"WE WILL NOT VANISH INTO THE SUNSET!"
Hawaiian Man Fights To Reclaim Family's Land
The Honolulu Advertiser - Tuesday, September 7, 2004
By Eloise Aguiar
WAIKANE - Raymond Kamaka has never given up hope that he would one day get back the lush acreage in Waikane Valley where his grandparents were born, where the family once raised taro from the mountains to the ocean, where he played as a boy six decades ago.
But a court date looms this month, and he fears that it could end for good the family connection to the land that Kamaka traces to the 1850s. The land, 187 acres that was leased to the military for less than $2 an acre, was used for live-fire training from 1942 to 1976 and condemned in 1989 after the Marine Corps and Navy determined that they could not clear the property of unexploded ordnance as stipulated in the lease.
After drawn-out and often contentious negotiations, the family settled with the federal government in 1994 for $2.3 million. His siblings and cousins signed an agreement with conditions that once the property was cleaned the family could buy it back for that amount plus interest.
But Kamaka, 65, refused to sign the agreement or accept payment. He is duty bound to his kupuna (elders,) who instructed him to never sell the 'aina (land,) he said, and insisted that the government honor its commitment and clean up the land.
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