Australia, Papua New Guinea differ on Bouganville Consulate

PACNEWS

Australia opening a foreign mission on Bougainville 

totally outrageous: Pato

Papua New Guinea foreign minister Rimbik Pato has described the suggestion by Australia opening a foreign mission on Bougainville as totally 'outrageous'.

Pato says while PNG welcome foreign aid and personel supporting its national development efforts, it is clear that some aspects of the ongoing dialogue on peace building on Bougainville among PNG officials and foreign counterparts are seriously inadequate and need immediate review.

“I've directed the acting secretary to call to call in the Australian High Commissioner to explain the media accounts of this mischievous proposal to open a foreign mission on Bougainville” 

“I will in turn present the findings to NEC, the earliest opportunity, for their deliberations,” Pato said in a statement.

Pato said priority attention should be given helping ABG to conduct an efficient, free as well as fair election on the island with a view to achieving relevant outcomes under the peace agreement in the long run. 

The Australian government Wednesday announced that it will commit A$98.3 million (US$78 million) to open five new overseas missions in consultation with host governments. 

In a major expansion of Australia’s overseas diplomatic network, new posts will be established in Doha, Qatar; Buka, Bougainville, Papua New Guinea; Makassar, Indonesia; Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; and Phuket, Thailand. 

The announcement came as part of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) annual budget statement for 2015-16.

commons.wikimedia.org

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Papua New Guinea peeved at ex-colonial ruler Australia’s 

diplomatic outpost plans

RT NEWS

Australia plans to open a diplomatic mission on Bougainville Island, currently a territory of Papua New Guinea and soon to hold an independence referendum. The island, with vast deposits of copper ore, was an Australian colony until 1975.

This week Australia issued papers on the 2016 fiscal national budget, exposing plans to establish a diplomatic post on Bougainville.

“We were shocked to learn from the budget documents that Australia is planning on establishing a diplomatic post in Bougainville,” said PNG’s Prime Minister Peter O'Neill, as cited by Reuters.

“There has been no consultation on this proposal and there is no agreement to proceed,” O'Neill said at a media event dedicated to 40 years of independence of his country. O'Neill stressed that “Bougainville is an integral part of Papua New Guinea.”

A spokesperson for Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the proposal was discussed in December and Australia's High Commissioner to Papua New Guinea formally advised the government before the Australian budget was released on Tuesday.

The Autonomous Region of Bougainville is holding presidential elections ahead of an independence referendum. The results of the election that started on Monday will be announced on June 8.

After the election Bougainville will have a five-year window to hold a referendum on independence. Whoever wins the vote will negotiate the date and the exact question with Papua New Guinea.

Bougainville Island and a number of smaller islands scattered around it were governed from Papua New Guinea as a protectorate of Australia from the end of World War I, when Australia occupied then-German New Guinea, Bougainville Island included, under League of Nations mandate. When PNG gained independence in 1975, Bougainville refused to remain part of it and declared independence, which proved to be vain.

The next attempt was made in 1990, yet the opposition from the mainland Papua New Guinea was so fierce that it led to a civil war which lasted until 1998 and resulted in complete blockade of the island. This brought tremendous hardships to its citizens.

A peace deal brokered by New Zealand implied that Bougainville would hold an independence referendum before June 2020.

Bougainville and its neighboring islands have an estimated population of 250,000, comprising many ethnic groups that speak estimated 26 languages. Bougainville’s land area is 9,300 sq km.

Before the civil war, resources giant Rio Tinto ran the Panguna copper mine on Bougainville. The mine was the largest employer and single source of export revenue in PNG, providing up to 7 percent of the world's copper production.

The mine was abandoned in 1991 due to the civil war. Rio Tinto has stated it could resume operations at Panguna if the political situation on Bougainville Island stabilizes.

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(Australian FM) Bishop denies O’Neill’s claim

SOURCE: THE NATIONAL/PACNEWS

Australia has denied an accusation that it failed to consult the Papua New Guinea Government on a decision to open a new diplomatic mission in Bougainville.

A spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop said in a statement to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation she had discussed her proposal to open a secondary post in PNG during a visit in December 2014.

She said Australia’s High Commissioner to PNG had formally advised the PNG Government of its intention to announce a new diplomatic presence in the lead-up to the 2015 budget.

Prime Minister Peter O’Neill said in a speech last Thursday to the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney that he was “shocked” by the announcement by Australia that it was building a new diplomatic mission on Bougainville.

He said there was no consultation about the decision from Australia to build the new diplomatic post and that he learnt about it from media coverage of the budget.

“We don’t want governments to go around creating offices everywhere around the country that will create the wrong interpretation and wrong meaning to our people,” he said.

“We’ve got sensitivities around areas like Bougainville with the elections that are underway at the present.

And of course we are concerned about the message the establishment of this consulate will give to our people in PNG.”

O’Neill was concerned that the move by Australia could influence elections on the island and that his government would prevent the new post from going ahead.

“We have to sanction this,” he said. 

“You can’t just go around and open offices at your pleasure.”

O’Neill said Bougainville was an “integral part of Papua New Guinea”.

Native peoples' group seeks end to 'US occupation' of Alaska, Hawaii

A man holds a Hawaii flag (Reuters/Tim Shaffer)

The group is to raise the issue during next week’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, reports TASS.

A human rights group speaking in the name of indigenous populations of Alaska and Hawaii seek UN intervention to organize self-determination referenda in the US states, saying Washington has illegally occupied it since 1959.

Both territories were listed in 1946 as Non Self-Governing Territories under article 73 of the UN Charter. The status theoretically subjected Alaska and Hawaii to decolonization. In both referenda were held over whether they would become fully-fledged states of the USA, which both did in 1959.

Critics of the transition, including the Alaska-Hawaii Alliance for Self-Determination, accuse the US federal government of failing to hold the ballots properly, which they say should have involved offering and explaining to the people the option for becoming an independent state rather than part of the US.

The group wants the UN to pressure the US over what they call a violation of UN charter and international law. It accuses Washington of mistreating indigenous peoples of Alaska and Hawaii living under what it calls American ‘occupation’.

“Our culture is being suppressed. But US actions target not only our culture, but also world peace, because it has a military base in Pearl Harbor,” said Leon Siu, a representative for Hawaii in the alliance.“They pollute our land and water during exercises. People get sick because of it. It’s an affront to our land and our people. We don’t want to be part of a war machine.”

Read more‘Martial law exercise?’ Texas jittery over US military drills

Ronald Barnes of Alaska said the US “is mismanaging the property they have no right for.

“They take our land and mine mineral resources in large amounts damaging our environment,” he said.

Barnes told TASS that the group would seek assistance from Russia for their cause.

“It will be 150 years since the sale of Alaska by Russia to the US in 2017. If we could work with the Russians to present the historical truth and reject the distorted concepts about Alaska and our peoples, I believe it could be a good way to amend the situation,” he said.

He said Alaska could become a neutral independent state between Russia and the West.

The group has been active since at least 2010, although its members have long records of fighting for the rights of native peoples of Alaska and Hawaii. Activists from the two states banded together earlier under other names. For instance in 2006 they acted as Indigenous World Association, to get UN support for their cause.

Malawians Seek UK Compensation for 1950s Nyasaland Massacre

RT UK

Blantyre Nyasaland (Image from centralafricana.com)

The families of 33 pro-independence fighters who were killed in the 1950s in the region today known as Malawi are demanding reparations from the UK for “unjustified killings” perpetrated towards the end of colonial rule.

Relatives of protesters who were killed by British colonial forces in Malawi in 1959 during the Operation Sunrise massacre in Nyasaland said they are seeking reparations in court.

The South African newspaper Mail & Guardian reports the families of 51 slain freedom fighters are pushing the Malawi government to seek £100-million in compensation.

On March 3, 1959, Britain imposed a state of emergency in Nyasaland to stop violent protests by political activists of the Nyasaland African Congress fighting for independence, led by Hastings Kamuzu Banda.

The peaceful and unarmed protesters, including three pregnant women, were demonstrating against the arrest of freedom fighters on a passenger ship on the shores of Lake Malawi. Public opposition to the detentions culminated in the killing of 51 demonstrators and 1,300 arrests.

Read more40,000 Kenyans accuse Britain of abuse and torture in second Mau Mau law suit

Speaking to the Guardian, Raphael Mhone, a lawyer representing the victims’ families, said:“The families of the 33 deceased are mourning year in and year out. The killings created a lot of challenges to families, because some of those killed were breadwinners.

“It should also be borne in mind that apart from creating economic and social challenges to such families, the mere fact that they were innocently killed warrants compensation from those responsible.

“First, we will engage Britain diplomatically to own up to their responsibility. The martyrs were not criminals.”

He added that if diplomacy fails, he would bring the case to London’s High Court, “like the Kenyans did.”

Nyasaland became independent from British colonial rule on 6 July 1964 and was renamed Malawi.

Some claim Malawi could use the Mau Mau case as a precedent to push for compensation. In 2013, due to a ruling by the high court, the UK government paid out £19.9-million in costs and compensation to 5,228 Kenyans who had been tortured by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising between 1952 and 1960.

Malawi’s daily, the Nation newspaper, said in an editorial this week: “Let dialogue prevail. Innocent lives were needlessly lost at the hand of the federal forces as people of this country struggled for their emancipation. In the end, a lot is indeed at stake given the age-old relations between the two countries.”

Read moreWhat archives? UK ordered destruction of ‘embarrassing’ colonial papers

In March, John Chunda, the only surviving witness of the massacre and the representative of the families, reportedly presented a petition to the office of the British high commissioner to Malawi in the capital Lilongwe, demanding £100-million in compensation.

“This is the initial step,” Chunda told the Mail & Guardian. “If the UK government insists on denying, then we follow with litigation. It is a simple case. Representatives of the British Crown ordered the shooting of our freedom fighters and it’s on record. There is no way they can deny liability.”

“We have suffered for 56 years,” said Chunda, “a period long enough for people to make a meaningful [contribution] either to their families or the country had they not been slain like animals.

“They have been called martyrs all these years, but definitely their relatives need to be compensated for their souls to rest in peace.”

Read more​Fiji removes Britain’s Union Flag from its standard to ‘dispense with colonial symbols’

However, the British high commissioner to Malawi, Michael Nevin, has ruled out compensation.

“We are saddened by any loss of life during the struggle. We have had no discussion with the government of Malawi on this matter and do not consider the issues of compensation arise,”he told the Mail & Guardian.

“The UK and Malawi enjoy a close relationship that stretches back over many years and we look forward to that relationship continuing in the years ahead.”

See also:  

Britain on trial: 1948 Malaya massacre case could crack open UK’s dark colonial past

Military Presence in Okinawa seen as "Virtual Occupation"

U.S. military in Okinawa illegally

The Japan Times

YOSHIO SHIMOJI

Naha, Okinawa Prefectur

The pomp and circumstance that characterized the state dinner given by U.S. President Barack Obama for visiting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (“State dinner for Abe at White House surprises with haiku, sake and R&B” in the April 30 edition) may camouflage the reality that Japan (Okinawa in particular) is still being occupied by the U.S. military.

People may say “the Occupation” has been sanctioned by bilateral agreements, so that it is in consonant with international law.

The literal occupation of Okinawa lasted from 1945 through 1952 to 1972. But the virtual occupation has continued since 1972 to this day.

Article 3 of the San Francisco Peace Treaty (signed in 1951) stipulates that Japan will concur to give the U.S. “the right to exercise all and any powers of administration, legislation and jurisdiction” over Okinawa and its territorial waters. So the occupation of Okinawa may seem legitimate as far as this period was concerned.

The occupation of Okinawa was supposed to officially end in 1972 when Okinawa’s administrative right was returned to Japan. The catch is that Okinawa is still being occupied by the U.S. because the military presence, guaranteed by the Japan-U.S. security treaty, continued just as before on the pretext of defending Japan and maintaining peace and security in its vicinity.

The security treaty has been gutted and therefore nullified already, though, because the U.S. is using bases in Okinawa for whatever purpose that may suit it. They use the Okinawa bases as staging posts to engage in wars overseas in blatant violation of the security treaty.

The new guidelines struck at the “two-plus-two” meeting in New York on April 27 ignore the most important provision in the Japan-U.S. security treaty as to why the U.S. military is stationed in Japan. The security treaty has thus crumbled from the ground up whereby the United States cannot use it as justification for maintaining its military in Okinawa.

It therefore boils down to the conclusion that the U.S. military presence in Japan, in Okinawa in particular, is illegal across the board. Naturally, the confirmation by both Tokyo and Washington to forge ahead with the Henoko relocation plan is null and void.

e

¿Por qué el ELA de PR no se puede mejorar? / Why Puerto Rico's commonwealth political status can’t be improved

Compañeros Unidos para la Descolonización de Puerto Rico: Cita Patriótica ONU Junio 2012

El Estado Libre Asociado (ELA) de Puerto Rico no se puede mejorar, porque es una colonia del gobierno de Estados Unidos.  Hay algunos puertorriqueños, como Alfredo Hernández Mayoral, que, por lo menos públicamente, no lo acepta.  Él dice que la Organización de Naciones Unidas (ONU) determinó en 1953 que Puerto Rico no es una colonia. 

Para una colonia dejar de serla, la colonia tiene que adquirir su soberanía.  Tu soberanía te permitirá diseñar el gobierno que tú quieres.  Eso se llama descolonización.  Eso no fue lo que pasó en el 1952 cuando se estableció el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico. 

El ELA se construyó sobre la LEY 600 del gobierno de Estados Unidos.  Cuando los puertorriqueños redactaron su constitución, el gobierno de Estados Unidos la tenía que aprobar.  De hecho, para ser aprobada por Washington, los puertorriqueños tuvieron que cambiar ciertas partes de su constitución, porque no fueron aceptadas por el gobierno de Estados Unidos. 

El año siguiente, el gobierno de Estados Unidos, con la ayuda de algunos puertorriqueño, engañaron a la Organización de Naciones Unidas diciéndole que Puerto Rico había alcanzado su gobierno propio.  Ésta es la razón por la cual Puerto Rico no aparece en la lista de colonias de la ONU. 

El gobierno de Estados Unidos no quiere cambiar su relación colonial con Puerto Rico, porque Puerto Rico todavía le está sirviendo perfectamente bien.  ¡Solo para los puertorriqueños es que nuestro coloniaje es un desastre!  Por eso es que el ganador del Premio Nobel de la Paz y el Presidente de Estados Unidos Obama no excarcelará  a nuestro Oscar López Rivera.  Excarcelarlo significaría para el gobierno de Estados Unidos que estaría dispuesto a descolonizar a Puerto Rico.  Y por eso también, el gobierno de Estados Unidos ha ignorado 33 resoluciones de la ONU pidiéndole la descolonización inmediata de Puerto Rico.  ¿Qué hacemos cuando lo que es justo no se hace?

Hay que formar un tsunami de gente para obligar al gobierno de Estados Unidos a cumplir con la ley internacional del 1960 que prohíbe el coloniaje.  Tenemos que unirnos para hacer marchas pacíficas permanentemente, porque los que mantiene colonias, no creen en la justicia para todos.

The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico can’t be improved, because it is a colony of the United States (US).  Some Puerto Ricans, like Alfredo Hernández Mayoral, at least publically, refuses to accept it.  He says that the United Nations (UN) determined in 1953 that Puerto Rico is not a colony.

In order for a colony to stop being it, the colony must acquire its sovereignty.  Sovereignty will permit it to design the kind of government it wants.  This is called decolonization.  That is not what happened in 1952, when the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico was established.  

The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico was constructed on United States Law 600.  When Puerto Ricans drafted their constitution, Washington had to approve it.   In fact, Puerto Ricans had to change certain parts of their constitution, because the US government refused to accept them.

The following year, the US government, with the help of some Puerto Ricans, tricked the United Nations into believing that Puerto Rico had achieved self-government.  This is why Puerto Rico is not on the UN’s list of colonies. 

The US government has no desire to change Puerto Rico’s colonial relationship, because Puerto Rico has served the US government fantastically well!  Colonialism has only been a disaster for Puerto Ricans for the past 116 years.

That is why the Nobel Peace Prize winner and United States President Obama refuses to release Puerto Rican political prisoner Oscar López Rivera from jail.  Freeing him would mean to the US government that it is willing to decolonize Puerto Rico.  And that is also why the US government has ignored 33 UN resolutions asking for the immediate decolonization of Puerto Rico.  What do we do, when what is just is not done?

We need to form a tsunami of people to make the US government comply with the 1960 international law that says that colonialism is a crime against humanity.  We need to peacefully and permanently march, because those who maintain colonies don’t believe in justice for all!

Tokelau Explores MOU with Samoa to strengthen resilience against Natural disasters

TOKELAU GOVT/PACNEWS

Government of Tokelau meetings last week with Disaster Management Organisation (DMO) and Meteorological Office in Apia look to explore how it could share related experiences in strengthening resilient against natural disasters from the growing impact of climate change.

The objective of the meetings was exploring a memorandum of understanding between Samoa (MNRE/Met Office) and Tokelau on disaster management that will look into developing of early warnings, training and keeping people aware - provisions that are required for the management of natural disasters such as tsunamis, cyclones and droughts.

The meetings with head officers, Filomena Nelson and Ausetalia Lea Titimaea look at addressing disaster preparation issues like standard operating procedures, citizens responsibilities, supplies and equipments, recruitment and training of staff and public education and awareness.

go.hrw.com

Samoa’s Community Disaster and Climate Risk Management Programme (CDCRM) by Disaster Management Organisation (DMO) were carried out in Tokelau last year, facilitated by staff from DMO.

Daily weather reports services are currently being provided by Samoa’s Metrological Office in Apia.

Meanwhile, consultation with the Council of Elders (Taupulega) of Fakaofo on the Land and Coastal Management Project by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) will be carried out late April.

Consultation will access and gather the information required to implement the project.

Government of New Zealand lend use consultant, Dean Walker will be carrying out consultation with support from FAO’s, Forestry Management Advisor, Tevita Kelesoma and Economic Development Natural Resource and Environment Department, Environment Manager, Menny Tavuto.

The Land and Coastal Management Project was signed last year between FAO and Government of Tokelau and the implementation expected to be carried out in June.

On the 132nd Anniversary of Pioneering Black Radical Hubert Henry Harrison's Birthday

Submitted by Jeffrey B. Perry 

Black Agenda Report

The same folks who'd have us believe politics is just Republicans and Democrats, and that the current black political class is the culmination of black history have tried to erase the history of black giants like socialist Hubert Henry Harrison, whom historian Joel A. Rogers called “the foremost Afro-American intellect of his time.” and who was a mentor to Marcus Garvey.

On the 132nd Anniversary of Pioneering Black Radical Hubert Henry Harrison's Birth

by Jeffrey B. Perry

Hubert H. Harrison (1883-1927) is a true giant of Black, Caribbean, Diasporic African, and U.S. radical history. He was a brilliant writer, orator, educator, critic, and political activist who was described by the historian Joel A. Rogers, in World’s Great Men of Color, as “the foremost Afro-American intellect of his time” and by A. Philip Randolph as “the father of Harlem Radicalism.”

Harrison was born to an immigrant mother from Barbados and a formerly enslaved Crucian father on Estate Concordia in St. Croix, Danish West Indies (now U.S. Virgin Islands), on April 27, 1883. On St. Croix he lived amongst immigrant and native-born working people, learned customs rooted in African communal systems, and grew with an affinity for the poor and with the belief that he was equal to any other. He also learned of the Crucian people’s rich history of direct-action mass struggle including the 1848 enslaved-led emancipation victory; the 1878 island-wide “Great Fireburn” rebellion in which women played prominent roles; and the October 1879 general strike.

After arriving in New York as a seventeen-year-old orphan in 1900 Harrison made his mark over the next twenty-seven years by struggling against class and racial oppression and by helping to create a remarkably rich and vibrant intellectual life among those he affectionately referred to as “the common people.” He played unique, signal roles in the development of what were, up to that time, the largest class radical movement (socialism) and the largest race radical movement (the “New Negro Movement”/Garvey movement) in U.S. history. His ideas on the centrality of the struggle against white supremacy anticipated the profound transformative power of the Civil Rights/Black Liberation struggles of the 1960s. His talks before large crowds at Wall and Broad Streets (on Socialism) and in Harlem after the 1917 pogrom against the East St. Louis African-American community (East St. Louis is less than 12 miles from Ferguson) were precursors to recent “Occupy” and “Black Lives Matter” movements.

Harrison was the foremost Black organizer, agitator, and theoretician in the Socialist Party of New York during its 1912 heyday; he founded the first organization (the Liberty League) and the first newspaper (The Voice) of the militant, World War I-era “New Negro Movement”; editedThe New Negro: A Monthly Magazine of a Different Sort (“intended as an organ of the international consciousness of the darker races – especially of the Negro race”) in 1919; wroteWhen Africa Awakes: The “Inside Story” of the Stirrings and Strivings of the New Negro in the Western World in 1920; and he served as the editor of the Negro World and principal radical influence on the Garvey movement during its radical high point in 1920.

His views on race and class profoundly influenced a generation of “New Negro” militants including the class radical A. Philip Randolph and the race radical Marcus Garvey. Considered more race conscious than Randolph and more class conscious than Garvey, Harrison is a key link in the two great trends of the Black Liberation Movement – the labor and civil rights trend associated with Randolph and Martin Luther King, Jr., and the race and nationalist trend associated with Garvey and Malcolm X.

Harrison also was a pioneer Black activist in the freethought and birth control movements; reportedly developed "the first regular book-review section known to Negro newspaperdom"; and helped develop the 135th Street Public Library into what has become known as the internationally famous Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

People are encouraged to commemorate Hubert Harrison’s life and work and to share information on him with others.

For comments from scholars and activists on Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918 and on A Hubert Harrison Reader see http://www.jeffreybperry.net/disc.htm

and http://www.jeffreybperry.net/bio.htm

and http://www.jeffreybperry.net/bio.htm

Additional information on Hubert Harrison the Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918 can be found at:

http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-13910-6/hubert-harrison

An overview of Harrison’s life is available at BlackPast.org:

http://www.blackpast.org/?q=perspectives/hubert-harrison-voice-early-20th-century-harlem-radicalism

For a longer “Introduction” to Hubert Harrison in “Souls” seehttp://www.columbia.edu/cu/ccbh/souls/vol2no1.html

For more information on Hubert Harrison see

http://www.jeffreybperry.net/_center__font_size__3__font_color__green___b_3__hubert_harrison_br___center___fo_86150.htm

For a video on Hubert Harrison from Boston Neighborhood Network TV

https://youtu.be/heBKm1ytd5Q

Clips from a Book TV, CSPAN-2 program on Harrison with Dr. Jeffrey B. Perry, Dr. Komozi Woodard and Dr. Mark Naison can be viewed at http://www.c-span.org/video/?283784-1/book-discussion-hubert-harrison

Jeffrey B. Perry is an independent, working class scholar who preserved and inventoried the Hubert H. Harrison Papers (now at Columbia University's Rare Book and Manuscript Library) and is the editor of A Hubert Harrison Reader (Wesleyan University Press, 2001) and author ofHubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918 (Columbia University Press, 2008).He is currently working on volume two of the Hubert Harrison biography, editing Harrison’s writings for placement on Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library webpage,and preparing a new edition of Harrison’s When Africa Awakes for Diasporic Africa Press.

Okinawa rally set to oppose further U.S. Militarisation

Major rally against Henoko relocation to be held May 17

Representatives of the group organizing the May 17 rally against the relocation of a Marine Corps base to Henoko speak about the importance of the upcoming event during a press conference on April 30 at Southern Plaza Kaiho in Naha. (Front row from left) Chokei Taira, Kiku Nakayama, Morimasa Goya, Susumu Inamine, and Norio Oshiro.

 Ryukyu Shimpo

A group of civic leaders opposing the relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to Henoko in Nago announced at a press conference in Naha on April 30 that a major rally against the base construction will be held on May 17 at 1 p.m. at Okinawa Cellular Stadium in Naha. The organizers, who include members of the prefectural assembly, civic groups, and the business community, said they expect the event to draw at least 30,000 participants, revising their earlier estimate of around 10,000. Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga has expressed his intention to participate in the rally which will be held under the banner, “70 years after WWII – Stop the construction of a new base in Henoko.”

Prior to the press conference, the organizers established an action committee, which is composed of: Tatsuhiro Oshiro, a writer who has won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize; Kiku Nakayama, chairperson of the Shiraume Alumni Association of the Okinawa Daini Women’s High School; Susumu Inamine, mayor of Nago city; Morimasa Goya, chairman of Kanehide Group; Chokei Taira, CEO of Kariyushi Group; and Norio Oshiro, chairman of the trade union Rengo Okinawa.
The representatives will visit Tokyo on May 24-26 to deliver a resolution against the base construction to the Japanese prime minister’s residence and other offices. They are also considering accompanying the Okinawa governor on his planned trip to the United States, aiming to raise awareness among the American public of the military base issue in Okinawa.

The organizers have adopted blue as the rally’s theme color symbolizing the sea of Henoko and Oura Bay. They are calling on those who cannot participate in the rally to wear blue pieces of clothing or accessories to express their opposition to the base relocation to Henoko.

A leader of the action committee, Tatsuhiro Oshiro, was not able to attend the press conference due to his schedule. In a phone interview with the Ryukyu Shimpo, Oshiro said, “We are aware of the strength of the resolve against the Henoko relocation among residents of Okinawa Prefecture, but the depth of feeling is not fully understood in mainland Japan. Through the rally, we want to show the local residents’ strong resolve to keep fighting.”

(English translation by T&CT and Miwa Murphy)

Go to Japanese

Hawai‘i Law Professor Provides Clarity of Dispute on Mauna Kea to Univ. of Hawaii Board of Regents

Hawaiian Kingdom Blog

Weblog of the acting government of the Hawaiian Kingdom presently operating within the occupied State of the Hawaiian Islands.

Testimony of Willamson B.C. Chang, Professor of Law 

Meeting of the University of Hawai‘i Board of Regents 

University of Hawai‘i at Hilo

April 16, 2015

Honorable Board of Regents:

I have had the honor and pleasure to serve as a Professor of Law at the University of Hawai’i for the last 39 years. I have served the University and the community well. I am also grateful for the opportunity to serve and work in the University.

Let me start by saying this: I know a place, I know a country where there would never be a question whether to build an eighteen-story thirty meter telescope on the summit of Mauna Kea. That country, that nation is “Hawai’i.”

Before 1893, it would have been unthinkable that the Government of the Kingdom of Hawai’i would ever conceive of such a plan. Yes, Kalakaua loved astronomy. All Hawaiians loved the stars. However, they loved Mauna Kea even more. Mauna Kea is “sacred” it is the Sky-Father it is the essence, the beginning of the creation chant of the Hawaiian people. All Hawaiians, all Islands, even Taro are descendants of Mauna Kea.

When I say “Mauna Kea” is sacred, I do not mean to use “sacred” the way most people use that term. I mean “sacred” not in the same sense of worship. I use “sacred” in the sense of “precious” and “so important that nothing else counts”—I apply it to those things and people that we care so much about that we would do anything, even flout and break the law, to preserve their existence.

The child of a parent, especially a young child is “sacred” in this sense. So are parents to their children. So are grandparents. Even the family pet is “sacred.” If your house was burning down would you risk your life to go into the burning house to rescue your children, your mother, your grandparents, even your beloved dog or cat? Would you go even if forbidden by first responders, firemen or policemen? Yes, many of us would go without hesitation–without thinking of the consequences. Would you give a kidney to save or extend the life of your child, your brother, your uncle? Would you spend all of your money to save a loved one from cancer? from Lou Gehrig’s disease or from a life in prison without parole? Yes, we all would.

Moreover, we praise such emotions and desires of others who make such sacrifices every day. We understand the soldier who sacrifices himself by instinctively jumping on a grenade. We understand the parent or grandparent who gives all their money to see their child or grandchild through college.

Whether one worships Mauna Kea or not, whether one considers it “sacred” does not matter as much as understanding the instincts that drive those to defend and save Mauna Kea—much as one would understand the absolute love for a child, or a parent even if such acts break the law.

When we see the instinct of family, of brotherhood, of sisterhood of love for mankind in others we celebrate that—we gravitate to that. We love and defend Mauna Kea because it reminds us what makes us human. Sacred is not necessarily a place. It is a relationship, a deep visceral relationship: beyond reason, beyond law, beyond rationality.

The Mauna Kea movement is a movement that has grown because of young people. They live in new confusing world themselves—a world of cognitive dissonance. That is they live within an outright contraction—a Hawaii in decline where there is nothing they can do. They see their world being attacked and destroyed, its water taken, its plants doused with foreign chemicals, its agricultural lands disappear in the name of gentlemen farmers, its open lands used for artillery practice, and its shoreline becoming high-end condominiums that only rich foreigners can afford.

Moreover, to the young, Hawaii is unlivable, there is no viable future: There are no places to rent, no jobs that fit their training, no money for retirement and the endless, life-sapping traffic congestion. And now an eighteen story telescope on Mauna Kea!

It would never be built on other sacred sites: not over the Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock, Angor Wat, Gettysburg, Arlington, or the Arizona Memorial? No one would think of putting a pair of glasses on the eyes of God. Why then, Mauna Kea? We, and our youth are inundated today with the attacks on the treasures of the earth and why?

So, what happened to this “nation” called Hawai‘i, where Mauna Kea was loved and adored? Hawai‘i was a nation, that by a series of events, starting with an overthrow in 1893 and ending with annexation in 1900, by which another nation, the United States, forcefully took the sovereignty of Hawai‘i.

What do I mean by that?—to take one nation’s sovereignty? Sovereignty is the monopoly of a government on the legitimate use of violence.

By that I mean the State, the police and DLNR are the only ones today who can do so-called “legal” violence to Mauna Kea. Similarly, the police of Hawai‘i County and the officers DLNR are the only ones who can use the violence of arrest and jail or fine to force down the protectors of Mauna Kea. Protect the mountain and you go to jail. It is legal. It is called law. It is a power possessed only by the sovereign of a nation. There once was a time in Hawaii when that monopoly on the use of legal power protected not defiled Mauna Kea.

In 1893 and 1900 a new Nation took over in Hawai‘i—a new nation with new rules. These were new rules that had the power to interfere with our very human, emotions and instincts, instincts derived over time from our kupuna, our ancestors and the culture of this nation of Hawai‘i. Hawai‘i has changed.

Today, government has the legitimate power to do violence to families as well. Government agencies can take a child away from a parent. Government agencies can put a Hawaiian in prison for the smallest of offenses—denying him or her freedom and the chance to be with and raise their families. The world of Hawai‘i has been turned upside down.

The answer lies in power, that is law—the shift over their lives by which all is reversed.

In 1898 the United States, by Joint Resolution took the nation of Hawai‘i. I am a legal historian. In the appendix attached I show my work—that concludes definitively that the joint resolution had no such power. It was impotent, it was an act of Congress not a treaty. It could no more take Hawai‘i by a law then Hawai‘i by a law could take America.

It was a fraud—it created a disease that spread, a malaise we all suffer—called the myth of annexation. We all believe we are part of America, we all act as if that were true. We have been taught that way. We follow the lead of others who act that way.

The truth is that the joint resolution did not give to the United States the monopoly on the use of legitimate violence—a violence to build on Mauna Kea, the violence to arrest those who seek to stop that building. Most of all the University claims Mauna Kea by lease—a lease derived from the Joint Resolution.

It is said that the Joint Resolution gave Mauna Kea to the United States, which gave it to the State, which gave it to the University. As a matter of law that is false. It is a lie. The University has no power over Mauna Kea. It cannot build, it cannot give permits, it cannot arrest us.

The mass of young people are here today in protest because we live in a world of cognitive dissonance. They live in a world where they are learning, at the University about the truth of the Joint Resolution, which gives no power, no sovereignty to the state. Outside of their classes they see the State taking what they love—preventing them from running into the burning house to save their Mauna Kea, their father, their sky-father.

And this dissonance makes them ill. It makes our youth sick. It is a crisis that creates mental illness. In short, to build on Mauna Kea is to cast a sickness throughout these islands, a sickness and sadness, not only on Native Hawaiians but on all people who live here.

I have included an appendix, taken from my work, which speaks to the myth of annexation and demonstrates that the Joint Resolution had no capacity to take the Nation of Hawai‘i. I will place this testimony and my appendix on my “Scholar Space” at Hamilton Library, the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, under my name. This is the link to that site.

Mahalo and Mahalo Ke Akua.

Williamson Chang

Professor of Law

*****

Also see: 

Hawaiians seek to protect mountain from construction of telescope