Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 18, Number 8, 1 ʻAukake 2001 — LEKA Kālele KWO FOCUS LETTER [ARTICLE]

LEKA Kālele KWO FOCUS LETTER

'Hit the books' Ken Conkiin"s mentai meanderings ( Advertiser , Island Voices) are a desperate attempt to obfuscate the facts. It is an axiom of American law that profits derived from an illegal act are illegal. One ean assume, therefore, that money donated to a charity that was stolen from a bank would not negate the fact that the donated money was stolen; the donation to the charity wouid not erase the crime. Advocates of Hawaiian sovereignty adopt the same premise. It is their belief that the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the annexation of the Hawaiian Nation to the United States was not only illegal under International Law but was in violation of the U.S. Constitution itself. Pseudo-constitutionalists, like Ken Conklin and Paul Sullivan (reference Advertiser , lsiand Voices), never address the Hawaiian sovereignty issue from the point at whieh the U.S. committed an internationally egregious crime. When H. K. Bruss Keppeler suggested to Paul Sullivan (Advertiser, Island Voices) that he "hit the

books," he suggested that unlil he educalcs himself as to what happened in 1893, he cannot assume that the U.S. Constitution nor the U.S. Supreme Court is relevant to this issue. The error that the U.S. Supreme Court is making today is it assumes that it has jurisdiction over the Hawaiian Kingdom and its suhjects. The L'nited States, the criminal offender in this case, hiding behind its own Supreme Court. finds itself in the enviable position of being able to pass judgment upon its own crime. lt is a convoluted process that allows the enminal to determine whether ii has committed a criine or not, and is a process that is tantamount to murdering someone and then being allowed to decide whether or not the crime is of any significance. In this case, the U.S. Supreme Court is the iudge. Henee, the Rice decision. As every Amenean who voted in the last presidential eleeūon now knows, the U.S Supreme Court is not anove reproach. lt, too, should hit the books." Rod Ferreira Kamuela