big Island is an Army training camp, Lualualei in Waianae is a Navy target range and Kekaha on Kauai is a Navy ammunition dump.

Kaho’olawe, The Target Island, was set aside by a presidential order for the military’s use during WWII. It was supposed to be cleared of ordnance and returned to human use after the war. Today, Kaho’olawe’s soil remains bomb-rich and human-poor — despite its placement on the National Register of Historic Places.

DEPARTMENT OF HAWAIIAN HOME LANDS

The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands estimates territorial and state governors issued between 40 and 60 executive orders setting aside Hawaiian Home Lands for military use. In 1978, a federal district court ruled all the governors’ executive orders were illegal.

In 1984, the governor ordered the DHHL to rescind nearly 30 of these illegal deals, covering some 30,000 acres. The state attorney general, meantime, decreed the U.S. Navy’s occupation of 1,400 acres of prime homelands near Honolulu to be a ‘fundamental breach of trust.’

Rather than evicting the offending land users, which include state and federal agencies, the DHHL opted for monetary settlements totaling less than $10 million. The DHHL did mount one challenge to evict the Navy, but the judge decided the department waited too long to sue.

However, the DHHL has evicted Hawaiians off land to which they held title, but the state never bothered to install utilities, roads and water as it is required.

Until recently, the DHHL had no funding to improve land management or infrastructure except the general use leases it was allowed to grant non-Hawaiians on land “not immediately needed” for homesteading. Consequently, the DHHL leased more land to non-Hawaiians than to Hawaiians.

Because of this, only 5,889 Hawaiian homestead leases had been awarded as of June, representing just 21.5 percent of the total Hawaiian Home Lands property, while 47.5 percent was under lease to non-Hawaiians.

Meanwhile, there are an estimated 14,400 qualified applicants in the Hawaiian Homes waiting list, many of whom have waited for 40 years or more.

Many more have died waiting.

DEPARTMENT OF LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCES

For the state’s first 20 years, the Department of Land and Natural Resources managed ceded lands without scrutiny. Among other abuses, DLNR allowed use of ceded lands by other state departments without adequate compensation, and it executed a slew of summary land swaps. The land between Hanauma Bay and Waimanalo, once Hawaiian Home land, now belongs to just about everyone but Hawaiians.

In 1985, the state swapped a Big Island forest preserve for other acreage so Campbell Estate could construct a geothermal development, now plagued with technical problems and lawsuits.

In fact, until 1986 the DLNR didn’t even have an inventory of which state lands were ceded lands and which were not, and no one still knows the exact amount the state earns from this inventory. A 1986 “Final Report on the Public Lands Trust” did manage to identify some major parcels of ceded or Hawaiian Homes land commandeered for public use without compensation. A small sampling: Hilo Municipal Golf Course, Maui’s Waiehu Golf Course, Kauai’s Wailua Golf Course, Ala Wai Golf Course, Sand Island, Ala Moana Beach Park, Kapiolani Park, and their rentals, Honolulu Harbor, Kahului Harbor, Kewalo Basin, Keehi Lagoon, Honolulu International Airport, General Lyman Field, Molokai Airport and the University of Hawaii.
All occupy in part or whole ceded and/or Hawaiian Home lands — at the expense of Hawaiians and native Hawaiians.

When will this sickening litany of abuse, misuse and fraud end? When will the state or federal government keep a promise to the Hawaiian people? When will others stop managing our affairs in their interest, stop taking for theirs that which they agreed in writing was ours and stop actively campaigning against any meaningful resolution to our plight?

When? You have the answers.