Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 5, Number 9, 1 Kepakemapa 1988 — Native Rights Speaker Says Sovereignty Possible [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Native Rights Speaker Says Sovereignty Possible

Among the most compelling speeches of the Native Hawaiian Rights Conference was one given on the first day by speaker Charles F. Wilkinson, an attorney and professor of law at the University of Colorado. Wilkinson joined the Native Amenean Rights Fund, a public interest law firm, in 1971. He represented the Menominee Tribe in the passage of the Menominee Restoration Act of 1973 and successfully represented tribes in litigation and legislation relating to tribal land acquisition, jurisdiction, education and natural resouces.

He has written numerous articles on Indian and natural resources law, and has authored a book published by Yale University Press whieh analyzes the Supreme Court's work in Indian law over the past 25 years, synthesizing this with broader movements in social policy, constitutional law and political theory.

Wilkinson pointed out that in the last 25 years Native American Indians have actively lobbied in Congress to gain "remarkable" poliheal power and federal benefits in education, health, eeonomie resouces and development, land rights, and eeonomie resources (such as salmon and water). His address was a waming to Hawaiians of the difficulties that will be faced by any selfdetermination movement. It was also an exhortation to pursue this difficult path that Native American groups have successfully followed, winning for their tribes sovereign status, and other riahts.

Yet he said Hawaiians will need to develop their own unique approach to self-determination, and not just transfer mainland ideas here. He affirmed, however, that "You have a right to a substantial land base and control of your own people's destiny . . . It is no abstraction. It absolutely ean happen if you choose to make it happen." Wilkinson stressed that Native Hawaiians have the strongest elaim to sovereignty of any indigenous group in the U.S., since before 1893 Hawaii was a sovereign nation whieh had entered into treaties with foreign nations.

He advised supporters of Hawanan sovereignty to "Proceed together . . . Do not be divided by labels . . . Recognition of your sovereignty by the United States govemment, perhaps even by the State of Hawaii, if it is done right . . . ean assure you a powerful and genuine degree of sovereignty . . . if you structure it right." "You ean build a substantial land base comprised of villages, permanently guaranteed beach access and inland regions where your laws — not the laws of the State of Hawaii or nonnatives — as to wise resource use, education, culture and religion and eeonomie development will control. Those it seems to me ought to be your objectives at this point, not disputes over whieh labels you will put on those objectives."

He urged those who hold the vision of sovereignty to think of it "in your terms — your own laws, traditions and dreams — unique to you. Be flexible and creative in your ideas. He suggested they consider possible structures for sovereignty: * A native federal system with a "national" legislature and legislature on eaeh island. * Centralized government, or delegated power. * Separate island governments. * Building around grassroots organizations that today are asserting themselves as the nucleus of a sovereign Hawaiian nation. * Or forming a new sovereign nation. "You ean do it if you have the will to do it. Other

native groups have done so though your situation is more complex . . . and more daunting." "Use disparate ideas to create an open, diverse humane government with respect for minority elements. By agreeing that you are a sovereign nation and agreeing to resolve disagreements within the nation, you ean build a strategy and a eoalihon for your sacred mission."

"When you have built that coalition whieh you ean do in a few hard years, you will have created understanding in the larger society. You will have shown it is irresponsible and irrational to brand native sovereignty as 'radical'. Native sovereignty displaced by the eoup — that was radical and extreme in the true sense."

Charles F. Wilkinson