Date: Fri, 14 Apr 1995 18:58:59 -0700 (PDT)
From: Candace Lei Fujikane <cfujikan-AT-uclink2.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Hawaiian Sovereignty



UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies, the Pacific Cultural Studies Working Group, the 
Feminist Theory, Modernity and Transnational Capital Working Group and 
the Asian Pacific American Law Students' Association present


				Mililani Trask

			      Kia 'aina, Governor
			       Ka Lahui Hawai'i

      "Ka Lahui Hawai'i: The Initiative for a Sovereign Hawaiian Nation"


			   Wednesday, April 26, 1995
			  4:00 pm at 122 Wheeler Hall
			University of California, Berkeley


Mililani Trask is the kia 'aina (governor) of Ka Lahui Hawai'i, one of 
the most highly visible political organizations in Hawai'i seeking to bring 
sovereignty to  Native Hawaiian people.  Under the current U.S. policy, 
Native Hawaiians have not been able to gain federal recognition or 
self-determination.  Native Hawaiians, unlike Native Americans, do not 
have the right to receive their federal entitlements directly, and Native 
Hawaiians continue to be viewed as wards of the federal government.  
Trask, a Native Hawaiian attorney, will speak about the ways in which Ka 
Lahui is working to establish the Hawaiian Nation as an indigenous nation 
with Native American "nation-within-a-nation" status.  In order to 
achieve this goal, Ka Lahui works on a number of levels.  
Internationally, Ka Lahui has requested that  the United Nations return 
Hawai'i to its list of non-self-governing territories.  Hawai'i had been 
on that list up until 1959, the year in which Hawai'i was made a state.  
The U.S. is the only U.N. member state that has failed to relinquish its 
trust territories.  Locally, Ka Lahui is seeking the return of a Native 
Hawaiian land base, Hawaiian Public Land Trusts.  Currently, the U.S. 
holds these lands in trust for Native Hawaiians: 1.2 million acres of 
Ceded Lands, public lands that were seized from the Crown during the 
illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy by American businessmen and 
the U.S. Navy in 1893, and 200,000 acres of Hawaiian Homestead lands that 
were to be distributed to and leased by peoples of Hawaiian blood.  Much 
of this land is leased to the military (often for $1 a year) and to private
corporations, while in the past 70 years, only 10% of Hawaiian Homestead 
lands have actually been parceled out.  Native Hawaiians, like Native 
Americans, suffer from high rates of poverty, homelessness, illiteracy, 
incarceration and illness.  As Trask explains in an interview, "[W]e have 
millions of acres that are currently held by private trusts.  The Bishop 
Estate lands are in trust for the education of our children.  
Lili'uokalani Trust, Lunalilo Trust and Queen's Hospital are examples of 
private land holdings the beneficiaries of which are the native people.  
It is the position of Ka Lahui that the private trusts belong to our 
people.  We need to address health concerns and we need land for health 
clinics in our communities; we should be able to use the Queen's Hospital
lands and facilities.  If you're erecting an education facility, Bishop 
Estate lands should be accessible, although they're under private trust.  
We are very fortunate among America's native people in that we have 
extensive land holdings. It's unfortunate that our status of wardship 
keeps us from controlling our lands and resources.  Nevertheless, the 
land base is there and there is legal claim to it."  President Clinton's 
formal apology to Hawaiians in 1993 acknowledges the fact that the 
Hawaiian Nation was internationally recognized as a sovereign nation 
before American intervention, and in conjunction with the Universal 
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples drawn up by Native American 
groups under the auspices of the Human Rights Commission, these two 
documents can provide an important framework in which future discussions 
and legal analyses can take place.  








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