Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights

E Ola Ke Awalau o Puʻuloa: Kanaka Maoli speak on Puʻuloa / Pearl Harbor

Post Date June 16, 2012

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Action Alerts and Events, DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Environmental Impacts, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights, Ke Awalau o Pu'uloa / Pearl Harbor, Projects and Campaigns

Hawaiʻi Peace and Justice presents:

Kanaka Maoli speak on Puʻuloa

DATE: June 19, 2012

TIME: 6:00-8:00pm

LOCATION: Center for Hawaiian Studies, UH Manoa Classroom 202, 2645 Dole Street

COST: free

WHAT:

Kanaka Maoli panelists will present historical, cultural, environmental and social significance of Ke Awa Lau o Pu’uloa (Pearl Harbor) and engage in a dialogue about its past, present and future.

This presentation is sponsored by the Hawaii Council for the Humanities through a grant to Hawaii Peace and Justice. Our presenters, Dr. Jon Osorio, Dr. Leilani Basham, Andre Perez and Koa Luke will tell the “hidden” histories of Pearl Harbor, from the mo’olelo of its ancient past and sacred sites to its present uses. Pearl Harbor is a site of great historical importance to Hawai’i, the U.S. and the world, but the discourse is unbalanced and incomplete. Most people know only of Pearl Harbor and the Japanese attack and World War II. This is an opportunity to unearth its Hawaiian past and open doors for its future.

WHO:

Dr. Leilani Basham, assistant professor, West Oahu University – Hawaiian Pacific Studies will share her research regarding old place names and stories.

Dr. Jonathan Osorio, professor in Manoa’s Hawai‘inuiakea School of Hawaiian Knowledge will be presenting a Kanaka Maoli historian point of view from a paper he published entitled Memorializing Pu’uloa and Remembering Pearl Harbor.

Andre Perez, a Hawaiian cultural practitioner and community activist/organizer. Andre will present work being done at Hanakehau Learning Farm (off shore of Pu’uloa) showing how Hawaiians today can take grassroots approaches to reclaim and restore lands impacted by militarism and industrialization, creating a space where Hawaiians can come to teach, learn and reconnect with the ‘aina and engage in Hawaiian traditions and practices. Andre will explain how these types of efforts are building blocks towards a Hawaiian consciousness of self-determinations and sovereignty.

Koa Luke: University of Hawaii Library Science graduate student. Koa will talk about his ohana’s history and experience growing up in Waiawa, an ahupua’a of Ke Awa Lau o Pu’uloa.

http://www.wp.hawaiipeaceandjustice.org/2012/06/16/kanaka-maoli-speak-on-puuloa/

Fortress Oahu: "Some people get paid, but who’s paying the price"

Post Date June 14, 2012

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Environmental Impacts, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights, Projects and Campaigns, Social and Economic Impacts, The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands)

Joan Conrow wrote a feature story in the Honolulu Weekly critically examining the military’s impacts in Hawai’i. Here’s a snippet:

Fortress Oahu

by Joan Conrow | May 23, 2012

Cover

With roots planted in the 1893 overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani and a presence that extends through the entire archipelago, the military’s influence in Hawaii is surpassed only by tourism.

The military controls some 236,000 acres throughout the state, including 25 percent of the land mass of Oahu, and thousands of square miles of surrounding airspace and sea. Yet as a branch of the federal government, the Department of Defense (DoD) operates in the Islands with little public oversight and virtual impunity, except when national environmental laws come into play.

Notwithstanding, it’s burned up native forests, dumped hazardous materials into the ocean and killed protected native species. It’s rendered land unusable with its unexploded ordinance, disrupted neighborhoods with its noise, dropped nearly every bomb known to man on the island of Kahoolawe. It’s unearthed ancient burials, launched rockets from sacred dunes, shut off public access mauka and makai. And in the course of a century, it’s transformed Waimomi, once the food basket for Oahu, into Pearl Harbor, a giant Superfund complex comprising at least 749 contaminated sites.

So why do our people, and politicians, allow the militarly to stay, aside from the fact that it is well-armed and deeply entrenched here?

Money is the answer most often given. DoD expenditures in Hawaii totaled some $6.5 billion in 2009 — about 9 percent of the state’s gross domestic product.

“Yes, some people get paid, but who’s paying the price of that?” counters Kyle Kajihiro of Hawaii Peace and Justice, a non-profit organization. “There are losers in this, and unfortunately, it’s often native people,” he adds, citing damage to ecology and cultural sites, and Hawaii’s being perceived as “am accessory to the militarization that extends from our shores.”

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Send in the Choppers?

Post Date December 07, 2011

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Environmental Impacts, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights, Projects and Campaigns

Here’s a report from recent hearings for proposed Marine Corps helicopter expansion plans that were held on Hawai’i island:

http://bigislandweekly.com/news/send-in-the-choppers.html

Send in the Choppers?

Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

Marines unveil EIS for more helicopters here.

By Alan D. McNarie

The Marines were back in town last week, holding meetings in Waimea and Hilo to get public input on a plan to base three more squadrons of attack aircraft in the islands and train them at areas including Hawai’i Island’s Pohakuloa Training Area. As usual, they got an earful from Native Hawaiians, peace activists and concerned citizens. But they also got support from a few parents of past and former military personnel, who wanted the Corps to provide its personnel with the best training possible.

The plan would bring up to two Marine Medium Tiltrotor (VMM) squadrons and one Marine Light Attack Helicopter (HMLA) squadron to the islands, where they would be based on O’ahu and train there and on other islands. The VMM squadrons would bring with them a total 24 MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, which take off and land vertically like helicopters and fly like airplanes; a relatively recent and controversial addition to the Marine Corps Arsenal, they replace large troop-transport helicopters and have superior range and speed, but bring with them a troubled reputation for crashes, malfunctions, delays and cost overruns during their development. But when one resident brought up a troubling report about the aircraft’s performance, a Marine spokesman said those problems had largely been solved by improved parts and supply.

“Every mission that we’ve been asked to do with the V22, we have been able to do.”

The HMLA squadron is armed with 15 AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters and 12 UH-1 Huey utility choppers. Hueys and Cobras have been flying with the Marines since Vietnam, but the airframes have gone through a series of updates, and the Marines are planning to replace neither with a radically different vehicle in the near future. A helicopter pilot who accompanied the Marine Team at Hilo told Big Island Weekly that while the new AH-1Z version of the Cobra has better range, performance and electronics than the current choppers, its logistics and personnel needs would be about the same.

Coming along with the aircraft would be approximately 1,000 active-duty military personnel, 22 civilian personnel (contractors and government employees), and 1,106 civilian dependents, mostly stationed on O’ahu.

On the Big Island, most of the impacts of the new squadrons would be felt, literally, at Pohakuloa. The squadrons will be using the firing range and various landing sites there, and “New construction or improvements to existing landing zones and other facilities” are expected to occur. Marine officials assured BIW that the landing sites they had identified for use in training were within PTA itself. One map on exhibit at the meetings showed possible landing zones marked in red within the training area, but also showed five landing zones, including Mauna Kea State Park, marked in black outside the PTA boundaries. Marine officials told BIW that those sites were on the map for “reference” only.

[…]

Residents expressed concerns that powdered DU, which has been linked to cancer and other ailments, could be kicked up by continued use of the Pohakuloa firing range and drift to residential areas and Waikoloa Elementary School.

“Less than one percent of the base has been surveyed, so how do you know that you’re not going to be impacting DU?” pointed out Albertini. “To say that this is outside the scope of this EIS is bogus, because you don’t know where the DU is.”

One resident wondered if DU and other heavy metals from the firing range could also get into the local groundwater supply, and noted that that the possible effects of Pohakuloa activities on groundwater were not addressed in the EIS.

In response, a Marine official admitted that “”there has never been an investigation,” of the aquifer under Pohakuloa, though the Army has gotten funding to sink two test wells.

“Nobody knows where that water is,” he said. “We will, know, probably, by 2012.”

The EIS itself raised some concerns about impacts on historic and cultural sites, though most of the ones identified were on O’ahu. The document identified no pre-contact cultural sites on the Big Island and only two historic ones: the fence wall from ranching days and “the old Kona to Waimea Government Road.” PTA has an ongoing program to protect known cultural sites. But Native Hawaiians have long complained that most of the PTA firing range has never been surveyed. At the Hilo meeting, one resident cited the lament of a Native Hawaiian who complained that he’d repeatedly been denied permission to collect “the bones of his ancestors,” which were lying exposed on the range and had been broken into smaller and smaller pieces over the years.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Occupy APEC with Aloha

Post Date November 18, 2011

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category American Empire, Asia, DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Global Justice and Peace Movements, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights, Projects and Campaigns, Social and Economic Impacts

Christine Ahn wrote an brilliant article in FPIF on the Moana Nui conference and peoples’ resistance to the APEC neoliberal – militarization agenda. I quote liberally from the article below. You should read the full article here.

“The time has come for us to voice our rage,” the Hawaiian artist Makana sang as he gently strummed his slack-key guitar. “Against the ones who’ve trapped us in a cage, to steal from us the value of our wage.”

Makana wasn’t serenading the Occupy movement; rather his audience included over a dozen of the world’s most powerful leaders, including President Obama and China’s Premier Hu Jintao, at the world’s most secure, policed, and fortified event: the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) dinner in Hawaii.

[…]

Makana, however, wasn’t the only one voicing his outrage during the APEC summit. As government and corporate leaders from 21 Asia-Pacific economies plotted how to expand a global free trade agenda, civil society activists from throughout the Asia Pacific gathered across town at the Moana Nui (the Great Pacific Ocean) conference to discuss pressing issues facing people and the planet, such as climate change, income inequality, and militarization of the region.

Organized by Pua Mohala I Ka Po and the International Forum on Globalization (IFG), scholars, activists, policy analysts, lawyers, labor union leaders, practitioners, and artists traveled from Guam, Marshall Islands, Palau, Tonga, Fiji, Micronesia, New Zealand, Australia, Rapa Nui, Samoa, Japan, Siberia, Okinawa, Philippines, South Korea, Vanuatu, and the United States.

[…]

What’s significant is what preceded and then followed Obama’s China bashing. Ahead of the summit, both State Secretary Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta outlined the United States’ expanded role in the Asia-Pacific. In “America’s Pacific Century,” an article in Foreign Affairs, Secretary Clinton writes that the United States will “substantially increase investment—diplomatic, economic, strategic and otherwise—in the Asia-Pacific region.” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also echoed Clinton on his last trip to Asia, where he promised greater U.S. military presence throughout the Asia-Pacific—that is, more than the 300-plus U.S. bases that have already been there for over half a century.

After APEC, President Obama visited Australia to announce the arrival of 250 U.S. marines to northern Australia next year, with the eventual buildup to reach 2,500. “The goal, though administration officials are loath to say it publicly,” writes Mark Landler of the New York Times, “is to assemble a coalition to counterbalance China’s growing power.” Although Washington is posing China as a military threat, the reality is that in 2010, the United States spent $720 billion on its military, compared with China’s $116 billion, and it’s the United States that has over 300 military bases in the Asia-Pacific, whereas China has none.

Moana Nui: The Alternative to APEC

Moana Nui brought together several social movements—the indigenous and native communities fighting for sovereignty with activists working to stop corporate globalization and militarism. It was significant to be gathering in Hawai’i, a once-sovereign nation whose Queen Lili’uokalani was overthrown by American gunboat “diplomacy” in 1893. Moana Nui opened with a daylong conversation among indigenous and native communities from throughout the Pacific. This was an important reminder of the United States’ long history of stealing indigenous peoples’ lands, without treaties, without democratic process. Moana Nui participants also reframed the Pacific in aquatic terms as the “liquid continent” instead of the continental approach used by hegemonic powers.

Their voices were soon joined by those who have been organizing and resisting against the onslaught of trade liberalization and militarization, the new and more subtle face of colonialism. Moana Nui participants shared how transnational corporations, empowered by free trade and structural adjustment policies, have destroyed local economies, cultural properties, natural resources, and ultimately the sovereignty and self-sufficiency of communities. Jane Kelsey, Professor of Law at the University of Auckland, warned that the TPP will further impact domestic policy and regulation and “give more ammunition to corporations to challenge governments,” by granting foreign investors stronger intellectual property rights and further facilitating corporate global supply chains.

The corporate-led free trade agenda, however, needs the military to secure its profits. Kyle Kajihiro of Hawaii Peace and Justice reminded the audience of Thomas Friedman’s classic quote, “The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist—McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.” The military has gone hand-in-hand with free trade by forcing open new markets for investment and new natural resources for exploitation (let’s not forget Iraq). Although it may allow for the safe and secure transport of vital natural resources such as oil and natural gas, the military is there to project force, a lethal force that could intervene militarily if U.S. interests were compromised.

[…]What was clear during Moana Nui was that the peoples of the Asia-Pacific refuse to fall victim to the growing arms race between the United States and China. Echoing a proverb widely known in the Pacific, Gerson warned, “When the elephants are battling or making love, it’s the ants that get squashed.” Activists from Guam and Okinawa shared how the decades-long presence of U.S. military bases had destroyed their livelihoods, culture, and sovereignty, but also how their organizing has led to victories, such as delaying the transfer of 8,000 U.S. marines from Okinawa to Guam, and mass protests that brought nearly 100,000 Okinawans to the streets to protest the transfer of U.S. bases within Okinawa.

[…]

The final sessions of Moana Nui carried a clear message: the only way to address these challenges to sovereignty is to fundamentally roll back the conditions and laws imposed by FTAs, the WTO, and structural adjustment. As Walden Bello put it, “We need to de-globalize economies instead of being subordinated to free trade and global markets if we want to achieve food security, human livelihoods and ecological sustainability.”

[…]

The final declaration that emerged out of Moana Nui united the struggles of those who traveled across the great Pacific Ocean. “We invoke our rights to free, prior and informed consent. We choose cooperative trans-Pacific dialogue, action, advocacy, and solidarity between and amongst the peoples of the Pacific, rooted in traditional cultural practices and wisdom.”

The declaration also included a Native Hawaiian prophesy which echoes the principles of the Occupy movement: E iho ana o luna, E pi’i ana o lalo, E hui ana na moku, E ku ana ka paia. “That which is above shall be brought down, that which is below shall rise up, the islands shall unite, the walls of our foundation shall stand.” E mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono. “Forever we will uphold the life and sovereignty of the land in righteousness.”

Hawai'i island residents blast Army expansion at Pohakuloa

Post Date November 10, 2011

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Depleted Uranium, DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights, Projects and Campaigns

The Hawaii Tribune Herald reports that more than fifty people turned out to testify against the Army’s proposed expansion of training facilities at Pohakuloa.

“We don’t want any further militarization of our island,” Bunny Smith said.

According the Hawaii Tribune Herald,

The next step is to come up with the (cost) numbers to construct,” Egami said of the modernization of training infrastructure and the construction and operation of a battle area within the 132,000-acre military facility.

Meeting the 25th Infantry Division’s training requirements will necessitate constructing a 200-acre Infantry Platoon Battle Area, according to the DEIS. Included will be a simulated battle course consisting of a live-fire shoothouse and a building like those found in urban warfare.

Also, the Army wants to construct various buildings for munitions storage, vehicle maintenance and administrative use. Those and related facilities would be built outside the 200-acre battle area.

Testimony was colorful and passionate:

Hawaii needs “houses of justice and peace” rather than military shoothouses, said peace activist Jim Albertini of the Malu ‘Aina Center for Nonviolent Education and Action.

“We want the U.S. to stop bombing Hawaii,” he said.

In directly addressing Army Col. Douglas Mulbury, commander of the Army Garrison Hawaii, Moanikeala Akaka said the military will have to pay tens of millions of dollars to remove World War II-era bombs like one found recently at Hapuna Beach State Park.

“You know, it’s hard to have respect for your institution when you ignore and so callously treat our homeland,” she said.

“We say no expansion; do it somewhere else,” Akaka shouted, generating applause from the audience.

Claiming the military is in Hawaii illegally, Cory Harden of the Sierra Club questioned whether the firing will dislodge depleted uranium found at PTA, triggering fires like those that have occurred at the Army’s Makua site on Oahu, or pose other public health risks.

“You’ve got to wonder what hazards are lurking out there. Apparently, nobody knows,” she said.

(De) Militarizing the Pacific – Hawaiʻi and Guahan

Post Date November 06, 2011

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Action Alerts and Events, DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Global Justice and Peace Movements, Guam / Northern Marianas, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights, Projects and Campaigns, The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands)

NATIVE VOICES #3: 11/9/11, 7pm, Halau O Haumea, Kamakakuokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies.

DEMILITARIZING THE PACIFIC: a roundtable featuring scholars & activists from HAWAII & GUAHAN, including JULIAN AGUON, LISA NATIVIDAD, TY KAWIKA TENGAN, TERRI KEKOʻOLANI, & KALEIKOA KAʻEO. Hosted by CRAIG SANTOS PEREZ.

Opposing paradigms converge on Hawaii

Post Date October 07, 2011

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Environmental Impacts, Global Justice and Peace Movements, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights, International politics & law, Militarization of Society, Projects and Campaigns, Social and Economic Impacts, Spying and surveillance

Opposing paradigms converge on Hawaii
Hawaii is center stage for a meeting between the all-business APEC and international environmental conference Moana Nui

Jon Letman Last Modified: 07 Oct 2011 10:36

Speaking earlier this year on US National Public Radio, Intel CEO Paul Otellini suggested that the global power shift that occurred from the United Kingdom to the United States at the beginning of the 20th century is now replaying itself, as power moves away from the United States to the Asia-Pacific region, specifically China.

If that’s true, then Hawaii is well poised to serve as the place where the proverbial baton is handed off. This November (8-13), Honolulu will host the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) 2011 summit where 21 member economies will discuss region issues.

Read the full story here.

Makua: Wildfires and Military Toxins

Post Date October 05, 2011

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Action Alerts and Events, DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Free Makua, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights, Ho’ola Hawai’i – Environmental Justice

On September 28, a wildfire caused by an Army detonation of unexploded ordnance burned 100 acres in Makua Valley:

A fire burned about 100 acres of the Army’s Makua Valley training range Wednesday after it was started by workers who had detonated unexploded ordnance.

An Army spokesman said the detonation was part of a routine, ongoing cleanup operation. No one was injured. The fire was contained about 4 p.m.

No threatened or endangered species or native Hawaiian cultural sites were affected, according to an Army cultural resoucre official at the scene, the Army said.

This week, the court ruled that the Army failed to adequately study possible contamination of seaweed in the sea off Makua training area. The Civil Beat reports “Army Can’t say Whether Hawaii Seafood Is Safe”:

Waianae-area residents still can’t be certain whether seafood they harvest off their shore is safe from dangerous levels of arsenic and lead. A federal judge has ruled that Army tests of possible contamination have fallen short and advocates for the community say more tests likely will be necessary.

Contractors hired by the U.S. Army to test whether 80 years of military operations had poisoned local residents’ seafood attempted to test seafood including fish, limu, sea cucumbers and octopus without diving into the water to collect specimens, according to an environmental law firm that sued the Army.

But the contractors never left the beach and the testing was inadequate, said David Henkin, an attorney with Earthjustice representing Malama Makua, a local community organization.

[…]

“What’s really sad is for a community to have to get into federal court and spend over a decade to battle the military,” said Sparky Rodgrigues, president of Malama Makua and a Vietnam veteran. “I went to battle hoping I wouldn’t have to come home to battle.”

Bullets and unexploded ordnance are strewn throughout the Makua Military Reservation where the Army has been doing military exercises since the 1920s. Residents worry that chemicals such as arsenic, lead, chrome and uranium from the artillery could be leaching into the soil and entering the ocean through runoff. Rodrigues said that the chemicals could also be released into the air and absorbed into plants.

The court order supplements an October 2010 ruling in which Mollway also ruled that the Army had failed to adequately test marine resources. While the military found high levels of arsenic in a previous test of seafood, officials didn’t test whether it was inorganic arsenic, and thus highly carcinogenic, or organic, which doesn’t pose a human health risk.

The 2010 ruling also said that the Army violated a separate settlement obligation to complete archeological surveys to determine whether cultural resources could be damaged by stray shells and mortar rounds.

The military has been banned from doing live round firing since 2004 and is unlikely to be able to resume the activities until the testing is complete.

Rodrigues said the military wasn’t being good neighbors “by contaminating the water, food source and environment.”

“The military takes from our community and doesn’t really give back,” said Rodgrigues.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Protect Kahoolawe Ohana: All Our Aloha in One Kanoa

Post Date September 23, 2011

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Action Alerts and Events, DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights, Kaho'olawe, The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands)

Stopping the bombing – 20th Anniversary

September 25, 2011

9:30 am to 4:30 pm

Ka Papa Lo’i o Kanewai – 2645 Dole Street

Protect Kaho‘olawe ‘Ohana rededicates itself to Kaho‘olawe

(Kānewai, O‘ahu). The Protect Kaho‘olawe ‘Ohana (‘Ohana) will host All Our Aloha in One Kānoa on Sunday, September 25 from 10:30 AM to 4:30 PM at Ka Papa Lo‘i ‘o Kānewai at 2645 Dole Street. The event, which is free and open to the public, and welcomes families, wraps up a year of islandswide activities marking the 20^th anniversary since the bombing of Kaho‘olawe was stopped, The ‘Ohana invites the community to join in the rededication of promoting Aloha ‘Āina throughout the islands. Activities include talk story panels, music, food and other activities. The ‘Ohana will be serving ‘awa from the kānoa (‘awa bowl) that has been traveling across the Hawaiian Islands for the past year inviting community to rededicate themselves to Kanaloa Kaho‘olawe and continued efforts for its restoration.

Three unique kūkākūkā sessions will bring in members of the community to connect to Kaho‘olawe:

11 – 12 PM. MAKAHIKI. Makahiki practitioners from various O‘ahu communities will share their experiences around the revival of Makahiki on Kaho‘olawe and how they’ve connected those practices to their own wahi kapu (sacred places).

1 – 2 PM. I MUA NĀ PUA. Young people will share what the island has meant to them as students and family members through poems, songs, oli, or their personal stories.

3 – 4 PM. EA. Activists and proponents of Hawaiian sovereignty and restoration will describe their visions of how Kanaloa Kaho‘olawe fits into a Hawaiian entity.

Live music will be featured between sessions, including music by the Hakioawa Serenaders, Steve Ma‘i‘i, Jon Osorio, Ernie Cruz, Jr., and Kupa‘āina.

The lo‘i at Kānewai was re-established by UH Hawaiian language and culture students who were also members of the Protect Kaho‘olawe ‘Ohana. Kūpuna who guided the activities on Kaho‘olawe also helped young people to re-open the lo‘i kalo. The histories of the two communities are interconnected.

Ono food, familiar to those who have accessed Hakioawa with the ‘Ohana, will be available for donation. All proceeds from the day will support the mission of the Protect Kaho‘olawe ‘Ohana.

Formed in 1976, the vision of the Protect Kaho‘olawe ‘Ohana is Aloha ‘Āina.

Its mission is to promote Aloha ‘Āina throughout the islands through cultural, educational and spiritual activities that heal and revitalize the cultural and natural resources on Kaho‘olawe.

Kulani saved? Possible win for environmental, peace and justice advocates!

Post Date June 24, 2011

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Environmental Impacts, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights, Projects and Campaigns, Youth and Militarization

CORRECTION: I was originally informed that the resolution passed by the Hawai’i State Senate effectively reversed the reset aside of Kulani Prison to the Hawaii National Guard Youth ChalleNGe program. However, I was informed by another source that the senate vote alone may not have been sufficient to overturn the executive order by itself. We’re digging into this to confirm. We know that the intention of the Department of Community Safety and the Department of Land and Natural Resources is to reopen the prison. Stay tuned to what unfolds.

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The Hawai’i State Senate passed a resolution that disapproved of the reset aside of Kulani lands to the Hawaii National Guard Youth ChalleNGe program. This is a big win for advocates of peace, justice and the environment.

The former governor Linda Lingle abruptly closed the Kulani prison, one of the most successful sex offender treatment programs in the country, and transferred the facility to the Hawaii National Guard for its youth program and, we suspected for training purposes:

The state plans to allow the U.S. Department of Defense to begin using the 20-acre Kulani facility at the end of November, he said.

The goal is to turn the prison into a Hawai’i National Guard Youth Challenge Academy for teens ages 17 and 18 who are not going to graduate from high school, Maj. Gen. Robert Lee, the state’s adjutant general, announced in July.

Prison reform activists opposed the closure of this successful prorgram. Native Hawaiians opposed the transfer of the land to the military and sought to create a culture-based pu’uhonua (place of refuge) and healing center for nonviolent offenders. Environmentalists wanted to preserve the 7000 acre forest that surrounded the prison facility. DMZ-Hawai’i / Aloha ‘Aina opposed the military land grab.

In 2009, we called the closure a land grab:

Governor Lingle suddenly and unexpectedly closed Kulani Prison, one of the most successful offender treatment programs in Hawai’i. Why? She said it was to save money. She then said that the facility would be turned over to the Hawaii National Guard to convert it into a Youth Challenge military school. However, this article reports that the National Guard has neither the funds nor the plan to implement this convesion. So what’s the real reason for the transfer to the military? Prison reform, environmental, Hawaiian sovereignty and peace activists now suspect that the land transfer may have more to do with the military gaining access to 8000 acres of Waiakea forest for training purposes. Stay tuned…

In September 2010, the National Guard expanded its request to include various types of military training. The community blasted the proposal. The Board of Land and Natural Resources voted against allowing training in the area, but approved the transfer of the Kulani prison facility to the National Guard. DMZ-Hawai’i / Aloha ‘Aina, the Community Alliance on Prisons and cultural practitioner Michael Lee petitioned for a contested case hearing to challenge the Board’s decision.

In November 2010, I wrote on this website:

Yesterday Governor Lingle was on hand to dedicate the new Youth ChalleNGe facility at the former Kulani prison site on Hawai’i island. This was reported in the Honolulu Star Advertiser and Hawaii News Now.

But wait.

The Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) decision to transfer the land from the Department of Public Safety to the state Department of Defense is being challenged by three parties: Kat Brady of the Community Alliance on Prisons, Michael Lee, a Kanaka Maoli cultural practitioner and lineal descendant with ties to the lands in question and DMZ-Hawai’i / Aloha ‘Aina. Read more here and here

The three parties requested a contested case hearing before the BLNR. This should place a hold on the BLNR decision going into effect. To date, there has been no correspondence from BLNR to the intervening parties.

The Kulani prison lands, which are zoned for conservation, were set aside decades ago by executive order of the Governor exclusively for a prison. No other uses are permitted. When Governor Lingle closed the Kulani prison she announced that she was giving the facility to the National Guard for the Youth ChalleNGe program. The Department of Public Safety and the Department of Defense signed a memorandum of agreement to transfer the occupancy of the facility. But the previous executive order has not been officially terminated. And a new executive order has not been issued nor approved by the legislature. So the the new Youth ChalleNGe facility is illegal.

DMZ-Hawai’i / Aloha ‘Aina and the Community Alliance on Prisons issued a statement denouncing the move.

Now Kulani has come full circle. The National Guard will have to pack up and leave the facility. Kulani prison will reopen. And the pristine forest surrounding it will be protected as part of the Natural Areas Reserve. Mahalo to all who testified, educated, lobbied and spoke out against the military land grab at Kulani.