On July 27, 2023, Major General Kenneth Hara admitted that Hawai‘i is occupied, after his judge advocate Lieutenant Colonel Lloyd Phelps could not refute the information provided to MG Hara by Dr. Keanu Sai, Head of the Royal Commission of Inquiry, at their meeting on April 13, 2023, at the Grand Naniloa Hotel in Hilo. Anticipating a second meeting with MG Hara to discuss the transition into a military government, the Council of Regency drafted an Operational Plan for the transformation of the State of Hawai‘i into a Military Government on August 14, 2023.

That meeting never occurred and it was later revealed that Attorney General Anne Lopez interceded and instructed MG Hara to ignore Dr. Sai. It was later revealed to Dr. Sai that she also instructed MG Hara to not request a legal opinion that would qualify her baseless instruction to ignore. This placed MG Hara in a position of dereliction of duty and criminal culpability for the Army’s doctrine of command responsibility for war crimes. This command responsibility comes under paragraph 4-24 of U.S. Army Regulation 600-20, which states under the heading of Command responsibility under the law of war:

Commanders are legally responsible for war crimes they personally commit, order committed, or know or should have known about and take no action to prevent, stop, or punish.

When MG Hara tasked LTC Phelps to refute the information provided by Dr. Sai, he was not only made aware of the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom under international law, but he was also made aware that war crimes have and continue to be committed by the federal government, the State of Hawai‘i and the Counties through the unlawful imposition of American laws and administrative measures throughout the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

According to Professor William Schabas, in his legal opinion on war crimes being committed in the Hawaiian Kingdom, the unlawful imposition of American laws and administrative measures is the war crime of usurpation of sovereignty during military occupation. This war crime consequently triggered secondary war crimes that include the war crime of compulsory enlistment; the war crime of denationalization; the war crime of confiscation or destruction of property; the war crime of deprivation of fair and regular trial; the war crime of deporting civilians of the occupied territory; and the war crime of transferring populations into an occupied territory.

Dereliction of duty and failure to obey Army regulations that require the establishment of a military government in occupied territory are two court martial offenses under Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. If this duty has the effect of putting a stop to war crimes, it is a war crime by omission under the doctrine of command responsibility for war crimes.

Lieutenant Colonel Michael Rosner, Executive Officer of the 29th Infantry Brigade, became the most senior officer in the Hawai‘i Army National Guard because of war crimes by omission committed by Major General Kenneth Hara—War Criminal Report no. 24-0001, Brigadier General Stephen Logan—War Criminal Report no. 24-0002, Colonel Wesley Kawakami—War Criminal Report no. 24-0003, Lieutenant Colonel Fredrick Werner—War Criminal Report no. 24-0004, Lieutenant Colonel Bingham Tuisamatatele, Jr.—War Criminal Report no. 24-0005, Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Jacobs—War Criminal Report no. 24-0006, and Lieutenant Colonel Dale Balsis—War Criminal Report no. 24-0007.

In a letter by Dr. Sai, as Head of the Royal Commission of Inquiry, dated November 11, 2024, LTC Rosner was notified that he has until November 28, 2024, to transform the State of Hawai‘i into a military government in accordance with U.S. Department of Defense Directive 5100.1, U.S. Army Field Manual 6-27—chapter 6, and the law of occupation. 

To guide LTC Rosner in the transformation is the Council of Regency’s Operational Plan, which has four essential tasks, with each having corresponding implied tasks. The Operational Plan provides a comprehensive approach for the implementation of these essential and implied tasks in line with the law of occupation and Hawaiian Kingdom laws.

First essential task is for the Military Government to become temporary administrator of the laws of the occupied State—the Hawaiian Kingdom

a. First implied task is for the theater commander of the Hawai‘i Army National Guard to proclaim the establishment of the Military Government of Hawai‘i
b. Second implied task is for the Military Governor to proclaim provisional laws in order to bring the laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom up to date
c. Third implied task is to disband the State of Hawai’i Legislature and the County Councils

The second essential task is to be the temporary administrator of public buildings, real estate, forests, and agricultural estates that belong to the occupied State

a. First implied task is to remove the United States flag from all public buildings of the Hawaiian Kingdom

Third essential task is to protect the institutions of the occupied state

a. First implied task is to realign Departments and Agencies to the status quo ante as they were prior to the American occupation that started on January 17, 1893
b. Second implied task is for those in the Military Government sign oaths of allegiance to the Hawaiian Kingdom, which is required under Hawaiian law
c. Third implied task is to reinstate universal healthcare for aboriginal Hawaiians at Queen’s Hospital
d. Fourth implied task is to take affirmative steps to end denationalization through Americanization in the public and private schools

Fourth essential task is to protect the rights of the population of the occupied State

The State of Hawai‘i is the governing apparatus of the Hawaiian Kingdom with its three branches of government. On January 17, 1893, the insurgents, with the protection U.S. Marines, proclaimed the establishment of the provisional government. Their proclamation stated:

All officers under the existing Government are hereby requested to continue to exercise their functions and perform the duties of their respective offices, with the exception of the following named persons: Queen Liliuokalani, Charles B. Wilson, Marshal, Samuel Parker, Minister of Foreign Affairs, W.H. Cornwell, Minister of Finance, John F. Colburn, Minister of the Interior, Arthur P. Peterson, Attorney General who are hereby removed from office.

After their proclamation, the insurgents forced those remaining in government positions to sign oaths of allegiance to the new regime. On July 4, 1894, the insurgents renamed themselves the Republic of Hawai‘i. After illegally annexing the Hawaiian Islands in 1898, the Congress renamed the government apparatus to be the Territory of Hawai‘i in 1900. And in 1959, the Congress renamed the Territory of Hawai‘i to be the State of Hawai‘i.

Much of the departments and agencies of the Hawaiian Kingdom were renamed and reorganized in violation of the law of occupation. The cornerstone of the law of occupation is that the occupier cannot alter, change or replace the occupied State’s governing apparatus, its legal order, its territory, and its population. According to Professor Federico Lenzerini, in his recent international law article, published in the International Review of Contemporary Law, he states:

Intertemporal-law-based perspective confirms the illegality— under international law—of the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands by the US. In fact, as regards in particular the topic of military occupation, the affirmation of the ex injuria jus non oritur rule predated the Stimson doctrine, because it was already consolidated as a principle of general international law since the XVIII Century. In fact, “in the course of the nineteenth century, the concept of occupation as conquest was gradually abandoned in favour of a model of occupation based on the temporary control and administration of the occupied territory, the fate of which could be determined only by a peace treaty”; in other words, “the fundamental principle of occupation law accepted by mid-to-late 19th-century publicists was that an occupant could not alter the political order of territory.”

Under the law of occupation, a military government is the civilian government of the occupied State. The State of Hawai‘i is not the civilian government of the United States but rather the civilian government of the Hawaiian Kingdom that was hijacked by insurgents installed by the United States. As President Cleveland told the Congress on December 1893, “the provisional government owes its existence to an armed invasion by the United States,” and that it “was neither a government de facto nor de jure.” In other words, the insurgents were pretending to be a government. According to Professor Krystyna Marek:

Puppet governments are organs of the occupant and, as such form part of his legal order. The agreements concluded by them with the occupant are not genuine international agreements because such agreements are merely decrees of the occupant disguised as agreements which the occupant in fact concludes with himself. Their measures and laws are those of the occupant.

Military governments operate on the budget of the occupied State and not the budget of the occupying State. Under the third essential task, federal agencies will cease to exist and be replaced by the corresponding department or agency of the Hawaiian Kingdom. According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, there are 23,453 federal employees in the Hawaiian Kingdom, with 18,135 from the U.S. Department of Defense. These employees of the Department of Defense, to include U.S. troops of the Indo-Pacific Command, will begin to withdraw from Hawaiian territory because the 1884 Pear Harbor Convention, which the Indo-Pacific Command based its presence on, was terminated on October 26, 2024, by the Council of Regency.

This leaves 5,318 non-Department of Defense employees. Some of these employees may remain employed if what they do under American law is not inconsistent with Hawaiian Kingdom law. To determine whether the function of these agencies is a provisional law under the second implied task corresponding to the first essential task would be to apply the formula, in the Operational Plan, to be used for determining what American municipal laws may be considered a provisional law of the Hawaiian Kingdom. An example of an agency that would appear to continue to exist is the function of TSA at the airports. Their salaries will have to be provided for by the budget of the Military Government of Hawai‘i and not from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The budget for the Military Government of Hawai‘i will be the collective budgets of the State of Hawai‘i and the Counties. If additional revenues are required, the collection of these revenues must be in accordance with the law of occupation.