Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 4, Number 12, 1 Kekemapa 1987 — OHA Hosts Seventh Annual Meeting in Kona [ARTICLE]

OHA Hosts Seventh Annual Meeting in Kona

Leaders of Native Peoples at IPIiConference

Office of Hawaiian Affairs Chairman Moses K. Keale Sr. announced Nov. 18 that OHA will host the 1987 eonference of Indigenous Peoples International (IPI) December 7-11 in Kona, Hawaii. This is the seventh meeting of IPI, an organization whieh brings together top administrators and representatives of native peoples. The areas represented by the membership of IPI are the mainland United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Hawaii.

lrl, created īn Wellington, New Zealand īn 1981, provides a unique forum for officials and leaders of indigenous people to exchange ideas and information about eaeh other's policies, problems and goals. In announcing this year's forum, Keale said previous IPI conferences "have helped clarify the role of Hawaii's indigenous people within the context of the larger social, eeonomie and political entity of the state and the nation." Keale said there have been numerous benefits to

Hawaiians as a result of the person-to-person exchanges made possible by IPI. Among them, he cited a 1987 report by the Australian Commonwealth Department of Education whieh recommended that "Aboriginal Australians should also give public and moral support to our Hawaiian brothers and sisters in their quest for adequate and just compensation from the U.S. government for the dispossession of Hawaiian lands and the violent, illegitimate overthrow of the constitutional Hawaiian monarchy."

Keale said, "The meeting of IPI this year in Hawaii is of special significance in view of the recent unrest and frustration demonstrated by indigenous peoples in areas such as Australia, Tahiti, New Caledonia, Fiji and elsewhere." "In Hawaii, the hurt and anger of our people becomes more evident, and the demand for a just resolution of our legitimate claims is being taken up by an increas-

ingly broad spectrum of the Hawaiian community. Hawaiians are coming together . . . united by the refusal of the highest judicial bodies of this state and this nation even to consider our petitions." The IPI conference takes plaee in the historic Kona district of Hawaii island. A number of site visits are planned to areas of eommon interest with special emphasis on native religion, native rights, native natural resources and historic site preservation.

Heading the delegations at this year's meeting are Hazel Elbert, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs; John Rayner, Canada's Assistant Deputy Minister for Indian Affairs and Northern Development; Tom Paore, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Maori Affairs; Charles N. Perkins, Secretary of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Keale as Chairman of the Board of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.