Keanu Sai's further response to Conklin

Rec'd by email from Keanu Sai...

Here are some added thoughts stemming from my initial comment of the Maui editorial by Ken Conklin. Whenever you have a legal matter such as Hawai`i's status as an independent State, facts are measured by the "rule of law" and not the "rule of the jungle." If it was the latter, then why have law, just brute force and power. When the U.S. was a newly formed State after the revolution, they were a feeble State. And as such their territorial sovereignty was menaced by France, Great Britain and other States, who tried to impose their own laws within U.S. territory. Faced in the 19th century with more powerful and expansive European States, American jurists and politicians began to rely on international law for their protection from these encroachments. Case in point, in 1793, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson invoked principles of territorial sovereignty and the equality of states when resisting a claim by France of jurisdiction over vessels in U.S. waters. (American State papers, Foreign Relations, I, p. 147-48, 167, 169). But after the Spanish-American war, the U.S. itself became an expansive power that began to abuse other States' territorial sovereignty like Hawai`i and Colombia regarding the Panama canal. So most of the development of international law throughout the 19th century was led by the United States because of "self-preservation," and it is ironic that what supports Hawai`i's status as a continued independent State today is linked to recognized 19th century international law that was promoted and recognized by the U.S. So the continuity of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a sovereign State is grounded in the very same principles that the United States and every other State have relied on for their own legal existence. In other words, to deny Hawai`i's sovereignty would be tantamount to denying the sovereignty of the United States and the entire system the world has come to know as international relations.

Continued in the extended entry...

The historical facts reveal that it was deliberate on the part of Sanford Dole, Lorrin Thurston, et al., to implicate as many people and countries as they can in order to disguise themselves as a government and not criminals. When you find that Cleveland labeled them "self-proclaimed" that was criminal, and when he requested the Queen to grant clemency that was a request to waive the punishment of death. They knew that even if they were granted clemency, they could no longer remain in the Kingdom because as a minority group of people they would be on the receiving end of social and moral justice (i.e. boycott of their companies and products). From so-called respectable businessmen to criminals who managed to get clemency. That is a downward spiral they obviously were not willing to take. They were fugitives of Hawaiian law, and as such they tried to do everything in their power to protect themselves. To date there is nothing that has legitimized their criminality and they all died as "fugitives from justice."

Regarding the history and continuity of the Hawaiian Kingdom and putting into context anything that happened after the 1893 Cleveland-Lili`uokalani Agreement of Restoration, we need to keep in mind the "rule of law". In particular, there is no dispute between the United States and the Hawaiian Kingdom regarding the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian government, and the 1893 Cleveland-Lili`uokalani international agreement is the evidence of final settlement. In other words, we don't need to go to an international court to address the illegal overthrow, but rather concentrate our efforts to ensure that the U.S. complies with the 1893 agreement of restoration. On September 12, 1898, the Hui Aloha Aina met in a convention held in Honolulu and submitted memorial to the United States Commission for the creation of a government for the Territory of Hawai`i that established on July 9, 1898 by McKinley. This commission was in Hawai`i when the memorial was recorded with them. The memorial was not made a part of the committee's report, but it was published in the Ke Aloha Aina and the Hawaiian Star. At the end of the memorial it stated:

Therefore, be it Resolved: That the representatives of a large and influential body of native Hawaiians, we solemnly pray that the constitutional government of the 16th day of January, A.D. 1893, be restored, under the protection of the United States of America.

This is evidence that the people understood the 1893 Agreement of Restoration and it also serves as evidence of their reliance on the agreement which is the basis of estoppel. The illegal overthrow was settled. And since the date of the agreement in 1893 to the present, the United States cannot benefit from its non-performance of its obligation of restoring the Hawaiian Kingdom government under the 1893 Cleveland-Lili`uokalani agreement over the reliance held by the Queen and Hawaiian subjects in good faith and to their detriment. Therefore, the United States as well as any other foreign State is estopped from asserting any of the following claims, unless it can show that the 1893 Cleveland-Lili`uokalani agreement had been fulfilled. These claims include:

1. Recognition of any pretended government other than the Hawaiian Kingdom as the lawful government of the Hawaiian Islands;
2. Annexation of the Hawaiian Islands by joint resolution in 1898;
3. Establishment of a U.S. territorial government in 1900;
4. Administration of the Hawaiian Islands as a non-self-governing territory since 1898 pursuant to Article 73(e) of the U.N. Charter;
5. Admission of Hawai`i as a State of the Federal Union in 1959; and,
6. Designating Native Hawaiians as an indigenous people situated within the United States.

The failure of the United States to restore the Hawaiian Kingdom government is a "breach of an international obligation," and, therefore, an international wrongful act as defined by the 2001 Articles of State Responsibility for International Wrongful Acts. The severity of this breach has led to the unlawful seizure of Hawaiian independence, imposition of a foreign nationality upon the citizenry of an occupied State, mass migrations and settlement of foreign citizens, and the economic and military exploitation of Hawaiian territory—all stemming from the United States government's perverse view of military necessity in 1898. Despite the egregious violations of Hawaiian sovereignty by the United States since January 16th 1893, the principle of estoppel not only serves as a shield that bars the United States from asserting any legal claim over the Hawaiian Islands, but also a shield that protects the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom, the nationality of its citizenry, and its territorial integrity as they existed in 1893.

All of this is covered in my upcoming article "A Slippery Path Towards Hawaiian Indigeneity..." to be published this Fall in San Francisco School of Law's Journal of Law and Social Challenges, vol. 10. The article is also the first and part of the last chapter of my dissertation that I plan to complete in Fall. Mahalo to Conklin for reinvigorating constructive dialogue regarding the actions of our Queen and our former countrymen and women.

Keanu.

Posted: Fri - April 18, 2008 at 09:58 AM

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Keanu Sai's further response to Conklin

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