Free Hawai`i

SUCCESS! - AKAKA BILL PROTEST STOPS SNEAK ATTACK!
Hawai`i senator Daniel Inouye reacted to this morning’s Akaka bill protest in Honolulu by denying he planned to sneak the Akaka bill into a US federal appropriations bill in order to get it passed into law.

“I have never suggested that the Akaka Native Hawaiian Recognition Bill be passed and adopted as part of the defense appropriations process. I don’t know where this nonsensical suggestion originated,“ stated the senator.

“Our sources in Washington say otherwise,” remarked Leon Siu, one of the protest coordinators. “Besides, if he wasn’t planning to do it, why did he need to deny it?” asks Siu. “I think we hit a nerve. As Shakespeare put it: ’Methinks thou doth protest too much...”

Over one hundred protestors gathered at the corner of Beretania and Punchbowl streets this morning holding signs and drawing public attention to Inouye’s well-established track record of using the “back-door” approach to getting legislation passed in Washington, DC. The Akaka bill would benefit a select few while disenfranchising the majority of Hawai`i’s citizens.

“We thank Senator Inouye for his statement and accept his word the Akaka bill will not be attached to any other legislation,” remarked Siu. “Maybe now the senator will actually hold open congressional hearings on the bill in Hawai`i in 2010 and find out what people really think about this legislation. I can tell you this – it will be an eye-opener.”

The Akaka bill, formally known as the Native Hawaiian Reorganization Act of 2009 would reclassify native Hawaiians as Native Americans.

Federal recognition has been a disaster historically for native peoples in the US who, under the grossly incompetent administration of the US Department of Interior, end up reclassified as wards of the federal government.

As recently as last week, the Blackfoot tribe of Montana settled a long-standing lawsuit with the US federal government for pennies on the dollar after the US Department of Interior mismanaged, lost and stole billions of dollars of Blackfoot Nation resources and funds.