Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 8, Number 6, 1 June 1991 — an administration [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

an administration

Republicans, who argued that the Commission was ordered by Congress, succeeded in getting it reinstated. To fill the nine-member study commission, Reagan appointed five loyal, middlelevel bureaucrats from his administration and a businessman, along with three Hawaiians: Kina'u Kamalii. Rodger Betts and Winona Beamer. Kamali'i, a staunch Republican and the head of Reagan's Hawai'i campaign in 1980 was named chairperson. The Commission, controlled by its part-time Washington bureaucrats, spent a year gathering and compiling information. They held a week-long series of hearings in Hawai'i (whieh two of the commissioners did not attend) and released an impressively thick draft document of findings for review and comment in September of 1982. The NHSC draft findings sent a shock wave through the Hawaiian community. On the crucial topics of U.S. responsibility for the 1893 overthrow and claims by native Hawaiians against the government as a result of the overthrow, the U.S. government was exonerated, and the Commission concluded that under present law, native Hawaiians had no legal standing to make any claims. l'he reaction from the Hawaiian community and others was swift and vociferous. The report showed a "startling bias and laek of objectivity," according to comments prepared by attorney Melody MacKenzie for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. MacKenzie went on to say that the report "makes statements whieh laek supporting authority and, in many instances, the report is argumentative rather than impartial." Parts of the report are "so biased," MacKenzie wrote, "as to cast doubt on the credibility of the Commission." OHA Trustee Joe Kealoha called the report "a total disappointment." U.S. Sen. Daniel lnouye, who had been instrumental in pushing for the Commission, publicly called the study "a negative report that attempts to rewrite history in certain instances. "That report," he went on sarcastically, "will support . . . the contention that nothing wrong was done and it was long ago, so let's forget about it." Commission Chairperson Kina'u Kamali'i tried to ealm the storm of protest by reminding critics that their comments would be considered before the final report with its list of recommendations was released a year later. But Kamali'i, as well as Betts and Beamer, were

up against a formidable group of Washington insiders whose sympathies lay less with the plight of the Hawaiians than with the Reagan administration's cost-cutting agenda and its notable laek of compassion for minorities. One key commissioner had been associated with a group that opposed Amenean Indians in court; another represented the Justice Department in litigation against native Alaskans. In addition to their prejudices, critics charged that the Commission did research that was slipshod, hasty and second-hand. OHA sent two official representatives, attorneys Melody MacKenzie and Jon Van Dyke, to Washington for the last two days of Commission hearings before the release of the final report in March 1983. lt was a last-ditch effort to persuade the majority to consider some language in the report on reparations for the 1893 overthrow, and to address the analogies that could be drawn between the treatment of the Hawaiians and other native peoples by the United States. They were not allowed to speak, however, and they returned home bewildered by the procedural gamesmanship with whieh the mainland commissioners controlled the meetings. The whole thing was a "bizarre charade," according to their published account of the trip. On March 4, 1983, the Commission voted 6-3 to reject language that would admit U.S. wrongdoing in the 1893 overthrow, paving the way for the Final

Report of the Commission, whieh would be presented to Congress on June 23. The three Hawaii commissioners disassociated themselves from the entire 300-page document and announced plans to issue a minority report to accompany the majority report to Congress. For Kina'u Kamali'i, the experience was so unhappy that she said publicly that she would probably abandon the Republican Party, just as it had abandoned the Hawaiians. Looking back, most observers nevertheless see the Native Hawaiians Study Commission as a watershed event in Hawaiian affairs. Because of the endless headlines and controversy, the fact of U.S. involvement in the illegal overthrow of the sovereign Hawaiian nation and resulting claims for native compensation became more widely understood and discussed than ever before in Hawaii's history. But there is a long-lasting downside as well. According to Sen. Inouye, every time he proposes federal legislation to benefif native Hawaiians, his congressional colleagues pull out the Native Hawaiians Study Commission to prove him wrong. For the time being, it remains the official "study," and until it's replaced with another Congressional commission study, it will remain the sourcebook on Hawaiian affairs for the nation's lawmakers.

efore the Native Hawaiian Studies Commission

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Newly inaugurated Trustee Hayden Burgess explains to the press his decision not to take the puhlie oath of office.

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