{"id":4546,"date":"2018-11-21T01:57:42","date_gmt":"2018-11-21T01:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hawaiiankingdom.org\/blog\/?p=4546"},"modified":"2020-12-01T05:06:48","modified_gmt":"2020-12-01T05:06:48","slug":"council-member-ruggles-places-the-state-of-hawaii-on-notice-for-pillaging-protected-persons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hawaiiankingdom.org\/blog\/council-member-ruggles-places-the-state-of-hawaii-on-notice-for-pillaging-protected-persons\/","title":{"rendered":"Council Member Ruggles Places the State of Hawai\u2018i on Notice for Pillaging Protected Persons"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Council member Jen Ruggles released a\u00a0letter<\/a> today that she had sent to Governor Ige, every mayor, and every county taxation department in the State of Hawai\u2018i regarding \u201cWar crimes of pillaging committed against Protected Persons by the State of Hawai\u2018i and its Four Counties.\u201d<\/p>\n

The letter begins by stating, \u201cTo my dismay, I have become aware of Hawai\u2018i\u2019s status as a nation-state, under international law, which has been under an illegal occupation by the United States since it, by its own admission, illegally overthrew the Hawaiian Kingdom government on January 17, 1893.\u201d\u00a0Referring to President Cleveland\u2019s 1893 address<\/a>\u00a0to the U.S. Congress where he declared U.S. had committed \u201can act of war\u201d against the Hawaiian Kingdom, she writes, \u201cthese acts of war created a state of war between itself and the Hawaiian Kingdom\u2026International law bound, and still binds, the United States to adhere to the law of occupation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ruggles also referred to the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, Dr. Alfred de Zayas\u2019\u00a0memorandum<\/a>\u00a0sent to Hawaii State judges this past February which stated Hawai\u2018i was \u201cunder a strange form of occupation by the United States resulting from an illegal military occupation and a fraudulent annexation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter reading Dr. de Zayas\u2019s memorandum,\u201d Ruggles wrote, \u201cI attempted to verify his claim of \u2018a fraudulent annexation.\u2019 It became apparent to me that there is no clear U.S. constitutional basis for the enforcement of United States law on Hawaiian Kingdom territory\u2026As a Council member, I have come to understand that legislation is limited to the territorial jurisdiction of the law-making body. The U.S. Congress has no constitutional authority, nor any authority under international law, to unilaterally annex a foreign country by a joint resolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ruggles also noted that according to international law definitions, what is called the \u201cState of Hawai\u2018i\u201d is, in fact, an \u201corganized armed force.\u201d \u201cThe State of Hawai\u2018i cannot, therefore claim to be a lawful government because its only claim to authority derives from U.S. congressional legislation that has no extraterritorial effect,\u201d Ruggles wrote, \u00a0\u201cThe \u2018State of Hawai\u2018i\u2019 meets the\u00a0jus in bello\u2014the laws of war<\/em>\u00a0definition of an organized armed group acting for and on behalf of the United States within the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Ruggles, because there is no evidence that Hawaii was ever legally made apart of the United States, the laws of occupation apply. These laws would include the\u00a0Hague<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Geneva<\/a>\u00a0Conventions, which are U.S. ratified treaties. According to\u00a0Title 18<\/a>, section 2441 of the United States Code, any breach to these treaties constitute \u201cwar crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Article 64 of the 1949 Geneva Convention mandates that the laws of the occupied territory must remain in force. Ruggles says these laws include the 1882 Hawaiian Kingdom\u00a0Act To Consolidate and Amend the Law Relating to Internal Taxes <\/em>which consists of poll, school, dog, horse, mule, road, and real and personal property taxes. Ruggles asserts that the State of Hawaii and the four counties collection of money from protected persons is a form of pillaging.<\/p>\n

Black\u2019s Law dictionary defines plunder as to \u201cpillage or loot. To take property from persons or places by open force, and this may be in course of war\u2026The term is also used to express the idea of taking property from a person or place, without just right.\u201d The U.S. ratified Hague and Geneva Conventions specifically prohibit pillaging.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis letter serves to give you both knowledge, and \u2018awareness of the factual circumstances that established the existence of an armed conflict\u2019 between the Hawaiian Kingdom and the United States, the application of the HCIV and GCIV, and the protection afforded aboriginal Hawaiians as\u00a0protected persons<\/em>,\u201d Ruggles wrote, \u201cTherefore, you must cease and desist from committing these war crimes unless the State of Hawai\u2018i transforms itself into a Military Government recognizable under international law\u201d<\/p>\n

Council member Ruggles concluded the letter with an excerpt from a\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0Dr. Keanu Sai had provided Governor Ige\u2019s Chief of Staff, Mike McCartney in 2015 titled \u201cReport on Military Government.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>According to the report, the State of Hawaii is obligated to comply with U.S. Army Field Manual FM 27-5 and establish a military government to work with the\u00a0acting<\/em>\u00a0Hawaiian Kingdom Government to provisionally serve as the administrator of the laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom.<\/p>\n

During Ruggles\u2019 October Town Hall she explained how she is doing her job \u201cas mandated by her oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution that says treaties are the supreme law of the land through putting every agent of the United States in Hawaii concerning the rights of protected persons on notice for violations of the Hague and Geneva Conventions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ruggles confirmed Governor Ige, Mayor Kim, Mayor Arakawa, Mayor Caldwell, Mayor Carvalho, Linda Chu Takayama, Lisa Miura, Mark Walker, Nelson H. Koyanagi, Jr., and Ken Shimonishi all received her letter on November 19th, 2018.<\/p>\n

#ProtectedPersonsHawaii
\n#WarCrimesHawaii<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Council member Jen Ruggles released a\u00a0letter today that she had sent to Governor Ige, every mayor, and every county taxation department in the State of Hawai\u2018i regarding \u201cWar crimes of pillaging committed against Protected Persons by the State of Hawai\u2018i … 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":[8,5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-law","category-national","category-war-crimes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p31YBQ-1bk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiiankingdom.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4546","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=4546"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiiankingdom.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4997,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiiankingdom.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4546\/revisions\/4997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiiankingdom.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiiankingdom.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiiankingdom.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}