Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 7, Number 12, 1 December 1990 — A farewell to OHA [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A farewell to OHA

By Clarence F. T. Ching Trustee, O'ahu

I was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs four years ago. In my eagerness to accept the duties, obligations and responsibilities of the position, I ignored the possibility that there were also to be ups and downs and ins and outs.

With last month's eleehon results in mind and my failure to win re-election, I must reiterate in print what I have been saying verbally. I believe that I have fulfilled all of the obligations that I accepted four years ago when I took the oath of office as Trustee. In the last four years, the trustees have worked hard in delineating the policies of OHA and have built a strong foundation upon whieh to build the remainder of the OHA house.

In their bold sincerity, the trustees majority was decisive in adopting the single definition as an OHA policy and dared to ask all OHA voters if eaeh could ratify such a policy. It took a lot of guts for eaeh of us to stick our individual necks out in declaring such a position. The calculated risk of taking such a seemingly radical position was justified when roughly 80 percent of OHA voters who voted on eaeh of the two referenda concurred. During the early part of the four-year period, I suggested that the state escheat law, whieh awarded the ownership of "kuleana" land whose owner(s) had died without takers (beneficiaries) to the ahupuaa owner, be changed so that such land interests would go to OHA. The legislature agreed and that is what the present law is.

We lobbied strongly for the Hawaiian "Right to Sue" bill. The remedies of the bill as adopted into law opened the way for the 1990 negotiated settlement of the "retroactive package" between the governor (for the state) and OHA that gives OHA approximately $85 million in back rent and approximately $8 million a year in current ineome. At this point a second negotiation to provide moneys for less than 50 percent Hawaiians is continuing. Although there are those, including some newly-elected trustees, who say that the trustees "sold out" OHA and the Hawaiian people by "not getting enough" and that OHA should have also gotten a return of lands as part of the package, they are mistaken because of their ignorance of the bases of the settlement.

The settlement was based exclusively on the law. Section 10 of the Hawai'i Revised Statues declares that OHA is to receive 20 percent of the ineome from all of the ceded lands. What the settlement did was to clarify whieh ineome of the state was "ceded lands ineome" and from whieh ceded lands the ineome was to eome. The period of time covered by the settlement was from the effect\ve date of the statue — 1980. That was the complete settlement. Nothing more and nothing less.

OHAs right to ineome meant that the settlement had to be in dollars. OHA's entitlement does not now include land. That the state allowed OHA tto use those dollars as credits to exchange for land was part of the negotiated settlement engineered '.by the trustees of OHA and the governor. OHA got everything to whieh it was entitled as spelled out by the law. It gave up no other rights and no other rights were settled in the process. Those "who elaim that more money and/or land could or should have been obtained are dead wrong. That was not what the settlement was all about.

Another milestone that was reached during the last four-year period was the drafting and circulation of the OHA Blueprint for federal reparations/restitution and self-determination. It may be time to take the Blueprint off the shelf and have it ratified by OHA's board and beneficiaries. We need to go after the federal government for its receipt of the stolen lands and for its part in wresting away the sovereingty of the Kingdom of Hawai'i.

Many of OHA's critics and enemies continue their verbal barrage that "OHA does nothing!" It becomes easier for the more gullible of our number to believe the rumor and to completely ignore the many positive results and milestones reached. Unfortunately, even though I believe we were right in taking the strong positions we did, the eleetorate's majority decision to dump three of the four incumbents running for re-election in 1990

may have been an ill-conceived backlash to the extreme positions we took in establishing the strong future policies and directions whieh the majority of trustees believe OHA and its constituency should follow. If indeed the incumbents were not re-elected for taking such revolutionary actions that will benefit OHA and all Hawaiians, it is better for them to have become the sacrificial lambs in order for OHA to survive and all Hawaiian causes to live.

Only history will tell. I believe that future historians will evaluate the work we did and will vindicate us. Clarence Ching will be fine. My past decision, even at great personal sacrifice, to serve my people a!lowed me four privileged years to do so. I have met the challenge and met it well. If you disagree, so be it.

OHA will miss my friend Rod Burgess who, like me, has dedicated his life to OHA and has also been one of the movers and shakers on the board. May good things follow you, Rod. In closing, I think it's appropriate to share my creed with those of you who have faithfully supported me and have read my articles over these years. I hope you have benefitted by some of the thoughts I have shared.

" I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the l uhole community, and as long as I liue it is my priuilege to do for it whateuer I ean. I want to be thoroughly used up when 1 die, for the harder 1 work the more I liue. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no 'brief candle' to me. It is a sort oj splendid torch whieh / haue got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to further generations. " George Bernard Shaw Mahalo. It has been a privilege to serve you. Until we meet again, Akua be with you.