{"id":1579,"date":"2014-05-10T12:55:24","date_gmt":"2014-05-10T12:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hawaiiankingdom.org\/blog\/?p=1579"},"modified":"2014-05-10T13:04:09","modified_gmt":"2014-05-10T13:04:09","slug":"hawaii-news-now-letter-seeking-clarity-on-hawaiian-kingdom-status-is-rescinded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hawaiiankingdom.org\/blog\/hawaii-news-now-letter-seeking-clarity-on-hawaiian-kingdom-status-is-rescinded\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawai\u2018i News Now – Letter seeking clarity on Hawaiian Kingdom status is rescinded"},"content":{"rendered":"

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow)<\/a> –\u00a0<\/span>Does the Kingdom of Hawai\u2019i exist today \u2014 and are we all subject to its rules? Those questions have triggered an internal dispute within the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.<\/p>\n

OHA\u2019s Chief Executive Officer created a firestorm Friday when word spread he sent a letter to the Secretary of State asking for an official opinion on whether the Hawaiian Kingdom still exists as an independent sovereign state under international law. \u00a0Problem is, it appears no one else at OHA knew about or agreed with the letter, stirring an internal controversy that has raised concerns the inquiry could derail or delay Kana\u2019iolowalu nation-building efforts.<\/p>\n

Officials confirm the letter was quietly sent out on Monday by OHA CEO Dr. Kamana\u2019opono Crabbe, in which he requested a formal legal opinion from the Justice Department.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will be requesting approval from the Trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs that we refrain from pursuing a Native Hawaiian governing entity until we can confirm that the Hawaiian Kingdom \u00a0as an independent sovereign State, does not continue to exist under international law and that we, as individuals, have no incurred any criminal liability in this pursuit,\u201d Crabbe wrote.<\/p>\n

OHA Chair Colette Machado tells Hawaii News Now she and fellow trustees only learned of the letter Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur whole goal is to establish a Native Hawaiian governing entity and we are very close in achieving that. \u00a0The Trustees fully support this, that\u2019s why we\u2019re quite surprised \u2014 how did our Chief Executive Officer not understand this by sending the letter to the state Department especially to the Secretary John Kerry? \u00a0That\u2019s why we had to respond quickly on a unanimous position to rescind that letter, because it is not an official position of OHA,\u201d Machado said by phone from Washington, D.C., where she and Crabbe are attending a meeting about the upcoming World Conference on Indigenous Peoples at the invitation of the Department of State.<\/p>\n

All nine trustees signed off on retracting the letter, which Machado confirms has already been sent to the Department of Justice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to assure the Hawaiian people that the Board of Trustees has not changed its position towards facilitating a process to reorganize a Native Hawaiian governing entity,\u201d Machado said.<\/p>\n

Native Hawaiian Roll Commission Chair, former Governor John Waihe\u2019e, says he was also surprised by the letter.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor all of us that know our history, there\u2019s no doubt in our mind that the government of Queen Lili\u2019uokalani was illegally overthrown and that the United States annexation of Hawaii was not done properly, was not done legally. \u00a0In fact, this was admitted by the United States Congress when they passed the resolution \u2014 the apology resolution \u2014 in 1993. \u00a0Any of us that know our history, know that we don\u2019t need to ask anybody, know whether or not any of these things were proper \u2014 what we need to do is go about organizing ourselves and beginning to assert our own self governance. \u00a0I don\u2019t know what motivated Kamana\u2019opono to do this, but personally I think it\u2019s sort of disempowering. \u00a0It\u2019s a disempowering tactic to ask for permission to pursue your own destiny,\u201d Waihe\u2019e said.<\/p>\n

More than 125,000 people have signed up for Kana\u2019iolowalu to pursue a Native Hawaiian self-governing entity, an effort which OHA is financing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s more people than all the labor unions in Hawai\u2019i combined,\u201d said Waihe\u2019e. \u00a0\u201cAs far as we\u2019re concerned, the Roll Commission is concerned, we\u2019re still proceeding forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hawaii News Now was unable to reach Dr. Crabbe directly Friday. \u00a0Officials confirm he scheduled a press conference for next week Monday to explain the inquiry, but now that the trustees have rescinded that letter it\u2019s unclear if the press conference will still be happening.<\/p>\n

To view Dr. Crabbe\u2019s request letter, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) –\u00a0Does the Kingdom of Hawai\u2019i exist today \u2014 and are we all subject to its rules? Those questions have triggered an internal dispute within the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. OHA\u2019s Chief Executive Officer created a firestorm Friday when … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national","category-treaties","category-war-crimes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p31YBQ-pt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiiankingdom.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiiankingdom.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiiankingdom.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiiankingdom.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiiankingdom.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1579"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiiankingdom.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1587,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiiankingdom.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1579\/revisions\/1587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiiankingdom.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiiankingdom.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiiankingdom.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}