Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 9, Number 8, 1 August 1992 — Mai Wakinekona [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Mai Wakinekona

By Paul Alexander VVashington, D.C. Counsel for OHA

Draft federal bills are products of evolution

It is important to plaee the draft federal bills OHA has approved (right-to-sue; claims; and the re-establishment of self-government) in their historical context. These bills did not emerge from OHA in a vacuum or on the basis of a few inhouse drafting sessions.

They are an evoiutionary product of nearly three decades of effort on the part of Native Hawaiians, their organizations. and their Congressional delegation to resolve the issues relating to the status and rights of Native Hawaiians.

From the time of the United States' participation in the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy and uneompensated seizure of nearly 2 million acres of Native Hawaiian land to the present day, an unmistakable fact is that an injustice was committed and redress is required. Advocates for Native Hawaiians have differed on

the strategies for obtaining redress and on what the redress itself should be, but all agree that wrongs were committed: that the United States and the State of Hawai'i have profited from them; and that they have special obligations to Native Hawaiians to redress these wrongs. The current effort to obtain redress was foreshadowed in 1974, when then Congressman Spark Matsunaga and

Congresswoman Patsy Mink introduced H.R. 1944 and H.R. 1566 respectively. These bills reflected congressional activity to settle Alaskan Native claims, in the Alaskan Native Claims Settlement Act of 1921. Matsunaga and Mink proj posed a Hawaiian Native

Corporation to administer lands and funds of a settlement for the benefit of Hawaiian people. In 1975. the Hawaiian Aboriginal Claims Settlement Act, a draft bill that was never introduced. was widely circulated in the community, giving the claims concepts (then called "reparations") a fair amount of attention.

With the exception of the Hawai'i delegation. Congress did not respond to any Hawaiian-generated initiatives. So in 1978, focusing instead on what could be achieved within the state, Native Hawaiian delegates to the State of Hawai'i's constitutional eonvention advocated successfully for the

creation of an entity whose mission would be in part. to work on and serve as a conduit for reparations. As a result, OHA began in 1980, and since then has been an active participant in the effort to obtain redress. In 1981-83. the congressionallyestablished Native Hawaiian Study Commission conducted hearings on

sovereignty and reparations. Native Hawaiian organizations and individuals, and others, actively participated in the meetings of the commission. The minority report of the commission reflected a consensus of Hawaiian viewpoints. The majority report reflected the viewpoint of the executive branch of the U.S. whieh, contrary to views expressed by President Cleveland in 1893, has sought to deny responsibility for, or liabilitv arising from, the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchv. In 1984, extensive hearings were conducted by

the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on the majority and minority reports and many Native Hawaiian organizations and individuals testified substantively concerning the key issues. In 1985. the Hawai'i congressional delegation developed a "proposed legislative program" whieh was circulated and widely discussed throughout the 1985-86 period. OHA aggressively participated in this process.

In 1988, the U.S. Select Committee on Indian Affairs conducted field heariitgs in Hawai'i, focusing on issues relating to the Hawaiian Home Lands Trust. Of course, other issues of eoneem to the community were also raised with the committee. In 1989, OHA's Committee on Entitlements developed a "Draft Blueprint for Native Hawaiian Entitlements." OHA held two months

of informal hearings statewide in Hawai'i and across the continental U.S. to invite testimony from beneficiaries and the public on the draft document before it was adopted by the OHA Board of Trustees. The policies expressed today in the draft OHA bills were concepts contained in that Blueprint.

In 1991, the Select Committee on Indian Affairs, as pan of its follow-up to its earlier field hearings, began a series of meetings to develop federal legislative models. These meetings were attended by a wide range of Native Hawaiian groups, and an understanding evolved that a federal legislative package should include: the claims for land, money and loss of self-government due to the overthrow

of the Hawaiian monarchy; the claims for mismanagement of the Home Lands Trust; and the re-establishment of a Native Hawaiian self-governing entity. Staff drafts of the Right-to-Sue Bill (for breaches of the Hawaiian Home Lands Trust) and the re-estab-lishment of a Native Hawaiian government were developed, circulated and scrutinized.

The 1992 OHA draft bills evolved from the collective evolution of these, and other, activities of the Native Hawaiian community over the past 25 years. The OHA draft bills will no doubt eonhnue to evolve, as constructive improvements are made and as the negotiation process gets underway.