By: Trustee Rowena Akana
Source: Letter to the Editor, Honolulu Advertiser. December 8, 2008
Governor Lingle’s assertion over the weekend that Hawaiians only have a “moral” claim to the ceded lands, and not a legal one, is preposterous.
The governor knows that the state has been financed on the backs of Hawaiians since its inception. To take a position now that we do not have a legal claim to ceded lands is a slap in the face for all of us who have supported her for the past six years.
OHA has done nothing but open our hearts, and wallets, to her administration. We’ve guaranteed loans for her Department of Hawaiian Home Lands to the tune of $33 million dollars which should have been part of her budget and spent countless millions subsidizing her Department of Education, which has done so poorly educating our children. Where would her administration be without OHA money and Hawaiian land subsidies?
You would think that after six years of lobbying Congress to get the Akaka bill passed she would know better, or were her actions and words just a political ploy? Can Hawaiians, or anyone, trust what she says in the future.