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PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 23, 2015

A former diplomat reported war crimes being committed in the Hawaiian Islands to Swiss Attorney General in Bern

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – On December 22, 2014, it was reported by a former diplomat to Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber that war crimes are being committed in the Hawaiian Islands. The case has been assigned to a Prosecuting Attorney of the Center of Competence of International Crimes, an agency of the Office of the Attorney General that is empowered to prosecute war crimes.

Click here to download war crimes report. The exhibits for Mr. Kale Gumapac identified in the war crimes report can be downloaded here: Exhibit #1, Exhibit #2, Exhibit #3, Exhibit #4, Exhibit #5, Exhibit #6, Exhibit #7, Exhibit #8, Exhibit #9-A, Exhibit #9-B, Exhibit #9-C.

A month later on January 22, 2015, the Prosecuting Attorney received a formal criminal complaint in Bern by a Swiss citizen residing in the Hawaiian Islands alleging war crimes have been committed against him and his family by the State of Hawai‘i and the government of the United States. The Swiss citizen traveled to Bern for this very reason. His name is kept confidential for safety reasons and he has invoked his right to protective measures under Article 152 of the Swiss Criminal Procedure Code.

Click here to download complaint by Swiss citizen.

“Through rigorous academic research, especially in the department of political science at our university, a revised view of the status of Hawai‘i in international law has emerged,” explained the diplomat. “In several dissertations that came out in the last few years it was proven that the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist as an independent State, yet under a prolonged occupation by the United States of America since the Spanish-American War (1898).”

“In this context,” the diplomat stated, “it should also be mentioned that the Hawaiian Kingdom entered into a treaty of friendship, establishment and commerce with the Swiss Confederation in 1864, which has never been terminated by any of the two contracting parties.”

“Spearheading this research concerning the legal status of Hawai‘i is Dr. David Keanu Sai who graduated from the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa with a Ph.D. dissertation on that topic a few years ago, and who has subsequently inspired a series of other academic researchers,” said the diplomat.

On September 19, 2014, Professor Williamson Chang, a senior law professor at the William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney-General Eric Holder, in which he reported war crimes being committed by the United States on Hawaiian territory. ABC News Australia covered the story and Attorney General Holder has been silent on the reporting.

The diplomat explained to Swiss Attorney General Lauber, “It is Professor Chang’s letter to Attorney General Holder concerning the committing of war crimes in Hawai‘i that prompted me to turn to the Swiss authorities, because it directly affects the estimated 600 Swiss citizens residing here in the Islands, as well as all foreign citizens residing or doing business in the Islands. Because of his expertise, I have therefore asked Dr. Sai to put together an exhaustive report for the attention of Swiss citizens, which I have the honor to forward to you.”

Dr. Sai’s report answers three initial questions in order to provide context for the reporting of war crimes: first, whether the Hawaiian Kingdom existed as an independent State and a subject of international law; second, whether the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist as an independent State and a subject of international law, despite the illegal overthrow of its government by the United States; and, third, whether war crimes have been committed in violation of international humanitarian law.

After the three questions have been answered in the affirmative, Dr. Sai addressed whether the Swiss Federal Government is capable of investigating and prosecuting war crimes that occur outside of its territory. According to the report, Dr. Sai states that the Swiss authorities are authorized under Swiss law to prosecute war crimes committed outside of its territory under passive personality jurisdiction where the victim is a Swiss citizen, under active personality jurisdiction where the perpetrator is a Swiss citizen, and also under universal jurisdiction where the victim and/or perpetrator of the war crime are not Swiss citizens.

A complainant who is identified in Dr. Sai’s report is Mr. Kale Kepekaio Gumapac, a Hawaiian subject, who resides on the island of Hawai‘i and has alleged war crimes have been committed against himself by Deutsche Bank for the pillaging of his home, whose Chief Executive Officer at the time was Josef Ackermann, a Swiss citizen and resident of Zurich. Deutsche Bank’s pillaging of his home was carried out by State of Hawai‘i Deputy Sheriff Lieutenant Patrick Kawai.

On January 22, 2015, Gumapac amended his complaint to include active personality jurisdiction due to the fact that Josef Ackermann is a Swiss citizen and resides within the territory of the Swiss Confederation. Swiss law mandates an investigation of crimes committed abroad where the perpetrator or victim are Swiss citizens. Gumapac also invoked his rights as a Hawaiian subject under the 1864 Hawaiian-Swiss Treaty that states, “Hawaiians shall be received and treated in every canton of the Swiss Confederation, as regards their persons and their properties, on the same footing and in the same manner as now or may hereafter be treated, the citizens of other cantons.”

Click here to download Gumapac’s amended complaint.

The pillaging stemmed from an unfair trial, which is a war crime under the 1949 Geneva Convention, IV, because since the State of Hawai‘i is self-declared, its courts cannot claim that they are properly constituted under the law. Gumapac also named the trial judge, Greg Nakamura, had committed the war crime of depriving Gumapac of a fair trial after Gumapac’s attorney, Dexter Kaiama, provided clear evidence that the court was unlawful. Nakamura disregarded the evidence and allowed Deutsche Bank to pillage Gumapac’s home despite the fact that Gumapac had title insurance to cover the debt owed to Deutsche Bank.

Dr. Sai also serves as the attorney for both claimants by virtue of specific powers of attorney entered into in Geneva, Switzerland, by the unnamed Swiss citizen, and by Gumapac in the State of Washington, United States of America.

In his report, Dr. Sai drew a comparison of Hawai‘i’s occupation by the United States to the German occupation of Luxembourg during the First World War from 1914-1918. Like Luxembourg, the Hawaiian Kingdom was a recognized neutral State, and both occupations took place without armed resistance.

According to Dr. Sai, “The Germans invaded Luxembourg in order to use it as a military base to launch attacks against France, and the United States invaded the Hawaiian Kingdom and used it as a military base to launch attacks against Spain in its Pacific colonies of Guam and the Philippines. Where the German occupation ended in four years, only to be reoccupied again by Germany from 1940-1945, the Hawaiian Kingdom has since been under a prolonged occupation and its territory has and continues to be used as a military base of operations in all the wars the United States has participated in since 1898.”

On March 30, 2013, the Peoples Republic of North Korea formally declared war on South Korea and the United States. In its declaration North Korea specifically stated they have targeted Hawai‘i because of the presence of the United States military. Hawai‘i serves as the headquarters for the Pacific Command, which is the largest combatant command for the Department of Defense.

“What people don’t realize,” said Dr. Sai, “is that the Hawaiian Islands was never a part of the United States. It is the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom that has been an independent and sovereign State since November 28, 1843 and a recognized neutral State since the Crimean War in 1854. The Hawaiian Islands were never acquired by the United States under international law and it is international law that maintains and protects its independence and continued existence.”

Dr. Sai emphasizes that Hawai‘i is not seeking its independence from the United States through self-determination because it was never a part of the United States to begin with. It has been independent since 1843 and its international treaties remain binding today with Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. In the nineteenth century the Hawaiian Kingdom maintained over ninety legations and consulates throughout the world.

In his report, Dr. Sai identifies two armed conflicts. The first was an armed invasion by United States troops on January 16, 1893 and lasted until April 1, 1893. A subsequent Presidential investigation concluded the United States to be in the wrong and negotiated settlement by executive agreement with the Hawaiian government. The second armed conflict occurred during the Spanish-American War when the Hawaiian Kingdom was occupied on August 12, 1898 after the Congress passed a law unilaterally seizing the Hawaiian Islands on July 7, 1898. The President and the Congress knowingly violated Hawaiian neutrality after the Spanish consul in the Hawaiian Islands made a formal protest. Hawai‘i’s neutral status was explicitly stated in Article 26 of the 1863 Spanish-Hawaiian Treaty. Hawai‘i was used as a base of operations against the Spanish in the Pacific. The war came to an end on December 10, 1898, but the United States remained as an occupier and fortified the Hawaiian Islands as a military outpost.

According to Dr. Sai, “What you have here is deception and fraud on a grand scale where the United States government deliberately mislead the international community that Hawai‘i was made a part of the United States in order to conceal the military occupation of a neutral and independent State.”

According to the report, Dr. Sai states that a formal policy of Americanization through denationalization was instituted in the public schools throughout the Hawaiian Islands in 1906 called Program for Patriotic Exercises in the Public Schools. The Hawaiian language was banned and replaced by the English language. The children were also taught American history, patriotic songs, figureheads, and holidays. The purpose, according to Dr. Sai, was to obliterate the national character of the Hawaiian Kingdom through institutionalized indoctrination.

Dr. Sai states that the Americanization is reminiscent of Germanization and Italianization in occupied territories during World War II that took place in Norway, France, Luxembourg, the Soviet Union, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Yugoslavia. In only three generations, this indoctrination nearly succeeded in erasing any memory of the national character of the Hawaiian Kingdom, but through academic research at the University of Hawai‘i the true status of Hawai‘i is being exposed.

This revelation not only has legal and political consequences, but also economic consequences as well. As a direct result of the United States deliberate failure to abide by international law, titles to real estate in the Hawaiian Islands could not be conveyed since 1893 because there were no functioning notaries under Hawaiian law to acknowledge the deeds of conveyances. Without valid titles, mortgages can’t exist. And because there are no valid mortgages, this has a direct and dire impact on mortgage-backed securities that include mortgages from the Hawaiian Islands, which are now realized to be defective. The recent banking crisis that centered on mortgage-backed securities and foreclosures pales in comparison to the Hawaiian situation.

“My reporting of war crimes is a very serious issue and it should not be taken lightly by anyone, including myself,” said the diplomat. “According to Swiss law, a person must report a crime to the proper authorities if there is corroborating evidence. And that is what I did.”

CONTACT: Dr. David Keanu Sai
Email: keanu.sai@gmail.com

It has been a common misunderstanding by individuals who are not familiar with international law that the laws of occupation did not become a part of international law until the year 1899, which is when the Hague Conventions were signed. The 1907 Hague Conventions later superseded these Conventions. Because of the chronology, as the argument goes, the United States was not bound by the Hague Conventions because the occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom occurred one year before in 1898. And since laws do not have a retroactive effect—unless explicitly stated, the United States was not bound to follow a law that wasn’t in effect at the time the occupation occurred. This would be inaccurate.

First, there are two primary sources of international law—customary and treaties. Customary international law is defined by the International Court of Justice as “evidence of a general practice accepted as law.” Since there is no law making body at the international level, such as legislative bodies within countries, international law is created by the consent and actions of independent and sovereign States, since international law is literally law “between” nations (States). As a result, States themselves create international law through practice and if all States are doing the same “general practice” it is considered customary international law that all States are bound by. An example of customary international law is diplomatic immunity. Customary international law can also be codified into a treaty, which is the other primary source of international law.

When States met in the city The Hague in the Netherlands in 1899 to codify the laws of war and occupation, they did not create new law but merely codified what was already regarded as customary international law. According to Professor Graber, The Development of the Law of Belligerent Occupation: 1863-1914 (1949), “nothing distinguishes the writing of the period following the 1899 Hague code from the writing prior to that code (p. 143).” With regard to the occupation of a State’s territory during war, the laws of the occupied State must be administered by the occupant State since occupation does not transfer sovereignty to the occupier.

This requirement was codified under Article 43 of the 1899 Hague Convention, II, which states, “The authority of the legitimate power having actually passed into the hands of the occupant, the latter shall take all steps in his power to re-establish and insure, as far as possible, public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country.” Although the United States signed and ratified both Hague Regulations, which post-date the occupation of the Hawaiian Islands, the “text of Article 43,” according to Professor Benvenisti, The International Law of Occupation (1993), “was accepted by scholars as mere reiteration of the older law, and subsequently the article was generally recognized as expressing customary international law (p. 8).”

When the Spanish-American War broke out, President McKinley proclaimed that the Spanish-American war would “be conducted upon principles in harmony with the present views of nations and sanctioned by their recent practice,” and acknowledged the constraints and protection international laws provide to all sovereign states, whether belligerent or neutral. As noted by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge during the Senate’s secret session, Hawai`i, as a sovereign and neutral state, was no exception when it was occupied by the United States during its war with Spain. Article 43 of the 1899 Hague Convention, II, which remained the same under the 1907 amended Hague Convention, IV, delimits the power of the occupant and serves as a fundamental bar on its free agency within an occupied State, whether belligerent or neutral.

On April 25, 1898, the U.S. Congress declared war against Spain and battles were fought in the Spanish colonies of the Philippines and Guam in the Pacific, and the Spanish colonies of Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean. Although fighting ceased in Puerto Rico and Cuba on July 25 under an armistice agreement signed in Washington, D.C., fighting continued in the Philippines until August 13 when a second armistice was signed. Both armistices suspended hostilities pending the negotiation of a treaty of peace that was eventually signed in Paris on December 10, 1898.

Before the first armistice was signed, President McKinley sent directives to the Secretary of War on July 13, 1898 regarding occupations by U.S. troops during the war. This prompted the Secretary of War to publish General Orders No. 101 and was provided to all commanders of U.S. troops, to include the commander of troops that occupied the Hawaiian Kingdom, which took place on August 12, 1898, one year before the armistice was signed suspending hostilities in the Philippines. General Orders No. 101 clearly reflects the United States recognition of customary international law regarding the law of occupation, which are the same provisions codified in the 1899 Hague Convention, II.

The commanders of U.S. troops occupying the Hawaiian Kingdom since August 12, 1898 disregarded General Orders No. 101. The failure of the commanders of U.S. troops in the Hawaiian Kingdom to comply with General Orders No. 101 and international humanitarian law, to include its current commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, Admiral Locklear, is why war crimes have and continue to be committed on a monumental scale.

In 2012, Admiral Locklear was notified by attorney Dexter Kaiama that war crimes are being committed in the courts of the State of Hawai‘i. Kaiama’s protest and demand stated:

“As the Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, your office is the direct extension of the United States President in the Hawaiian Islands through the Secretary of Defense. As the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to remain an independent and sovereign State, the Lili‘uokalani assignment and Article 43 of the 1907 Hague Convention IV mandates your office to administer Hawaiian Kingdom law in accordance with international law and the laws of occupation. The violations of my client’s right to a fair and regular trial are directly attributable to the President’s failure, and by extension your office’s failure, to comply with the Lili‘uokalani assignment and Article 43 of the 1907 Hague Convention, IV, which makes this an international matter.”

Although Admiral Locklear disregarded the protest and demand, he cannot claim he wasn’t aware. In order for a person to have committed a war crime, the perpetrator must be aware of the alleged war crimes and possesses the criminal element of intent—mens rea (criminal intent), in the commission of the war crime—actus reus (the guilty act). Defenses to criminal liability include mistake of fact and mistake of law.

According to Article 30(1) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the defendant is “criminally responsible and liable for punishment…only if the material elements [of the war crime] are committed with intent and knowledge.” Therefore, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court will prosecute if there is a mental element that includes a volitional component (intent) as well as a cognitive component (knowledge). Article 30(2) further clarifies that “a person has intent where: (a) In relation to conduct, that person means to engage in the conduct; [and] (b) In relation to a consequence, that person means to cause that consequence or is aware that it will occur in the ordinary course of events.”

With regard to knowledge, Article 30(3) of the Rome Statute provides that “‘knowledge’ means awareness that a circumstance exists or a consequence will occur in the ordinary course of events.” “A mistake of fact,” according Article 32(1), “shall be a ground for excluding criminal responsibility only if it negates the mental element required by the crime,” and a “mistake of law,” according to Article 32(2), “shall not be a ground for excluding criminal responsibility [unless] …it negates the mental element required by such a crime, or as provided for in article 33.” Article 33 provides that a crime that “has been committed by a person pursuant to an order of a Government or of a superior, whether military or civilian, shall not relieve that person of criminal responsibility unless: (a) the person was under a legal obligation to obey orders of the Government or the superior in question; (b) the person did not know that the order was unlawful; and (c) the order was not manifestly unlawful.”

General Orders No. 101 is a lawful order that has not been complied with for over a century and the excuse that the Order is not relevant because the U.S. Congress annexed the Hawaiian Islands by a joint resolution of annexation on July 7, 1898 is also a violation of customary international law previously recognized by the United States. Not only are municipal laws incapable of annexing foreign territory because municipal laws are confined to the territory of the country that enacted them, U.S. Attorney General Thomas Bayard in 1887 famously stated, “If a government could set up its own municipal law as the final test of its international rights and obligations, then the rules of international law would be but the shadow of a name, and would afford not protection either to states or to individuals. It has been constantly maintained and also admitted by the Government of the United States that a Government can not appeal to its municipal regulations as an answer to demands for the fulfillment of international duties.”

Attorney General Bayard’s statement was the United States’ recognition of what was considered customary international law, at least in 1887. This customary international law was codified in the 1980 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Article 27 provides, “A party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty.” These treaties include the 1907 Hague Convention, IV, and the 1949 Geneva Convention, IV, which the United States ratified and recognized as customary international laws. Although the United States has not ratified the Vienna Convention, it does consider it to be customary international law. According to the U.S. State Department website, “The United States considers many of the provisions of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties to constitute customary international law on the law of treaties.”

General Orders No. 101 is still binding.