Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 23, Number 6, 1 Iune 2006 — Rights violations claimed to U.N. [ARTICLE]

Rights violations claimed to U.N.

In May, three Native Hawaiian groups announced that they have filed a report with the United Nations claiming that the United States has continually violated the human rights of Native Hawaiians since the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom. Nā Koa Ikaika o ka Lāhui Hawai'i, the Koani Foundation and the Kanaka Maoli Tribunal Komike filed their report with the U.N. Human Rights Committee challenging the Bush administration's claims that the U.S. has complied with its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, an international human rights treaty. "The report demonstrates the historic and continuing violation of our people's right to selfgovernance and self-determina-tion that predates the overthrow and continues to the present," Mililani Trask, of Nā Koa Ikaika o ka Lāhui Hawai'i, said in a press release. "Self-determina-tion is the right of the Kānaka Maoli (Hawaiians) to determine their political status and to freely pursue our eeonomie, social and cultural development. It also means we have the right to control our natural weakh, land and resources whieh have been withheld from our peoples since statehood was imposed in 1959." The Human Rights Committee will meet in Geneva this summer to review the U.S. report. The report may be viewed at wisperhawaii.com/~kaiopua.