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In a historic meeting, the Peoples' International Tribunal convened in Hawai'i on August 12-21, 1993. For the first time, the United States was brought before a court of international civil society to account for the invasion, annexation and forced integration of Hawaiian territory, and for crimes committed against the Kanaka Maoli (indigenous Hawaiian) people and nation. It was the first Peoples' International Tribunal to be held in Hawai'i and was convened on the centennial anniversary of the armed invasion and seizure of the formerly independent island nation.
The Kanaka Maoli Komike (Committee) organized the Tribunal which was supported by more than 60 sponsoring organizations and more than 500 persons. The idea of the 1993 Tribunal was first proposed in 1992 by the late Kawaipuna Prejean, who was a roving international envoy for Kanaka Maoli sovereignty organizations. 135 Kanaka Maoli and 10 non-Kanaka expert witnesses provided oral and written testimony through the eight days of the Tribunal.
Three experts in indigenous international law served as prosecutor-advocates on behalf of Kanaka Maoli in the Tribunal. These attorneys were Glenn T. Morris, Professor of Political Science, and Director of the Fourth World Center for the Study of Indigenous Law and Politics at the University of Colorado at Denver; José Morín, Executive Director of the North Star Foundation and former staff attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York; and Maivan Clech Lam, Professor of Law at the City University of New York.
The Tribunal judges (na luna kanawai) were an extraordinary blend of eminent international attorneys, professors, theologians, writers, and activists, including: Richard Falk, Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Studies at Princeton University; Lennox S. Hinds, Professor of Law at Rutgers University, and Counsel to the African National Congress (ANC) in the United States; Milner S. Ball, Caldwell Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Georgia; Hyun-Kyung Chung, Professor of Theology at the Ewha Women's College in Seoul, Korea; Ward Churchill, Professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder; Te Moana Nui a Kiwa Jackson, Director of Maori Legal Services in Wellington, Aotearoa (New Zealand); Asma Khader, Esq., winner of the 1990 Human Rights Watch Award, a journalist, and member of the Palestinian Rights Society and the National Committee for the Protection of Children; Oda Makoto, a Japanese novelist and Visiting Professor of Comparative Studies at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and member of the Peoples' Permanent Tribunal; and Sharon Venne, Esq., a human rights advocate at the United Nations, and Rockefeller Fellow at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
In addition to the prosecutors and judges, Tribunal witnesses included Bobby Castillo, who testified regarding the colonization of American Indian nations of the Western Hemisphere, and indigenous representatives from five other island nations which, like Kanaka Maoli, were seized and colonized by the United States in 1898. These witnesses were Teodoro Anderson Díaz from Puerto Rico, Sonia Díaz García from Cuba, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz from the Philippines, Angel Santos from the Chamoru nation of Guam, and Dr. Caroline Sinavaiana from Samoa. These representatives related their common experience of colonization during the time of the Spanish-American War, which was provoked by the United States in its strategy of becoming a two-ocean global imperialist power. These representatives announced their plan to continue to meet annually until the centennial of 1998 to press the US and the international community for complete liberation from US rule.
US President Bill Clinton, other official representatives of the United States, and State of Hawai'i government officials all were invited to the Tribunal, but they declined to attend the hearings to provide a legal defense or otherwise participate. At each Tribunal session, a reserved chair labeled "US Representative" remained empty.
The locus of the Tribunal moved through the five islands of
Ka Pae'aina, the Hawaiian archipelago of
Maui, Moloka'i, Kaua'i, O'ahu and Hawai'i. On each island, the hearings convened
near the sites of current local struggles over
land and resources. The objective was to bring the participants close to the
land, where they could personally experience the special spiritual and physical
attachment of "taro-roots" Kanaka Maoli to
the sacred 'aina (environment). Witnesses came from the taro gardens,
fishing grounds and remote hills of the five islands to give testimony of their
dispossession as a result of corporate industries, tourist resorts, military installations,
and government infrastructure. Examples of this often very personal testimony
include the following accounts:
On O'ahu, witnesses told of the effects of the military H-3 freeway, which was blasted and bulldozed through the Halawa Valley, destroying the oldest known heiau (temple complexes), ancient burial grounds, pristine forests, magnificently-terraced taro and banana farms (at Kane'ohe), and Kanaka Maoli homes. In August 1992, 13 Kanaka Maoli were arrested for engaging in traditional religious practices at sacred sites in the valley.
On Maui (at Waihe'e), foreign developers are constructing a golf course, and in the process they are unearthing Kanaka Maoli iwi (skeletal remains) and closing off a beach. At the hearing, Kupuna Leslie Kuloloio, choking with tears, pleaded on his knees for kokua (help) from the Tribunal judges. At Hana (also on Maui), witnesses reported that Japanese investors, who now control the Hana Ranch and Hotel on 5000 acres of prime land, intend to build yet another golf course. Capital for that project is to come from $200,000 membership dues and advanced sales of luxury homes bordering the golf course. Local residents, unable to defend their ancestral lands in court, are being evicted. Meanwhile, runoff from the chemically-treated ranch lands is destroying their traditional fishing grounds.
On the island of Moloka'i (at 'Ualapu'e), Billy Kalipi defied the State when he restored an ancient loko i'a (fishpond) with his own hands and declared sovereignty for himself and the entire ahupua'a, the land section reaching from the sea to the inland mountain ridge.
Fourth World Bulletin • December 1993
Copyright © 1996 by the Fourth World Center
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