WALL STREET JOURNAL HIGHLIGHTS HAWAI`I STOLEN LANDS
WSJ - March 12, 2009
WASHINGTON - Lawyers typically warn clients never to apologize for anything, since a plaintiff could seize upon the remorse as an admission of liability. But what happens when governments apologize?
A century after a cabal of American sugar planters, financiers and missionaries overthrew the Kingdom of Hawai`i, Congress said it was sorry. The U.S. Supreme Court soon will decide whether that apology meant anything - from a legal standpoint, at least.
The Hawai`i Supreme Court thought it did. Last year, that court cited the 1993 Apology Resolution to block the state from transferring any of the 1.2 million acres of land - some 29% of Hawai`i's total - received from the federal government upon statehood in 1959. Those lands once belonged to the Hawaiian crown or its subjects, and were confiscated by the Americans without compensation....
...The Americans eventually forced Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate and declared themselves rulers of a new Republic of Hawai`i.
The indigenous population soon was swamped by settlers from the mainland....
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