An award-winning documentary about the "occupation" of Hawai'i will be shown at 7 p.m. Oct. 8 at the Paliku Theatre at Windward Community College.

"Noho Hewa: The Wrongful Occupation of Hawai'i" is free and open to the public.

Winner of the Hawaii International Film Festival's 2008 award for best documentary film, the 82-minute film offers an analysis about the connections between militarism, desecration and homelessness, and how these issues are related to Hawaiian sovereignty.

The film will be followed by a Q&A session with filmmaker Anne Keala Kelly.

The screening is sponsored by Ku Pono and the Ko'olaupoko Hawaiian Civic Club.

Donations will be accepted and a DVD of the film will be available for purchase.

While the newspaper speculated the Taepodong-2 could fly over Japan and toward Hawaii, it said the missile would not be able to hit Hawaii's main islands, which are about 4,500 miles (7,200 kilometers) from the Korean peninsula.

HONOLULU — The Hawaii Superferry made its final interisland voyage last week, capping a period marked by lawsuits, low ridership and suspicion that its ultimate purpose had more to do with military contracts than with connecting the Hawaiian islands.

On Monday, the State Supreme Court effectively grounded the vessel, the Alakai, when it struck down an act passed by the Legislature last year that exempted its operator, Hawaii Superferry Inc., from carrying out an environmental impact study. The company said it would not appeal the decision.

“We’re going to have to go out and find other employment for Alakai,” said the president of Hawaii Superferry, Thomas B. Fargo, a retired Navy admiral who once commanded American forces in the Pacific. “Certainly the military may very well want to lease this particular ship.”

The Marine Corps already leases a similar transport catamaran, the Westpac Express, in Okinawa, Japan.

A shipbuilding analyst in Florida, Tim Colton, said the company’s owner and chairman, John F. Lehman, a former Navy secretary, was well positioned to lease the Alakai and a just-finished sister ship to the Navy.
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Why the company chose to risk operating without an environmental review, which would have taken the better part of a year, has been the matter of debate across the state, with Mr. Lehman’s background leading to speculation that Hawaii Superferry was primarily hoping to prove itself to the United States military.
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In November, Austal USA was awarded a contract to build up to 10 military versions of the ferry.

Austal’s Australian unit had built scores of giant aluminum catamarans used as fast ferries around the world, but the United States requires that all ships sold to its armed forces must be domestically built.

Austal USA, with a shipyard in Mobile, Ala., was created in 2001. “They have managed to become a major player in a very short time,” said Robert Button, a naval analyst with the RAND Corporation.

Austal USA’s vice president for external affairs, Bill Pfister, said that while the company had built several smaller ships in Mobile, the construction of the two Hawaii ferries had helped it develop the work force and demonstrate the construction processes to bid credibly for a similar military version.

Hawaii Superferry will search for options to lease out the Alakai after a state Supreme Court ruling on Monday found that the law which allowed the catamaran to operate during an environmental review was unconstitutional, Superferry president and chief executive officer Thomas Fargo said this morning.
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Fargo, after mentioning that the military might want to lease the Alakai, addressed speculation by some activists who have opposed the project that Superferry was designed from the start as a military operation.

"That's absolutely not true," said Fargo, a former Navy admiral. "We certainly wouldn't have gone to the trouble to paint Alakai in the manner that we did, to appoint her with 836 first-class seats, to spend the huge sums of money that we did to establish service here in Hawaii if that was our goal.

"The goal that's unmistakable was to provide regular and reliable commercial ferry service in these Islands."

Early Superferry executives — and main investor John F. Lehman, a former Navy secretary — had touted the ferry's military utility in discussions with the state, including the possibility that it could be used to transport the Army's Stryker brigade between Oahu and the Big Island. The second vessel, which had been planned for Superferry's expansion to the Big Island, includes a vehicle ramp that could make it more useful to the military.

As Hawaii prepares to celebrate its 50th year of statehood, a film that portrays militarism, sovereignty, and the loss of native Hawaiian culture comes at a particularly poignant moment for Hawaiians. Winner of the Hawaii International Film Festival’s 2008 Halekulani Golden Orchid Award for Best Documentary, Keala Kelly’s film “Noho Hewa, The Wrongful Occupation of Hawaii,” has an important message.

“If you really love this place, you need to watch this film,” says Molokai resident Hanohano Naehu of the 73 minute film.

Kelly and her film came to Molokai several weeks ago on a tour throughout the state. Since its success at the Hawaii Film Festival in October, Kelly says she has received over 30 requests for screenings. “It took on a life of its own in the community,” she says. Kelly is also raising money for the completion of the film.

“Noho Hewa” takes a contemporary look at the cost of the U.S. takeover of Hawai'i in a raw portrayal of Hawaiian resistance to the departure from the ancestral, cultural and physical presence in their homeland. It unpacks some of the colonial mechanisms of a complex and emotionally charged political landscape from militarism to poverty to sovereignty. As these issues unfold, the massive military buildup in the Pacific that has made Hawai'i home to the largest military command in the world is understood from the Hawaiian perspective.

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Army have settled OHA's 2006 federal lawsuit claiming the Army failed to protect Native Hawaiian cultural resources when it brought the Stryker brigade to the state.

OHA representatives, along with an archaeologist, will be able to survey certain Stryker training areas at Schofield Barracks, Kahuku and Pohakuloa as a result of the agreement, the state agency announced yesterday.

Through the surveys, OHA said it and Army representatives "aim to ensure the appropriate identification and treatment of cultural and historic resources located in Lihu'e, the traditional name for the Schofield Barracks region," as well as other parts of Hawai'i.

Meetings are scheduled to begin this week across the state to seek comment from the Hawaiian community on the draft U.S. Department of Defense Hawaiian Consultation Protocol.

When finalized, this draft document will provide guidance to DOD military and civilian personnel on their consultation responsibilities to Native Hawaiians, the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs said in a press release.

The draft protocol can be seen at www.denix.osd.mil/portal/page/portal/denix/environment/NA

For those uneducated about the issues "Noho Hewa" addresses, Hawaiian activists can appear to be unduly angry, their causes ridiculously unrealistic. But in taking a stand on the side of the Hawaiian cause, the film does an excellent job of providing context to their perspectives. And it even goes one step further: It conveys knowledge that resonates in the heart as well as the mind.

A federal judge told the Army yesterday to quickly expand cultural access to native Hawaiian sites at its Makua Military Reservation on Oahu, according to Earthjustice, which represents the community group Malama Makua.

The environmental law firm said U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway gave the Army until April 15 to identify high-priority sites for clearing unexploded ordnance in order to increase access to cultural sites.

Mollway also ruled the Army must provide a good-faith plan to clear the ordnance from the sites by July 15, it said.

Earthjustice has made good on its pledge to take the U.S. Army back to court over what it sees as flagrant violations of a 2001 court-ordered settlement decree to allow Native Hawaiian groups cultural access to numerous sacred sites in the Makua Military Reservation.

The ecology-minded law firm, which represents Malama Makua among other cultural groups, filed a motion to enforce compliance yesterday in U.S. District Court. Earthjustice is asking the court to require the Army to fulfill the terms of the six-year-old settlement it voluntarily signed.

That agreement followed a lawsuit challenging the Army's failure to complete a required environmental impact statement for training at Makua Valley.

David Henkin, an attorney for Earthjustice, said yesterday that instead of opening up access to the valley, the Army has, since 2005, severely restricted cultural practices, citing safety concerns as the reason. Earthjustice contends the safety restrictions have been concocted to get around the settlement decree in order to eliminate nearly all cultural access.

An Army environmental study of where to permanently station Hawai'i's Stryker brigade has been completed, officials said, and expectations are the decision will be made to keep the armored vehicle brigade here.

However, opponents are ready to challenge the decision as soon as it's released publicly — possibly as early as February — saying the Army still hasn't adequately addressed alternative locations, as required by federal environmental law.

Hawaiian cultural groups yesterday received permission from the Army to resume civilian access to the Makua Military Reservation after experts detonated unexploded ordnance found in the Leeward Coast military training range.
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The reservation has been closed for more than a month except to essential security and demolition personnel.[...]

With the bombs detonated, the way is cleared for Hawaiian practitioners to observe the makahiki, a Hawaiian religious and holiday observance...

The Army next month plans to blow up several bombs that were found in Makua Military Reservation — a discovery that prevented Hawaiian practitioners from observing the Makahiki.

But the detonation of the old ordnance won't remove the increasing acrimony felt by some community members over cultural access to the 4,190-acre Waianae Coast valley, and it could land the Army in court again.

"We're getting to the point of going back to court because there is no excuse for their (the Army's) continued foot-dragging," said David Henkin, an Earthjustice attorney.

Henkin, who represents community group Malama Makua, maintains the Army is violating a 2001 settlement agreement, adding, "We've notified them of that fact."

Draped in black and red instead of the traditional white for the Makahiki, native Hawaiian groups protested the Army's cancellation of the cultural celebration at the Makua Military Reservation.

Malama Makua and Hui Malama O Makua held a protest vigil at the facility's gate yesterday, the first day of Makahiki.

On Nov. 1, the Army discovered a 250-pound, World War II-era bomb near the gate to the live-fire training ground, and has denied access to native Hawaiian groups until it can detonate the device.

The protesters called the Army's reasoning "double talk," saying that if the bomb was really a threat, it would've been removed or detonated by now, since the initial danger zone from the bomb extended beyond the fence and into water.

"It doesn't make any sense for the Army to say it's too dangerous for us to go into Makua to practice our religion, and at the same time, refuse to remove a bomb it says threatens the lives of keiki playing at Makua Beach," said Momi Kamahele, cultural adviser for the group Makua Makahiki. "The Army's either lying about the danger, because it wants an excuse to deny us our cultural access, or it's being incredibly reckless with innocent people's lives."

The military will pay the University of Hawai'i $2 million to use sonar and manned and unmanned submersibles to survey chemical weapons dumped about five miles south of Pearl Harbor at the end of World War II.

Officials said the study could begin in late summer of next year, but what was dumped and where the dumping occurred remain questions that could complicate the search.

Tad Davis, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for the environment, safety and occupational health, said the project could establish procedures for determining whether munitions disposed of at sea pose a threat to human or marine health.

Some O'ahu residents, particularly on the Wai'anae Coast, have called for a cleanup in recent years of the munitions that are so rife in areas that one popular dive spot is called "Ordnance Reef."

The U.S. military has said about 2,600 tons of chemical mustard, cyanogens chloride, hydrogen cyanide and lewisite were dumped at two deep-water locations five to ten miles off the Wai'anae Coast and Pearl Harbor between 1944 and 1946.

The Army also has acknowledged that thousands more tons of chemical munitions were dumped at another unknown site off the coast of West O'ahu in fall 1945.

Construction projects at Oahu military bases will receive the bulk of $691 million coming to Hawaii in a federal appropriations bill approved Thursday by Senate and House conferees.

The military budget items include $65 million for a Navy communications center in Wahiawa, a $49.8 million Pearl Harbor submarine facility and $170 million for Army barracks construction at Schofield Barracks, Fort Shafter and Wheeler Army Airfield.

Some $34.2 million in U.S. Department of Education funding would go to public schools with a high percentage of native Hawaiian students, for teacher training, renovations and curriculum development, according to an announcement by U.S. Sens. Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka.

Two members of the self-proclaimed Kingdom of Atooi posted bail yesterday after being arrested on charges stemming from the Aug. 26 arrival of the Hawaii Superferry.

Dayne Gonsalves, also known as Dayne Aipoalani, and Robert Pa, both were arrested Tuesday during a Planning Commission meeting, police said.

Both men claim Kaua‘i is actually a free and independent nation, the Polynesian Kingdom of Atooi, as a self-governing and sovereign entity.

Gonsalves told The Garden Isle newspaper Thursday that his arrest was illegal.

"We're not imitating. We're a separate entity as the kingdom's marshals. They have no jurisdiction over us," he said.

Hawaii's governor Linda Lingle has canceled her planned trip to Korea, China and Japan to be here for a likely special session of the Hawaii Legislature. She is supporting the Hawaii Superferry Corporation in breaking through the state's environmental protection laws and starting business immediately—over the objections of hundreds if not thousands of Neighbor Island residents.

Why? Maybe it's because the ferry's military usefulness would be lost if it isn't allowed to ply the whale-filled waters around Hawaii. A huge ferry exempted from environmental protection laws is just what is needed to move those Stryker vehicles from island to island.

Is this a "hidden agenda?" It has been discussed largely on the Internet. Lingle has had a hidden military agenda before.

Heard from a very reliable, well-placed source that Gov. Lingle issued the order in a private meeting Friday morning: the Superferry moves forward, with no EIS, at any cost.

Protesters would not necessarily choose (or need) to act on the first visits; a series of randomly unpredictable blockades would be nearly as effective in disrupting the service and causing passengers to form reasonable doubt about the likelihood of reaching their destination (and returning) as scheduled."

HONOLULU (KHNL) - Is there a military conspiracy involving the Hawaii Superferry? That's what some protesters are saying. Wednesday night, they called the Army out on it during a public hearing at Kawananakoa Intermediate School.

The hearing was not on the Superferry, it was on a draft environmental impact statement over a plan to permanently station a stryker brigade in Hawaii. But Superferry protesters claim there is a disturbing connection.

HILO » After hours of emotional testimony in opposition, University of Hawaii regents approved a Navy-affiliated Applied Research Laboratory yesterday, allowing up to $10 million per year in unclassified military and nonmilitary research contracts.

The contract with the Navy will be re-evaluated at the end of three years for possible extension for two more years and the inclusion of classified research.

The vote was 7-1, with one abstention. Regent Jim Haynes voted against the contract, saying he had visited Kahoolawe and saw damage done by years of Navy artillery fire, never completely cleaned up.

Representatives of the U.S. Army listened to a stream of criticism last night of the Army's proposal to permanently base a Stryker brigade combat team in Hawai'i.
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The hearing drew almost 100 people, nearly all opposed to the Stryker project.
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The three Hawaiian groups called the 'Ilio'ulaokalani Coalition, Na 'Imi Pono and Kipuka filed a lawsuit in 2004 charging that the Stryker project would damage Native Hawaiian cultural sites and harm endangered species and their habitats.

The new draft of the environmental report confirms there would be "significant" impacts on cultural resources, soil erosion, wildfire management and noise.

Opponents of a U.S. Navy-affiliated research center proposed for the University of Hawai'i yesterday decried the center, which would conduct research for the military, as "rotten to the core" ahead of an expected final vote by the Board of Regents tomorrow in Hilo.

"What is happening is that defense research is being channeled right into the heart of the university," said Noel Kent, an ethnic studies professor at UH. "The whole way in which the university conducts defense and secret research is being changed dramatically, and this is what we oppose."

About 40 opponents of the University Affiliated Research Center plan, some carrying green "Save UH, Stop UARC" placards, held a news conference at Bachman Hall, the university's administrative office.

Some alternately shouted "Hewa!" and "Shame!" when the university wouldn't open locked doors to allow opponents to drop off copies of an 84-page report titled "The Dirty Secret About UARC" compiled by Kyle Kajihiro.

"We want them (the Board of Regents) to know what they are getting into," opponent Ikaika Hussey said.

...only 74 percent of the surface ordnance is gone, and a mere 9 percent of the subsurface ordnance down to 4 feet is cleared.
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But the federal trust fund set up to clean up the island has insufficient funds left to complete the job. Unfortunately, Kaho'ohalahala doesn't think it's the right political climate now to push for additional congressional funds, but "we must be vigilant."

Despite the progress being made on Kaho'olawe, it's disappointing to hear that the U.S. military will be leaving one more island in the Pacific in disrepair because of its actions. Nuclear tests in the 1950s and '60s on Bikini Atoll, Christmas Island, Johnston Atoll and Enewetak Atoll come to mind. Military experiments in Hawaii continue to this day.

It's outrageous that the Navy didn't fulfill its responsibility and complete the cleanup of Kaho'olawe.

No wonder native Hawaiians are so angry.

And so should we be.