Native American Activist Winona LaDuke on Use of "Geronimo" as Code for Osama bin Laden and the "Militarization of Indian Country"

Post Date May 06, 2011
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Category 'A'ole Stryker, DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Environmental Impacts, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights, Kaho'olawe

Winona LaDuke has just published a book The Militarization of Indian Country in which she discusses the situation in Hawai’i and the Native-owned military contracting industry.  I spoke with someone from her organization as they were researching information for the book.  I haven’t seen it yet to know how the information was incorporated.  Today, she was on Democracy Now! She discusses the military assault on Hawai’i and the use of “Geronimo” as code name for Osama bin Laden.  One figure she cites – 79,000 acres – of military expansion in Hawai’i doesn’t sound correct.  But she describes Kaho’olawe, Pohakuloa and the Stryker Brigade expansion. Here’s the video of the program and an excerpt from the transcript:


Source: http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/6/native_american_activist_winona_laduke_on

We’re joined now by Winona LaDuke, Native American activist, writer. She lives and works on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota. She’s executive director of the group Honor the Earth. She was Ralph Nader’s running mate in 1996 and 2000 presidential elections. And her new book is called The Militarization of Indian Country. She’s joining us from Minneapolis.

Winona, thank you so much for being with us. Let’s start off by talking about who Geronimo was and the significance of his name being used.

Let me see how the New York Times described the moment: “The code name for bin Laden was ‘Geronimo.’ The president and his advisers watched Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director, on a video screen, narrating from his agency’s headquarters across the Potomac River what was happening in faraway Pakistan.

“’They’ve reached the target,’ he said.

“Minutes passed.

“’We have a visual on Geronimo,’ he said.

“A few minutes later: ‘Geronimo EKIA.’

“Enemy Killed In Action. There was silence in the Situation Room.”

Winona LaDuke, your response?

WINONA LADUKE: I mean, you know, the reality is, is the military looks at it from its own perspective. This was one of the most expensive single campaigns to find somebody, bin Laden. And the reality was, is that the Geronimo campaign, the campaign against the Apache people, was one of the most expensive wars ever waged by the United States government. You know, for 13 years, they spent millions of dollars, essentially. Five thousand soldiers, and additional, went after these people, relentlessly, for that long period of time. So, from the military’s perspective, that’s a little of how they were looking at it.

You know, from our perspective, of course, and from, I think, all Americans’ perspective, Geronimo is a hero. He’s a national patriot for our peoples. And in that, it is indeed an egregious slander for indigenous peoples everywhere and to all Americans, I believe, to equate Osama bin Laden with Geronimo.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Winona, in terms of the military, this seems to be a constant historical inability to grasp, the relationship of the government to Native American people. I was struck particularly by—during the wars in Kosovo, when the United States used—constantly talked about the Apache helicopters that were leading the fight against ethnic cleansing, or the new helicopter that supposedly was going to be the stealth helicopter that the military developed but then had to scrap, the Comanche helicopter. And there seems to be a constant insensitivity to the long struggle for freedom and defense of their land by the Native American peoples on the part of the U.S. military.

WINONA LADUKE: The reality is, is that the military is full of native nomenclature. That’s what we would call it. You’ve got Black Hawk helicopters, Apache Longbow helicopters. You’ve got Tomahawk missiles. The term used when you leave a military base in a foreign country is to go “off the reservation, into Indian Country.” So what is that messaging that is passed on? You know, it is basically the continuation of the wars against indigenous people.

Donald Rumsfeld, when he went to Fort Carson, named after the infamous Kit Carson, who was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Navajo people and their forced relocation, urged people, you know, in speaking to the troops, that in the global war on terror, U.S. forces from this base have lived up to the legend of Kit Carson, fighting terrorists in the mountains of Afghanistan to help secure victory. “And every one of you is like Kit Carson.”

The reality is, is that the U.S. military still has individuals dressed—the Seventh Cavalry, that went in in Shock and Awe, is the same cavalry that massacred indigenous people, the Lakota people, at Wounded Knee in 1890. You know, that is the reality of military nomenclature and how the military basically uses native people and native imagery to continue its global war and its global empire practices.

AMY GOODMAN: Winona, you begin your book on the militarization of Native America at Fort Sill, the U.S. Army post near Lawton, Oklahoma. We broadcast from there about a year ago in that area. Why Fort Sill? What is the significance of Fort Sill for Native America?

WINONA LADUKE: Well, you know, that is where the Apaches themselves were incarcerated for 27 years for the crime of being Apache. There are two cemeteries there, and those cemeteries—one of those cemeteries is full of Apaches, including Geronimo, who did die there. But it is emblematic of Indian Country’s domination by military bases and the military itself. You’ve got over 17 reservations named after—they’re still called Fort something, you know? Fort Hall is, you know, one of them. Fort Yates. You know, it is pervasive, the military domination of Indian Country.

Most of the land takings that have occurred for the military, whether in Alaska, in Hawaii, or in what is known as the continental United States, have been takings from native land. Some of—you know, they say that the Lakota Nation, in the Lakota Nation’s traditional territory, as guaranteed under the Treaty of 1868 or the 1851 Treaty, would be the third greatest nuclear power in the world. You know, those considerations indicate how pervasive historically the military has been in native history and remains today in terms of land occupation.

I must say, on the other side of that, we have the highest rate of living veterans of any community in the country. It’s estimated that about 22 percent of our population, or 190,000 of our—or 190,000—or 190,000 living veterans in Native America today. And all of those veterans, I am sure, are quite offended by the use of Geronimo’s name, you know, in the assault on bin Laden and in the death of bin Laden.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Winona, in your book, you go through a lot of these takings of land and what it’s been used for. Obviously, the nuclear accident following the tsunami in Japan has been in the news a lot lately, but you talk about the origins of the United States’s own nuclear power, the mining of uranium, the development of Los Alamos Laboratory. Could you talk about that and its connection to Indian Country?

WINONA LADUKE: You know, native people—about two-thirds of the uranium in the United States is on indigenous lands. On a worldwide scale, about 70 percent of the uranium is either in Aboriginal lands in Australia or up in the Subarctic of Canada, where native people are still fighting uranium mining. And now, with both nuclearization and the potential reboot of a nuclear industry, they’re trying to open uranium mines on the sacred Grand Canyon. You know, we have been, from the beginning, heavily impacted by radiation exposure from the U.S. military, you know, continuing on to nuclear testing, whether in the Pacific or whether the 1,100 nuclear weapons that were detonated over Western Shoshone territory. You know, our peoples have been heavily impacted by radiation, let alone nerve gas testing. You’ve got nerve gas dumps at Umatilla. You’ve got a nerve gas dump at the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation. You have, you know, weapons bases, and the military is the largest polluter in the world. And a lot of that pollution, in what is known as the United States, or some of us would refer to as occupied Indian Country, is in fact all heavily impacting Indian people or indigenous communities still.

JUAN GONZALEZ: You also talk about the radiation experimentation in Alaska in the 1960s in your book. I don’t think—very few people have heard of that. Could you tell us a little bit more about that?

WINONA LADUKE: Yeah. You know, I was an undergraduate at Harvard, and I remember I used to—I researched all this really bizarre data, but there was this project at Point Hope, where the military wanted to look at the radiation lichen-caribou-man cycle, of bio-accumulation of radiation. And so, they went into the Arctic. You know, there’s widespread testing on native people, because we’re isolated populations. We’re basically—you know, most of us in that era were genetically pretty similar. It was a good test population, and there was no accountability. You know, testing has occurred, widespread. But in that, they wanted to test, so the village of Point Hope was basically irradiated. Didn’t tell the people. Documents were declassified in the 1990s. And all that time, this community bore a burden of nuclear exposure that came from the Nevada test site, you know, and in testing those communities.

You know, Alaska itself is full of nuclear and toxic waste dumps from the military, over 700 separate, including, you know, perhaps one of the least known, but I did talk about it in this book, The Militarization of Indian Country, VX Lake, where they happened to forget about some nerve gas canisters, a whole bunch of them, and they put them out in the middle of the lake, and they sank to the bottom. And then they remembered a few years later, and then they had to drain the darn lake to go get all these—you know, all the nerve gas, VX, out of the bottom of the lake. And, you know, they renamed it Blueberry Lake, but it’s still known as VX Lake to anybody who’s up there. And, you know, the unaccountability of the military, above reproach, having such a huge impact on a worldwide scale, having such a huge take at the federal trough, the federal budget, and in indigenous communities an absolutely huge impact in terms of the environmental consequences of militarization.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Winona LaDuke, Native American activist, writer. Her latest book is called The Militarization of Indian Country. Winona, talk about the history of native participation in and opposition to war. But begin with your dad, with your father.

WINONA LADUKE: Yeah, you know, I wrote this book out of a debt, really, to my father. My father was a Korean War resister, and he spent 11 months in prison for refusing to fight a war that he did not believe was his. There is a long history of native people, whether the Zunis, whether the Hopis, whether Iroquois, whether the Ojibwes, who said, “You know, that’s really not our war. We’re staying here.”

The United States, you know, people—one of the reasons that it is said that native people received citizenship in 1924 was so that they could be drafted. And they have been extensively drafted. You know, for a whole variety of social, political, historic, cultural and economic reasons, native people have the highest rate of enlistment in this country, from historic to present. You know, in some places, in our Indian communities, you have very dire economic situations, and the military recruiters are very aggressive. And young people do not have a lot of choices. I mean, I had a young man from my community say, “Auntie, I joined the military.” I said, “Why did you join the military?” He says, “Because I was either going to jail or going to the military.” You know, and I have heard that story more than once in Indian Country.

So, having said that, you have a history of warrior societies, of people who are proud, who have defended our land. You know, 500 years is a long time to defend your territory. And, you know, we’re still here. And within that, our warrior societies continue, whether it is at Oka, whether it was at Wounded Knee, whether it is on the front lines of the tar sands in Alberta, Canada, or whether it is in the Grand Canyon, defending our territory. At the same time, you have a number—you know, a large rate of enlistment. And so, you have native veterans who are, in our community, highly regarded for who they are as courageous individuals and a very significant part of our communities. At the same time, there is no program to reintegrate these individuals into our society. A lot of—you know, the highest rate of homelessness is in the veterans in this country. And many other issues of PTSD and such exist widespread in our communities because of our isolation and our high rates of enlistment and our high rates of veterans.

AMY GOODMAN: Winona LaDuke, you also talk, when talking about Fort Sill, about the Comanche people asking for Fort Sill not to destroy Medicine Bluff. Can you talk about the sacred places in the United States, starting with Fort Sill? Where are they threatened, and how do you preserve these lands?

WINONA LADUKE: Well, you know, the military has—the U.S. government is the largest landowner. The United States—you know, native people are large landowners, but the military has a huge chunk of our territories. And in those, there are a number of places that are our sacred sites. Perhaps the best examples are really in Hawaii, where the military took the island of Kaho’olawe, an entire island, to turn it into a bombing range for 40 years. You know, that was my first politicization, I would say, as to the impact of the military in indigenous communities. Took a whole island, and then, eventually, the island is now returned. The aquifer is cracked from bombing. And, you know, it is in—it’s unconscionable, the practice. Today, Hawaii, you see the continuation of the expansion of military holdings there. Pohakuloa is an expansion for the Stryker that they are looking at on the Big Island of Hawaii to take another 79,000 acres of land—there’s only so much land on an island—full of sacred sites, full of historic sites, that Hawaiians, Native Hawaiians and all people have a right to visit but now is becoming a part of a military base. And increasing land takings, particularly in Hawaii, is one of the worst cases.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And Winona, as we mentioned earlier, you were a vice-presidential candidate twice on the ticket, an Independent ticket, with Ralph Nader. And as you see now, in these years of the last few years of the Obama administration, do you see any significant change in the way that the Native American nations across the country have been treated under the Obama administration?

WINONA LADUKE: You know, I would say that things are better. I would say we’ve got a few egregious problems still. You know, you have, for instance, the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. As you likely know, there were four holdout countries, as of 2007, that did not sign on. U.S. and Canada are the only two countries that have yet to sign on the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Obama administration made some lip service to it, posturing. I was thinking maybe we’re in like some kind of yoga position on it; I don’t know what posture he’s in. But we’d like to see that carried out. As well, you know, apology—you know, these are, in many ways, symbolic gestures. There was an apology to native peoples that was issued, but no one heard it. So its’ kind of like saying, you know, “I’m sorry,” to a wall. Probably should have a little formal apology.

But then there is the reality of—that things in Indian Country are not getting better. You can’t keep putting money in the federal budget for the military and robbing everything else, so that people on my reservation and other reservations don’t have housing, don’t have education money, don’t have health service, you know, don’t have basic, basic rights. And the only way in the native community, really, to get economically ahead, in many cases, is to become a military contractor.

I don’t know if you noticed in the book that it turns out that Blackwater is a Native American contractor. Now, I didn’t know that, you know, and I really hadn’t thought of them as a Native American contractor. But with the Chenega native corporation, they’ve got about $1.9 billion in federal contracts that they received, most of those as a sole-source, non-bid contractor, because they went under the shell of an Alaskan native corporation, the Chenega Corporation. And so, you know, native communities are becoming military contractors because that’s where the money is. You know, so the irony of the whole history of colonization, military colonization, valiant patriots like Geronimo fighting against the U.S. taking of our lands, the destruction of our peoples, to now a situation where the largest private army in the world is a Native American contractor. And the fact that they so egregiously abuse the name of Geronimo and, in widespread cases, you know, refer to Indian Country as the territory that is to be taken by the U.S. military, you know, it is time to revisit this history.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Winona LaDuke, ending on where we began, with Geronimo, you supported President Obama, Barack Obama, for president, the first African American president, who—it was under him that this Geronimo name was given. Of course, I’m sure it wasn’t he, himself, who gave this name for this operation to kill bin Laden. He was born in Hawaii. His school, native name, and you talk about Hawaii being so important in native history. Your thoughts about President Obama in light of what—this latest controversy?

WINONA LADUKE: Well, you know, I think a formal apology is due to the native community, to the family of Geronimo, as requested.

I think that a review of the impact of militarization on Indian Country—you know, we are trying to get back some of our land that is held by the military, but it’s so darn toxic. And the military is busy making more things toxic, getting more exemptions under federal law, so that they are above any environmental laws. You know, it would be nice to get something back that was taken, and to get it back clean and to get it back good, whether Badger Munitions in Wisconsin, Fort Wingate. But we don’t want—we don’t want toxic land, you know, back, returned to our people.

Reviewing the military psychology of Kit Carson, you know, and using that nomenclature, how offensive it is to native people. And talking about some kind of a justice, in terms of—I don’t have an answer—it’s a tricky one—how you make justice with the military. But what I would say is that what was done historically was wrong, what was done this week was wrong, and it would be an opportunity for the Obama administration to do the right thing in relation to Indian Country, because Indian Country is not to be assaulted by the U.S. military.

AMY GOODMAN: Winona LaDuke, I want to thank you very much for being with us, Native American activist, writer. She lives and works on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota, executive director of the group Honor the Earth. Her new book, just out, The Militarization of Indian Country.

More on military expansion on Pohakuloa

Post Date January 26, 2011
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Category 'A'ole Stryker, Depleted Uranium, DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Environmental Impacts, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights

The full extent of military expansion at Pohakuloa is only becoming more evident.

The Army website for the Pohakuloa Training Areas Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement can be accessed here. Written comments on the proposed action and alternatives will be accepted via e-mail (ptapeis@bah.com) and U.S. mail until February 7, 2011 to:  PTA PEIS, P.O. Box 514, Honolulu, HI 96809. Materials from the scoping meetings will be made available on the “Project Documents” page.

Yesterday, I learned that people witnessed construction activity up on the slopes of Mauna Loa.  The activity was so high on the mountain that the observer thought it surely must be outside the boundary of the Pohakuloa Training Area.    Later, they saw explosions near the site from aircraft and land based artillery fire.

We have confirmed that the construction companies were building ‘targets’.  Julie Taomia, an archaeologist at Pohakuloa said that the activity is most likely related to Marine Corps projects. She said that the Pohakuloa Training Area extends pretty far up Mauna Loa, beyond the old Hilo-Kona Road.   She said that the Marines did an Environmental Assessment (EA) for this range construction work. However, since this was done as an EA, as opposed to a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), it slipped past the notice of most people.  Furthermore, since this is a Marine Corps project, she said that cultural monitors, which are required under the Army Stryker Brigade programmatic agreement, are not required to oversee ground disturbing activity, which is just a way for the Army to avoid responsibility for the impacts on an Army range.  This loophole must be closed.   The Marine Corps expansion contributes tot he cumulative impacts of military activity.  There should be way to conduct cultural and environmental monitoring  for all activity related to the installation regardless of which service branch is doing the project.

In addition to this current Marine Corps expansion activity, the Marines are expanding training in Pohakuloa to accommodate the new aircraft scheduled to be stationed at Mokapu (a.k.a. the Marine Corps Base Kane’ohe).  I missed the following article in the Big Island Weekly when it came out in September.

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http://www.bigislandweekly.com/articles/2010/09/01/read/news/news02.txt

The Marines are landing on the island

New squadrons may be using Pohakuloa for future training and gunnery exercises
By Alan D. Mcnarie
Wednesday, September 1, 2010 9:50 AM HST

The United States military is planning yet another expansion entailing increased use of Pohakuloa Training Area. The Marine Corps wants to move up to three additional squadrons of aircraft to the islands, including 9 UH-1Y Huey and 18 AH-1Z Cobra helicopters and 24 of its controversial MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.

The Marines held “scoping meetings” for an Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed expansion last week in Hilo and Kona. The meetings followed an “open house” format: instead of allowing public testimony before an open mic, the meeting’s organizers set up various visual displays manned by experts to answer questions, and allowed members of the public to present written testimony or dictate their input to a court reporter. But a group of protestors led by Malu Aina’s Jim Albertini brought their own microphone system to the Hilo meeting to voice their objections to the plan, including concerns that increased use of PTA’s firing range could stir up depleted uranium dust there and that the Ospreys, which have a less-than-perfect safety record, could present dangers to servicemen and to the community.

The move would essentially allow an entire Marine Air-Ground Task Force to operate out of Kaneohe Marine Air Base. Most of the components of such a task force, including command and ground elements and CH-53D “Sea Stallion” heavy-lift helicopters, are already in place here. The proposed move would allow medium-lift and assault helicopters needed by the MAGTF to train alongside the other elements of the force.

Although the new aircraft would be based on O’ahu, their presence would be felt across the island chain. The plan calls for training, including gunnery exercises, at Pohakuloa; for refueling facilities and night exercises at Molokai Training Support Facility and Kalaupapa Airfield, respectively; for additional activities at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, and possibly for target practice on an islet called Kau’ula Rock, near Ni’ihau.

Perhaps the plan’s most controversial element is the Osprey, a hybrid aircraft with stubby wings that end in two giant propellers that can lift the craft like a helicopter, then rotate to pull the machine forward like an airplane. The Marines want Ospreys to replace their aging C-46 “Sea Knight” medium-lift choppers, which have only about half the Ospreys’ range and speed.

“It’s much more capable (than the C-46) and it’s faster – and faster, for the Marines, is safer,” said a Marine spokesperson at the scoping meeting.

But the Osprey has a troubled history. Based on an experimental craft that gained Bell Helicopter and Boeing a joint government contract in 1983, first flown in 1989, Ospreys remained in development for the next 15 years; along the way, it compiled a long record of cost overruns, mechanical failures and crashes, killing 30 people before the first operational Marine squadron began training in 2005.

“The mishaps that we had in the 90s and in 2000 [when two Ospreys crashed, killing 23 people] were tragic,” said Jason Holder, one of the Marines’ authorities at the scoping meeting in Hilo. But he said that since those incidents, the Marines had brought in “outside experts” to fix the problems that no crashes had occurred in over 80,000 flight hours since 2002.

That statement wasn’t entirely accurate. An Osprey went down under combat conditions in Afghanistan in April of 2010. But that accident occurred during a dust storm and may have been influenced by weather, pilot error or even enemy action. Due to an electronic malfunction, another Osprey took off without a pilot and made a rather unsuccessful landing.

The Ospreys have had enough other problems that the U.S. General Accounting Office recommended last year the Secretary of Defense require a new analysis of alternatives to the aircraft, and that the Marines develop “a prioritized strategy to improve system suitability, reduce operational costs, and align future budget requests.”

“Although recently deployed in Iraq and regarded favorably, it has not performed the full range of missions anticipated, and how well it can do so is in question,” the GAO Web site (http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-692T) summarized.

At the Hilo meeting, the Sierra Club’s Cory Harden provided a long list of media references about various problems with the Ospreys, including the aircraft’s inability to glide to an unpowered landing, as helicopters can, and a downwash from its rotors that can be so powerful that during a demonstration at Staten Island, New York, it knocked down tree branches and injured 10 spectators.

In light of such problems, Harden asked that the EIS “evaluate the risks of Ospreys harming military personnel and civilians” in Hawai’i.

Another major concern voiced at the meeting was the continued presence of depleted uranium at Pohakuloa and the risk that increased use of the facility’s target range might have of stirring up radioactive dust. The military has maintained that the number of DU shells fired there, and the risk of the dust leaving the area, were both minimal, while critics claim that thousands of uranium spotter rounds may have been fired, that the dust could spread for miles, and that even a few molecules in the lungs could cause cancer. Albertini pointed out that a County Council resolution had called for a moratorium on any live fire exercises at PTA until an independent assessment and cleanup of the DU there had taken place.

The deployment of the new Marine Aircraft would almost certainly mean more use of PTA’s firing range. The Osprey’s notorious downwash could certainly stir up dust. But while it can mount an optional belly or ramp gun, it is primarily a transport, not a gun platform. A much bigger user of the firing range would likely be the Marines’ venerable Cobras, which have been blasting enemy targets with gunfire and Hellfire missiles since the Vietnam era. Jim Isaacs, another Marine expert running one of the information stations at the Hilo meeting, noted that with the Cobras, “sixty percent of events are ordnance related.” He noted, however, that the Marines’ Cobras did not fire any ordnance containing DU.

The new aircraft probably would create some jobs in the islands – especially construction jobs. Ironically, despite the choppers’ and Ospreys’ go-anywhere mission, one big ticket item involved in moving them here could be the construction of new landing pads at Schofield and elsewhere. Marine spokesperson James Sibley told the Weekly that while there were “no plans” currently for new helipads at Pohakuloa, “Right now PTA can barely support the operators of the helicopters that we have here”: that downwash could potentially lift the existing runway’s steel mesh material, causing damage.

Despite their obvious differences, the Marines joined the protestors in an opening pule, or Hawaiian prayer. A court reporter typed continuously during the protestor’s testimony, apparently taking it down.

Members of the public who missed the meetings are encouraged to visit the project’s website, http://www.mcbh.usmc.mil/22h1eis to submit online testimony, or to mail comments to Department of the Navy, Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Pacific, Attn: EV21, MV 22/H-1 EIS Manager, Makalapa Drive, Suite 100, Pearl Harbor, HI 96860-3134.

Target: Pohakuloa

Post Date January 23, 2011
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Category 'A'ole Stryker, DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Environmental Impacts, Free Makua, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights
The graphic in the Honolulu Star Advertiser article “Upgrade in Sight” is fitting: Pohakuloa in the crosshairs of a sniper’s scope.
STAR-ADVERTISER / October 2009

Pohakuloa has become the target of massive military expansion since 2001. First the Stryker brigade expansion led to a 23,000 acre land grab by the Army:

In 2006 the Army bought 23,000 acres from Parker Ranch for military maneuver training for $31.5 million, and it has spent $33.6 million for a Stryker armored vehicle “battle area complex” expected to open in 2012 at a separate spot at Pohakuloa. But that facility is mainly for Stryker gunnery, officials said.

Then the Air Force expanded its aerial bombardment training to use 2000 lb dummy bombs dropped from stealth B-2 bombers. Then the Marine Corps expansion. Now the Army “upgrade”of the range and proposed high altitude helicopter training on the slopes of Mauna Kea.  The recent announcement that the Army is abandoning live-fire training in Makua on O’ahu after more than 60 years is hardly cause for celebration in light of the shift of major military training activity to Lihu’e (Schofield range on O’ahu) and Pohakuloa on Hawai’i island.
Pohakuloa has been subjected to intense military activity:

Pohakuloa has 153 ranges, including the 566-acre housing and base operations area, and numerous firing ranges directed at a central 51,000-acre ordnance impact area.

Army soldiers, Hawaii-based and transiting Marines, and the Hawaii National Guard are among the ground forces that regularly train at Pohakuloa, officials said.

Artillery, mortars, rockets and missiles are fired at Pohakuloa, and Air Force bombers drop dummy bombs on the range.

Army expansion plans include helicopter training on Mauna Kea, outside the military base:

The high-altitude helicopter training plan seeks to standardize and make an annual requirement of similar exercises that were held at Pohakuloa in 2003, 2004 and 2006, a change that reflects new Army doctrine, according to documents.

The 25th Combat Aviation Brigade at Schofield would use the Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa training as it too prepares for deployment to Afghanistan, where operations routinely exceed 10,000 feet.

Six existing landing zones would be used for approach, landings and takeoff at elevations above 8,000 feet under high winds, extreme temperatures and during night operations.

The training was examined in an environmental assessment separate from the infantry plans. A draft finding of “no significant impact” was released in December.

Helicopter training hours at Pohakuloa would be increased by 30 percent to 6,000 total hours based on 300 to 400 aviators receiving the training, the Army said.

People will resist:

The Army faces opposition to the Pohakuloa plan from some Big Island residents, including peace activist Jim Albertini.

Albertini said in a statement following a public meeting held by the Army on the modernization plan that he is concerned about depleted uranium left over from a 1960s weapon system used at Pohakuloa.

“There has been plenty of money over the years for military buildup but very little funding for military cleanup. It’s time to change those priorities,” Albertini said. “The bottom line is this: Hawaii residents don’t want the U.S. military training to do to others what the U.S. has already done to Hawaii — overthrow and occupy its government and nation and contaminate its air, land, water, people, plants and animals with military toxins.”

The destruction of Pohakuloa, Makua, Kaho’olawe is not simply a result of “training”. What is happening to Pohakuloa is symptomatic of the wars that have become permanent fixtures of these islands. It exposes the Big Lie of Empire: “Pax Americana” – the American Peace. From the mountains of Afghanistan to the slopes of Mauna Kea, Empire is endless war.

As Ann Wright recently shared about her trip to Afghanistan, Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers have engaged in several global call-in days. People from around the world having conversations with youth from a remote part of Afghanistan. For those who still justify the war in Afghanistan and the military training in Hawai’i in preparation for that war, listen to these youth: http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog/

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Upgrade in sight

By William Cole

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Jan 22, 2011

Schofield Barracks soldiers of the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team’s 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry spent two weeks at the Big Island’s Pohakuloa Training Area preparing for a deployment to Iraq. Army soldiers, Hawaii-based and transiting Marines, and the Hawaii National Guard are among the ground forces that regularly train there.

The Army wants to modernize its vast Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island for the 10,000 to 20,000 U.S. troops who use it each year, and increase high-altitude helicopter training on Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa to meet a shift in emphasis to Afghanistan.

An Infantry Platoon Battle Area at 133,000-acre Pohakuloa that also could be used for companies of about 150 soldiers — and replace past live-fire training at Makua Valley — is a priority for the Army, with the service hoping it can begin construction in 2013.

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Testifiers oppose Pohakuloa training plans

Post Date January 20, 2011
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Category 'A'ole Stryker, DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Environmental Impacts, Free Makua, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights, War and Peace

Source: http://www.bigislandweekly.com/articles/2011/01/19/read/news/news01.txt

Residents to Army: NO

Testifiers oppose Pohakuloa training plans
By Alan D. Mcnarie
Wednesday, January 19, 2011 8:21 AM HST

An army has to train if it wants to avoid unnecessary casualties. And American troops stationed in Hawai’i face a narrowing set of options for training. Kaho’olawe has been returned, much the worse for wear, to the native Hawaiians. And last week, the Army bowed to public pressure and announced that it would no longer pursue live-fire training in O’ahu’s Makua Valley.

That leaves Hawai’i Island’s 133,000-acre Pohakuloa Training Area to absorb much of the burden. Last year, the Army announced that it would shift its artillery heavy weapons practice from Makua to Pohakuloa. And last week, island residents got a glimpse of some of the specifics of that plan, as the Army held two “scoping sessions” for its “Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement” on the Army’s proposal to modernize PTA’s aged buildings and firing range. But at the two sessions, it appeared that the Army had no more support for training here than it did at Makua Valley.

Compared to some of its recent projects, such as the purchase of several thousand acres of range land for a Stryker vehicle maneuver area, the plans covered by the Programmatic EIS are relatively modest. All of the improvements would fall “within the current footprint. We’re not buying land to expand,” army spokesperson Mike Egami told BIW.

“The cantonment area and the ranges are so old that they’re not up to modern Army standards. The ranges are really fundamental; we have them (troops) training on these Korea-World War II types of facilities,” Egami said.

Plans include a new “shoot house” — an indoor firing range with walls that bullets can’t penetrate — an Infantry Battle Complex for training company-sized groups of foot soldiers, and a Military Operations Urban Terrain (MOUT) site where soldiers can practice dismounted urban warfare, all to be built within the confines of the current firing range.

At this stage, there still appear to be major holes in the Army’s assessment of the new facilities’ impact. Egami couldn’t say, for instance, how much the use of the new facilities would increase the amount of ammunition fired at the base, and when, where and how the unexploded ordnance would be cleaned up. He did tell BIW that all the ammunition used at the new facilities would be from small arms.

At the Tuesday Hilo scoping session, not a single resident spoke in favor of the Army’s plans. The Army got a similar verbal shellacking the next night in Waimea. Most of those who spoke wanted Pohakuloa closed down, not expanded. Several residents suggested that the Army should spend its money on rehabilitating the physical and mental casualties of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, instead of on expanding training facilities.

“I can say that I’m a part of a military family, like it or not,” said veteran Hawaiian activist Moanikeala Akaka, after reciting a long list of relatives who’d served in the military or worked on military bases. “But I can say there are some of us who are sick and tired of the military expansion on the island.”

Relatively few of the speakers, in fact, actually addressed the specifics of the Army proposals contained in the PEIS, though one speaker did suggest that new training sites be moved to a different part of the impact area to get them further away from areas of native vegetation. Several residents wanted to talk about still another army training proposal that was not contained within the PEIS: The Army wants to use existing DLNR helicopter landing sites on Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea to hold high altitude training for the choppers of its 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, which is due to employ to Afghanistan in late spring of this year. The High Altitude Mountainous Environment Terrain Training (HAMET) is being handled in a separate Environmental Assessment; EAs do not require public hearings, though residents can give written input. A Draft Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) was published last month, and the Army is now accepting public comment on it. The draft is available at larger public libraries and online (Search Army + Hawaii + HAMET).

The Army has, in fact, been using those landing sites for years, and not without incident. According to the Draft Finding of No Significant Impact, a helicopter involved in a HAMET exercise in 2003 missed its landing zone and accidentally landed in the Mauna Kea Ice Age Natural Area Reserve. In 2006, another HAMET “incident” occurred when “an aircraft hovered too low over critical habitat.” The “critical habitat” mentioned is home to the palila, an endangered Hawaiian bird found only in the Big Island’s upper-altitude mamane forests, some of which have already been lost to the realignment of the Saddle Road.

Other threatened or endangered species may also be affected by the flights: the ‘io (Hawaiian Hawk); the ope’ape’a (Hawaiian hoary bat); and the nene. One of the helicopter landing sites on Mauna Loa, in fact, lies right on the edge of the Kipuka Ainahou Nene Sanctuary, though a map included in the Draft FONSI shows the border of the actual nene range well to the east of the sanctuary border. The Army plans to mitigate by flying at least 2000 feet over possible habitats, and the FONSI claims that the endangered species are “unlikely to be present at the elevation of any of the LZs [landing zones].”

Paul Neves of the Royal Order of Kamehameha I called the HAMET EA “completely inadequate.” He noted, for instance, that it had “no analysis of people using traditional trails near the landing zones,” and didn’t mention the usage of Mauna Loa Observatory Road by observatory workers, hunters and hikers, even though the military wanted to use landing zones on both sides of that road.

“The helicopters have been landing for seven years now with almost zero public oversight…,” testified the Sierra Club’s Cory Harden. “Helicopters may fly up to 18 hours a day during training, day and night, to within 2,000 vertical feet of the summit. The EA says noise and visual impacts on cultural practices and recreation will not be significant. That’s like saying impacts would not be significant from helicopters at Machu Pichu…. The EA has a cultural overview without one word about the illegal takeover of Hawai’i. That’s like writing a cultural overview of the United States and leaving out the Civil War.”

Harden also brought up another controversy: the furor over depleted uranium ordnance at Pohakuloa and the army’s refusal, so far, to completely remove it, or even to hunt very hard for it. She cited instance after instance of the army documents and spokespeople claiming it was too dangerous to look for DU in Pohakuloa’s impact zone. Yet all of the new battle areas, she noted, were “either in or directly adjacent to the existing impact areas of PTA.”

“Why is it too dangerous to enter the impact area to hunt for DU, but safe to go in and build more military facilities?” she asked.

Egami told BIW that the new live fire training facilities were not in the impact area, but adjacent to it. But one of the displays the army had put up at the scoping session said that the Infantry Platoon Battle Area would be “located at one of three (3) potential locations within the existing impact area”; an adjacent map showed not only the Infantry Platoon Battle area, but the shoot house and MOUT facility all within the impact zone. Army munitions expert Vic Garo explained that there were actually two zones of risk within the impact area. Within the impact area was the Improved Munitions Area, which held unexploded heavy ordnance including Vietnam-era bomblets. The outer zone, where the new facilities would be located, may contain mostly unexploded small arms munitions.

“We had to send our explosive ordnance disposal people in to clear that area [where the new facilities would be]” he said; cultural and natural survey teams could enter the outer zone if accompanied by explosives ordnance demolition teams.

“When projects come up, we go within the impact zone,” confirmed PTA archeologist Julie Toombs. “I keep telling people we haven’t blown any archeologists up yet.”

Toombs said that there had, indeed, been archeological sites found within the Impact Area: “There are platforms, lava tube systems, excavated pits….” Toombs said no one knew for certain what the pits were for, but they may have been carved into the lava to attract nesting sea birds: “Nineteenth Century accounts speak of huge flocks of sea birds in that area.”

Many native Hawaiians, from veteran activists such as Neves to several students who testified in Hawaiian, saw the Army’s plans as a strengthening of an illegal military occupation.

“Pretty soon the Big Island will no longer be the Big Island, because it will be called the United States Military,” predicted Neves.

Others dwelt on the sacredness of the mountain.

“I don’t know how many of you have seen Avatar, but Mauna Kea is like our home tree,” said another. “Your training of our youth is appreciated, but not here on Mauna Kea, not at Pohakuloa.”

Stryker brigade snag

Post Date November 10, 2010
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Category 'A'ole Stryker, Depleted Uranium, DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Ho’ola Hawai’i – Environmental Justice

Kudos to Joan Conrow for monitoring the depleted uranium (DU) issue at Schofield Barracks and writing a great article in the Honolulu Weekly.   The Army tried to move ahead with construction plans for the Stryker Brigade expansion in an area contaminated with DU.  But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) must approve all activity by the Army involving radiological materials like DU.   The Army only applied for a permit to “possess” DU, arguing that it intended to leave the material in place and not disturb it by any activities.  But recently, the Army planned to burn grass and begin construction in a contaminated area, which would constitute a removal or clean up action, something not allowed under the Army’s requested permit. As Conrow reports, the NRC “snapped”.  This may delay the Army’s plans.   Furthermore, it reveals the dishonesty of the Army in its handling of contamination and cultural issues.

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Stryker brigade snag

In tense meeting, regulators snap over depleted uranium
Joan Conrow | Nov 3, 2010

Stryker / Plans to construct a Stryker Brigade training area at Schofield Barracks ran afoul of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) because the Army has no license to handle the toxic depleted uranium there.

This was underscored during the Army Corps of Engineers’ Oct. 29 informational briefing to the NRC in Washington, DC. (This reporter attended the meeting via conference call.)

The Corps had planned to begin the $80 million construction project this week with a controlled burn at the range. Instead, NRC staff warned the Corps that it risked sanctions if it proceeded because it has no license to possess, decommission or transport radioactive depleted uranium at Schofield.

Depleted uranium from weapons likely used in training between 1962 and 1968 was discovered at Schofield Barracks in August 2005, according to information available at the NRC’s website.

“I’m putting you on notice that this could constitute potential deliberate violations of NRC regulations,” NRC attorney Brett Klukan told Hans Honerlah, chief of the Corps’ Radiation Safety Office. “We don’t approve of what you’re doing right now. There needs to be a review and approval of what you do. You are outside the process.”

It was also disclosed at the briefing that the Army conducted an unauthorized cleanup of soil contaminated by depleted uranium at Schofield in 2008. Some of that material was already transported out of the state and some remains stored in Hawaii awaiting shipment.

“Under what legal authority did you remove this DU?” Klukan asked Honerlah.

“It was an Army call,” Honerlah said. “We had the choice of leaving it there or properly disposing of it, so we disposed of it.”

“So you didn’t really do that analysis to see if you had legal authority to dispose or transport this material,” Klukan pressed.

Honerlah said the cleanup work was done under the license of the Army’s contractor, Cabrera Services. But NRC staff said the Army, as the owner of the radioactive material, must hold the license.

“This shows the Army has been playing fast and loose with the rules,” said Kyle Kajihiro of Demilitarize Hawaii. “That’s what we’ve found all along. They’ve given misinformation to the public and to the regulators. That’s why we can’t trust that they [the Army] will do the right thing by the community.”

The NRC said it would investigate the 2008 clean up as part of its ongoing review of whether enforcement actions should be taken against the Army for unlicensed activities involving depleted uranium dating back to the 1960s.

The dense, toxic material served as ballast in the M101 “spotting rounds” used in Hawaii and elsewhere for training in conjunction with the Davy Crockett recoilless gun, one of the smallest nuclear weapons ever built.

The Army has applied to the NRC for a license to possess 17,600 pounds of depleted uranium at its American installations, including Schofield and Pohakuloa Training Area on Hawaii Island. But Klukan said the application was for possession only.

“We were never made aware the Army intended to pursue decommission,” he said, adding that the NRC had advised the Army that areas with depleted uranium should not be disturbed.

Klukan said the Army must either amend its application or seek a separate license to conduct the decommissioning work.

Klukan also rapped the Corps for attempting to proceed with the Stryker construction project without first running its plans by the NRC.

“Where did you get the authority to think the NRC wouldn’t need to review the remediation plans?” Klukan asked.

“We didn’t think it was decommissioning,” Honerlah replied. “We thought it was just cleaning up the area to make it safe for construction.”

NRC staff said it typically takes the agency a year to review technical plans.

“Usually an applicant gives us notice of an activity of such magnitude so we can rally resources,” Klukan said. “You guys want to start next week.”

Honerlah said all the plans have been completed in draft form, but only half have been finalized.

“Do we have to notify them [NRC] and get approval of all our activities?” asked a Cabrera staff member of his attorney during a break in the proceedings. The attorney, apparently unaware that his voice was not muted on the conference call, replied: “I guess that depends on how they interpret what we’re doing.”

Klukan also noted that the Army claimed in its application that it did not know how much depleted uranium it actually possesses because it could not conduct a full survey of its ranges.

“But now we’re finding in an area where you want to do a full survey, you can. I’m highly concerned about that. So it is possible to clean up the unexploded ordnance, which we were told was not possible.”

“Anything’s possible,” Honerlah said. “It’s a question of cost.”

Honerlah said he would need to talk to his supervisors about how the NRC’s stance would affect the construction schedule, although he did note “it could take years” to complete the agency’s review process.

Kajihiro said he hoped the delay would support efforts to gain protection for archaeological sites and burials that would be impacted by construction.

All original content copyright 2010 Honolulu Weekly.

Military use of Kulani nixed

Post Date September 13, 2010
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Category 'A'ole Stryker, DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Ho’ola Hawai’i – Environmental Justice, Youth and Militarization

Last Thursday,  DMZ-Hawai’i / Aloha ‘Aina and allies testified at the Hawai’i State Board of Land and Natural Resources meeting against the transfer of the former Kulani prison land to the Hawaii National Guard for a Youth ChalleNGe Academy (YCA) and military training.

Testimony was overwhelmingly against the militarization of Kulani.

We scored two wins that day and had one setback.

First, the board approved protection for 6600 acres of pristine rain forest with the Natural Areas Reserve System designation, the highest level of protection for the environment.

Second, we  stopped the proposed military training in the 600 acre Kulani site.

The setback: the board still approved 600 acres of the Kulani site to be transferred to the Hawaii National Guard to establish a military school. There was no community participation in determining the best and highest use for the area.  Three people requested a contested case hearing.  Senator Kokubun also said he opposed the closing of Kulani prison and was going to seek legislative remedies to either reopen the prison or reject the set aside of the land to the military.

The state erroneously stated that there were no other users for the land.  But there are numerous programs that could utilize the facility and complement the conservation of the surrounding forest area in the culturally appropriate way.  For example ‘Ohana Ho’opakele has requested to use areas in Kulani for a pu’uhonua ( a cultural-based healing center for substance abusers as an alternative to incarceration).  Also, Native Hawaiian charter schools could align their curriculum with conservation efforts at a site in Kulani.  But these options were precluded when the governor unilaterally decided to close Kulani prison and hand the land over to the military.

The Youth ChalleNGe project would be required to obtain a conditional use permit for using conservation land and an environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act, since it is federally funded.

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http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/articles/2010/09/11/local_news/local01.txt

Military use of Kulani nixed

by Jason Armstrong
Tribune-Herald Staff Writer
Published: Saturday, September 11, 2010 7:38 AM HST

State panel approves youth camp but not National Guard training

Military training should be prohibited on the former Kulani prison property, but a quasi-military program for at-risk teens and an expanded conservation area allowed.

Those are the recommendations the state Board of Land and Natural Resources made at its meeting Thursday in Honolulu.

The Hawaii Department of Defense had sought approval to operate a pistol range, conduct explosives and building-entry training, and perform helicopter evacuations involving up to 170 soldiers at one time. Those activities were to occur on approximately 600 acres of the old Kulani Correctional Facility site located about 20 miles south of Hilo.

The land board, however, amended the request to -explicitly prohibit military uses and training, said secretary Adaline Cummings.

READ MORE

+++

In another Hawaii Tribune Herald article, State Representative Faye Hanohano shares her opposition to the closing of Kulani prison and transfer to the military:

A retired corrections officer, Hanohano heads the House Public Safety Committee. Her bill to audit the Department of Public Safety — emphasizing the closure of Kulani correctional facility and the state’s contracts that send local inmates to privately-run mainland facilities — was vetoed by Gov. Lingle. That spurred the majority leadership of both the House and Senate to send a letter to Legislative Auditor Marion Higa directing her audit DPS, anyway.

“The closing of Kulani should never have happened, with the military trying to take it over under the guise of the Youth ChalleNGe program,” she said. “… Now, you look at the (Tribune-Herald), you see a story that they want to do a training base center. That’s really unacceptable, because the military has lands that they’ve leased from the state, and at Pohakuloa.”

The state Land Board on Thursday denied the National Guard’s proposal for military training at Kulani by a 6-1 vote.

Strykers: Following public outcry, OHA calls on Army to honor 2008 agreement

Post Date August 08, 2010
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Category 'A'ole Stryker, DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News

The Hawaii Independent published another piece on the Army’s failure to conduct cultural surveys for the areas affected by its Stryker brigade expansion and the follow up action by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs calling on the Army to honor terms of a 2008 settlement agreement. The Hawaii Independent reports: “According to the settlement, OHA does have the option, if the two parties cannot come to a consensus on the identification of historic properties eligible for the Register, of seeking an injunction to halt construction should attempts at mediation prove unsuccessful.”

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http://thehawaiiindependent.com/story/stryker-update/

Strykers: Following public outcry, OHA calls on Army to honor 2008 agreement

Aug 08, 2010 – 02:06 PM | by Samson Kaala Reiny

HONOLULU—Amid public outcry, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) has requested that the U.S. Army honors a 2008 agreement that helps identify and protect cultural sites.

A week after OHA officials met face-to-face with concerned members of the Hawaiian community over a damning archaeological report the organization sat on for almost a year, a letter was sent to the Army on Friday, August 6, requesting that the military “promptly evaluate the historic properties” discovered.

READ MORE

Download OHA’s letter to Army Garrison_8-6-10

Download the 2008 settlement agreement between OHA and the Army.

Christopher Monahan’s full report on the Stryker vehicles and cultural sites can be viewed at http://www.scribd.com/doc/48829377/09-Monahan-Report.

OHA ‘drops the ball’ in protecting cultural sites from Stryker brigade

Post Date August 03, 2010
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Category 'A'ole Stryker, DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Environmental Impacts, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights

The Hawaii Independent has published an exclusive article about a formerly secret archaeological and cultural report contracted jointly by the Army and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) for areas affected by the Army’s Stryker Brigade expansion. The article states:

The report, written by independently contracted archaeologist Christopher Monahan, comments on the Army’s numerous shortcomings in its attempts at documenting cultural sites, which, if included on the National Register of Historic Places, offers them various protections from being disturbed.

The report was the end result of a lawsuit OHA filed against the Army in November 2006 alleging violations against the NHPA and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). Cultural monitors claimed that numerous sites were being mistreated or were endangered, including Haleauau heiau near Schofield Barracks, whose protective buffers were razed by bulldozers in July of that year.

In October 2008, a settlement was reached where OHA would drop its lawsuit based on its then knowledge of the existing surveys and reports. In return, the Army allowed the independently contracted archaeologist, Monahan, as well as OHA staff, access to Stryker Brigade sites for a total of 50 days in order to draw up an objective second opinion. OHA had the option then to proceed with mediation or litigation based on the new findings.

The article describes some of the findings and conclusions in the archaeologist’s report:

Monahan is critical of the methods used in the previous surveys conducted by the military and its hired firms, recognizing there are issues with the competency of the field personnel involved. It also notes a general lack of subsurface testing, or excavating, to locate such sites. Instead, there are “mere guesses … and based on relatively little scientific data.”

At some locations, Monahan’s findings more than doubled the number of known features the Army had previously reported.

There is also concern regarding numerous earlier reports—ones that evaluated surveys taken of impacted areas—that were not made available to him because they were in draft form. Most problematic was a major report on the Kahuku Training Area, which was completed six years ago but is still not available.

The Army is systematically erasing the history and sacred places in Lihu’e, Kahuku, Pohakuloa and the other areas impacted by its Stryker Brigade expansion. The report by an independent archaeologist blasts the Army for numerous violations and failings and calls for protection of the vast and important cultural site complex in Lihu’e, O’ahu, once the ancient seat of government for O’ahu chiefs. Meanwhile OHA sat on this urgent information.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

DOWNLOAD THE MONAHAN REPORT HERE

Army tries, but fails to pacify Native Hawaiians in Makua, Lihu'e and Pohakuloa

Post Date June 21, 2010
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Category 'A'ole Stryker, DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Environmental Impacts, Free Makua, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/06/ap_army_hawaii_native_ties_062010/

Army seeks better ties with Native Hawaiians

By Audrey McAvoy – The Associated Press

Posted : Sunday Jun 20, 2010 14:14:17 EDT

HONOLULU — The people of Waianae believe the first Hawaiians were created in Makua, a lush valley about 30 miles from downtown Honolulu. The valley is also home to three large heiau, or ancient stone platforms used for worship. So it’s no surprise many Native Hawaiians consider the valley to be sacred.

The Army, though, sees Makua as a prime spot for soldiers to practice firing live ammunition.

These widely divergent perspectives illustrate the gulf between the Army and Hawaiians that have contributed to an often antagonistic and deeply distrustful relationship between the two.

Now the Army is trying to narrow the gap. In a series of firsts, the Army Garrison Hawaii commander hired a liaison for Hawaiian issues, formed a council of Hawaiians to advise him, and brought Army and Hawaiian leaders together to sign a covenant in which both sides vowed to respect and understand one another.

“Instead of going back and rehashing the past, I’m trying to make a fresh start, trying to make that relationship positive, make things better down the line,” said Col. Matthew Margotta.

But the Army did not invite several Hawaiians embroiled in ongoing disputes with the Army to join the council or sign the covenant, prompting critics to question how effective these initiatives will be.

“You want to work together but you only want to work with people who don’t disagree with you. How good is that?” said William Aila, whose uncle was ousted from Makua during World War II and who is fighting for the Army to return the valley.

The military took control of Makua in 1943 when Hawaii was under wartime martial law. Authorities told residents to leave, and the Army and Navy began using the valley for bombing practice.

The explosions damaged homes and the community’s church and cemetery. Interviews for a 1998 oral history commissioned by the Navy showed residents were embittered by the destruction and the takeover that severed their families, who had once fished and farmed in Makua, from the land.

Today the Army still controls Makua under a lease with the state that expires in 2029.

In recent years, the Army and Hawaiians have clashed over the Army’s restrictions on access to sites in the valley. The Army cites safety for the limits, although Hawaiians say they’ve long visited these sites and understand the risks.

Hawaiian anger also mounted in 2003 when the Army’s planned burn of brush raged out of control and scorched more than half of the 7-square-mile valley.

Elsewhere in the islands, Hawaiians and the Army have butted heads over the appropriate use of lands at Schofield Barracks, which is home to several thousand soldiers in the 25th Infantry Division, and Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island.

Last month, several Hawaiians objected when an army contractor leveling land for a new Schofield training ground unearthed an ancient bone fragment. They had opposed the construction of the training ground precisely because they feared human remains would be found if the soil was disturbed.

Hawaiian tradition says bones must stay in the ground until they’re dissolved so the deceased can complete his or her journey to the afterlife.

Margotta says the covenant, signed in March, will contribute to better relations by committing future commanders to partner and cooperate with Hawaiians. This should impose some consistency even as leaders rotate posts every two to three years.

“There’s been commanders out there who have embraced the Hawaiian community and partnered with them and worked with them. And there have been others who have been not so inclined,” Margotta said. “We wanted to codify it for successive generations.”

Col. Douglas Mulbury, who took over from Margotta in a change of command ceremony last week, agrees with the initiatives and hopes to build on them, spokesman Loran Doane said.

Neil Hannahs, the director for the land assets division of Kamehameha Schools, said the council and covenant may help ameliorate conflict by spurring dialogue.

“Let’s just get together and talk before we’re at a point of crisis and conflict,” Hannahs said.

Hannahs is on the advisory council. He also signed the covenant, although as an individual and not as representative of Kamehameha Schools, an education institution and trust established by the will of a 19th century Hawaiian princess.

Aila isn’t optimistic. He wasn’t invited to join the advisory council or to sign the covenant even though he has long clashed with the Army over access to Makua and, more recently, the treatment of human remains found at Schofield last month.

“It’s great for PR,” he said, “to give the impression that things are hunky-dory here in Hawaii. But it doesn’t reflect the reality on the ground.”

The Army would do more to improve relations by leaving Makua, Aila said. He argues soldiers can train elsewhere.

Annelle Amaral, the Hawaiian liaison for Army Garrison Hawaii, said she didn’t invite people to join the council who have “site specific” concerns. She instead gathered Hawaiians who represent fields including education, business, and religion.

She denied the council omitted people who disagree with the Army, noting it includes Rev. Kaleo Patterson. The minister has vocally opposed ballistic missile testing on Kauai and pushed for the “decolonization and total independence” of Hawaii.

For some Hawaiians, the covenant fails to address the fundamental problem as they see it: the Army is part of an illegal occupation that began when U.S. businessmen, supported by U.S. Marines, overthrew Hawaii’s queen in 1893.

“Instead of having a covenant that sort of says you know ‘we promise to be really nice and do our best to protect sacred places,’ I’d rather get a timetable for when they’ll actually stop and leave us,” said Jonathan Osorio, a University of Hawaii professor of Hawaiian studies.

Video posted: Army desecration of burials angers Native Hawaiians

Post Date June 03, 2010
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Category 'A'ole Stryker, DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights

Army desecration of burials angers Native Hawaiians from kyle kajihiro on Vimeo.

The Army Stryker brigade expansion in Hawai’i was a 25,000 acre land grab, the largest military buildup since WWII. Many cultural sites were damaged or destroyed by the project despite community protest. Despite warnings that a vast cultural site complex would be harmed by the Army construction, on May 14, 2010, the Army unearthed human remains. Digging continued after the first bone was found. On May 27, 2010, Native Hawaiian cultural practitioners conducted a site visit to survey the desecration site.

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