Statehood petition anniversary

In a Star-Bulletin letter, Ken Conklin calls for a celebration of the 50th anniversary of a petition for statehood. (The Advertiser also published the letter.)

There are plenty of problems with statehood Conklin refuses to address, one being the fact that public funds were used subsidize the pro-statehood propaganda campaign in violation of Article 73 of the UN Charter under which the U.S. was the administering authority in Hawaii (and whether Hawaii should have been on the list of "non-self-governing territories" in the first place is highly questionable), and UN Resolution 742 (VIII)—Factors which should be taken into account in deciding whether a Territory is or is not a Territory whose people have not yet attained a full measure of self-government—which stated. "...the manner in which Territories... can become fully self-governing is primarily through the attainment of independence..."

At one point, a former territorial senator, Alice Kamokila Campbell, filed suit to halt the spending of public funds to "propogandize and subsidize" the Hawaii statehood campaign. She said, as quoted in a Honolulu Advertiser article at the time, that "the illegal expenditures are to the detriment of citizens and taxpayers opposed to statehood ... Moneys are now being expended for liquor, luaus, dinners, entertainment and other purposes and objectives contrary to law ... the acts and conduct are of a purely political nature."

Another problem is that, despite Conklin's citation of one Hawaiian, many or most of the signers of the petition (and later voters in the so-called plebiscite) were U.S. soldiers and recent immigrants to the islands of U.S. nationality who had no right to participate in a self-determination process for a territory that the U.S. was occupying, whether legally or illegally (that would be like U.S. soldiers signing a petition for Iraq to be annexed by the U.S. today).

For more information on statehood and its total lack of legitimacy, see:

Is Hawaii Really a State of the Union?

Statehood: A Second Glance by Poka Laenui

Continuity of the Hawaiian Kingdom by Dr. Matthew Craven, who concludes his analysis of the statehood plebiscite by saying "there are
strong arguments to suggest that the US cannot rely upon the fact of the plebiscite alone for purposes of perfecting its title to the territory of Hawai’i."

Posted: Sun - February 29, 2004 at 12:37 PM

getBlogName(); > getCategoryName("C1126750129"); >

Statehood petition anniversary

> >