FreeHawaii.Info IS PROUD TO PRESENT, IN SERIALIZED FORM, "AMERICA'S TIBET," BY DAVID INGHAM, AMY MARSH AND KUKAUAKAHI CHING.
The Full Story Of Why The Illegal Overthrow And Continued Illegal US Occupation of Hawai'i is America's Tibet!
Now published in April 1-15, 2004 issue of Hawai'i Island Journal, and eventually will be viewable online at http://www.hawaiiislandjournal.com.
Here's the fourth installment...
The Apology Resolution was a top story in Hawaii, but only a blip in the mainland press. Nevertheless, some policy makers began to take note of the resolutions implications. Perhaps to undermine growing international awareness of Hawaii's true status or perhaps as a last ditcheffort to retain control of Hawaii's assets, Congress and the Departments of the Interior and Justice began a process in 1999 to implement a superficial semblance of the reconciliation called for in the Apology Resolution. This process has produced six versions of what are known as the Akaka bills and most recently as the Akaka-Stevens bill. These bills propose a federally recognized "domestic dependent" Hawaiian government that would eventually negotiate Hawaiians's claims with the Federal government through the Department of the Interior.
It's important to note that many Hawaiian organizations and State agencies are dependent on federal benefits and have thus undertaken an expensive lobbying and educational pro-Akaka-Stevens campaign to gain Congressional, Hawaiian, and Native American support for the bill. This well funded campaign, led by the Office of Hawaiian affairs and the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement (among others), gained extra momentum by (so far unsuccessful) attacks on Hawaiian benefits in the courts. Unfortunately the ambitious lobbying and educational campaigns conducted by these federally dependent agencies is profoundly tainted by misinformation, half truths, and outright lies.
Grass roots efforts by Hawaiian nationalists have exposed the deceit embedded in the promotion of the Akaka bills. They have also exposed unethical relationships between some of the officers of these agencies and Alaska Native organizations seeking to secure oil deals in congress. In addition to exposing this corruption, grass roots legal efforts have also exposed ongoing malfeasance and misfeasance within the Department of the Interior.
The Department of the Interior has been deemed an unfit trustee by a federal judge. Secretaries of the Interior, under both Clinton and Bush administrations, have been cited for contempt of court and for perpetuating fraud on the court in the disappearance of as much as $137 billion dollars in Indian assets and 40 million acres of Indian land (in the ongoing Cobell vs. Norton case).
Part Five Tomorrow...
