LICENSE TO DRILL: Atrocious English notwithstanding, today's local newspaper report of the state's latest desecration of kanaka `iwi along the beach in Wailua gave us that old familiar feeling that you know so well.
The article says that apparently, that old black magic was being performed by "(c)ontracted archaeologist Jim Powell, of Scientific Cultural Surveys, (who) also found artifacts associated with ancient Hawaiian burials" according to cultural activist Ka`iulani Edens Huff.
“These guys are all over the place,” Edens said of Powell’s company, which also surveyed Joe Brescia’s property in Naue, on Kaua‘i’s (sic) North Shore. “They are dirty and they are everywhere bones are desecrated.”
Edens of course has been put through hell for daring to try to defend the `iwi against Brescia's graveyard mansion in Wainiha.
But what caught our eye was this citation in the article:
Title 13, Chapter 300 of the Hawai‘i Administrative Rules states that it is “unlawful for any person to remove from the jurisdiction of the state, any human skeletal remains over 50 years old, or any associated burial goods, without prior written authorization” from DLNR.
That's a long way to go to say today's post is a Best of Parx (okay it's a re-run) from July 1, 2008 when we first discovered that there was such a thing as "prior written authorization from DLNR" to desecrate Hawaiian graves.
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HEY- THAT’S MY SACRED DOG DISH: After falling out of our chair this morning we got to thinking about the latest statement from developer Joe Brescia who still wants to put his house atop a kanaka graveyard despite a police warning that to do so would violate state anti-desecration laws.
The local paper reports that he told them:
“The law was obviously designed to punish those persons who desecrate burials without authorization.”
Sometimes there are so many different government departments, divisions and offices we can’t keep track of them all. And obviously we missed the one Brescia must be referring to.
We’re pretty sure never-say-die Brescia’s telephone call went something like this:
Hello, Office of Desecration Authorization and Permitting.
Yes I’d like to perform some desecration. Have I reached the right person?
You sure have. What can I help you defile today?
Well it seems like I have these old bones on my property and those jerks put them right where I want to put my obscenely obtrusive illegal vacation rental....
Are they Hawaiian bones?
Yes – they aren’t even white people!
Well nonetheless you have to have a permit to commit sacrilege in this state even against those godless Hawaiians. Now how many are buried there?
There’s at least 30 sets of them.
Oh. my- 30, eh. Well that means you will need a Comprehensive Desecration Permit and don’t qualify for the two-graves-or-less provisions where I could just issue you a Minor Insult Permit today. Now exactly how many people have had their sensibilities outraged?
Well, I’m not sure- there were at least a hundred protesters out there when I....
Hold it right there sir- do you have the names and contact information for those you want to offend?
Well, no but...
Well you must document the names of the persons you’d like to disrespect and provide us with the specific ways each would be likely to observe or discover your actions in order to get authorization to perform your sullying. That involves notifying the specific persons affronted and calculating the level of offensiveness each experienced so you can file your form FU-13 Defilement Filing.
File my defilement filing?...
Yes. Then of course you’ll be publishing your Public Notice of Intent to Desecrate and hold a public hearing....
Public hearing?...
Yes how else can the Desecration Commission tell whether it’s a true sacrilege or just an imposition upon the culture. Now how exactly do you plan to despoil these bones?
I just want to put a house on top of them.
Oh- a house, eh. Then you’ll need to fill out a special GH-100 Spiritual Retaliation Waiver form releasing the Commission of all future liability for ghostly events and apparitions - you know, night marching warriors, fireballs, crying aumakua- you probably know them better as specters, phantoms, poltergeists and the like. It’s all quite common....
Well it’s all quite daunting if you ask me but I suppose I’ve manipulated and paid off so many offices and officials that, well, what’s one more?
Fine sir- we’ll send you our 150 page pamphlet, “So you want to Desecrate Our Host Culture”. Where shall we send it?
Just address it to the biggest jerk in Wainiha. I’ll get it.
Are you sure? I hear there’s a lot of them lately?
Hey- I’ve fought hard for that title. If I know anything it’s how big an a-hole I am..
Very well sir- Is there anything else we can help you thumb your nose at today?
No, I’ve done enough damage for now.
Thank you sir and have a very blasphemous day.
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UPDATE: Although our investigative report about abuses in the ofhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giffhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifice of Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri Carvalho was greeted with a collective shrug, to our amazement Councilperson Dickie Chang's lack of recusal in the matter of the obscene $150,000 grant for the Kaua`i Marathon yielded this from the council's May 4 agenda
C 2011-135 Communication (04/28/2011) from Councilmember Chang, providing written disclosure on the record of a possible conflict of interest and recusal on Bill No. 2404 (An Ordinance to Appropriate $150,000 to the Kaua'i Marathon Grant), because he is the Owner of Wala'au Productions which tapes and aires (sic) footage of the Kaua'i Marathon and also he serves as an emcee for the Kaua'i Marathon at several pre and post events.
Showing posts with label desecration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label desecration. Show all posts
Friday, April 29, 2011
Friday, October 3, 2008
OVERKILL FOR THE UNDERDOG
OVERKILL FOR THE UNDERDOG: Sometimes you’ve gotta wonder if people who attended a meeting were in the same room or on different planets.
And supposedly that’s why we have people who call themselves reporters. Their job is to figure out what the “news” is as it occurs, news being not the usual Dog Bites Man” but the unexpected “Man Bites Dog”.
But in this age of corporate newsrooms and busy if not jaded reporters, journalists often have their stories written- at least in their minds- before going in.
Many have apparently forgotten how to, or don’t have the time to, do the job and so often it falls to the alternative press- both professionals and every day citizens- to let us know what actually happened.
And yesterday’s coverage of the meeting of the Kaua`i Burial Council is a case study in how preconceptions can make reporters blind to the overarching “news”.
One could avoid taking their bedtime dose of Ambien by they reading the three mainstream press articles from the attending scribes.
Oh there was plenty of the perfunctory reporting of “five hours of testimony” and “emotion packed, anger-fueled blah-de-blah” and the like as well as tons of regurgitation of background info.
But we had to learn of the fact that the place was filled with armed state “conservation” cops from eyewitness bloggers Katy Rose and Joan Conrow.
Katy describes the scene that greeted her
When I arrived at the meeting at 9:45 a loud debate had broken out about the presence of armed DOCARE officers in the room. The outcry against having guns in the room was so intense that Mark Hubbard, the Burial Council chair, requested that the officers be asked to leave. Pua Aiu, the SHPD administrator, explained that the armed officers were called in because of "unruly meetings" in the past, but she did honor the request to remove them from the room.
As inappropriate as their presence was, it is an indication of the power of the people that the State felt so threatened by emotional testimony that it felt it necessary to call them in the first place.
Joan was even more outraged and provided a little more detail.
I’ll start with the words uttered by Pua Aiu, administrator of the State Historic Preservation Division, when several people asked why men with guns were in the room. She replied that she had requested DOCARE officers because of “unruly meetings in the past” and noted: “They come with guns. That’s how they come equipped.”
As Sharon Pomroy ironically observed, standing up and holding the traditional wood staff carried by Hale Mawae: “Guns are here because there’s a Hawaiian with a stick in the room.”
At the request of Chair Mark Hubbard, the three state enforcement officers did leave the Council Chambers and spent the rest of the day hanging out in the heat and humidity on the front steps of the Historic County Building. Some Kauai cops also showed up because people had called them to complain about the DOCARE officers. It was not only an utter waste of da guys with guns’ time and taxpayer money, but a tragic commentary on the climate of fear that seems to pervade the state when it comes to Hawaiians and their issues.
The last time I saw armed officers at a meeting was when Office of Hawaiian Affairs hit the road to explain to folks why its proposed settlement with the state was such a good deal. Strange, that the two state agencies that deal most closely with Hawaiian issues are so quick to call in the guns. Could it be because they know best how badly the kanaka are getting screwed?
As Tracey Schavone, who is not a kanaka, noted in her testimony to the Council: “It’s very disturbing to think, this is a Hawaiian issue, and oh my god, they think they need to have guns in the room.”
It’s hard to say what’s more appalling, the fact that lawbreakers like Grove Farm VP, Chair Hubbard (he also being the Chair of the unethical Kaua`i Ethics Board) along with dufusses like State Archeologist Nancy McMahon and her coconut overlord Aiu (who caused the whole mess in the first place by skirting the law) though they needed armed guards to protect them at the meeting, or the fact that it went unreported in the mainstream press.
We’ve probably been to well over a thousand meetings in that room, many regarding issues just as, if not more, contentious and have never seen armed guards.
Perhaps that’s what happens when you have a para-military force that isn’t subject to regulation by a citizen panel, only to Land and Natural Resources Chief Laura Thielen.
Her private “Conservation Enforcement” crew is comprised in large part of people who were too unstable to continue being real law enforcement officers... just the type of people we want holding guns at an emotion-packed meeting.. .
But perhaps it’s another chapter in the truly perplexing recent response of the thieves who stole these islands to challenges of their authority to rape the very land they stole.
In the 30 some-odd years since the native Hawaiian cultural and political renaissance the worst thing that the authorities might have physically suffered at the hands of kanaka maoli is a paper cuts from the documents the Hawaiians routinely waive under their arrogant noses.
This disproportionate response is even more bewildering when you look at the words of the common beneficiaries of the genocide who see the theft of Hawai`i as a fait accompli.
To hear them tell it in comment sections of newspapers and blogs throughout the state they don’t seem to be worried that their land deeds may be worthless and that they are illegal immigrants, according to the UN and international law.
They know that crooked Amerikan courts and the yield of bloated military budgets are standing in wait behind the curtain to support and carry out their nefarious piracy.
These worthless slugs laugh like the maniacal James Bond villains they are when someone dares to suggest that their morally bankrupt value system is being challenged by a bunch of peaceful lava-lave clad victims of their genocide.
And perhaps it’s because no matter how restless the natives are it isn’t like anyone can think of even one incident of armed insurrection in this or the last century in response to their “you and what army” challenges.
But obviously these western condo-conquerors either don’t know something their militaristic overlords do or the “authorities” are insanely overreacting to a threat that their minions on the other hand pooh-pooh.
In one way, like Joan and Katy say, it’s a complement to the Hawaiian sovereignty movement that the Amerikan powers that be think they need to arm themselves in response to kanaka demands for justice.
Lately it hasn’t been enough to have the cops and courts harass peaceful non violent protesters like those whose plight we’ve detailed or those in yesterday’s show trial for the handful of Maui denizens who were arraigned yesterday for their actions at Iolani Palace this summer, both in attempts to peacefully highlight injustices.
Now they are bringing armed guards to community meetings where both cultural and ethnic non-westerners might show up to challenge the very idea of their authority to desecrate, denigrate and commit genocide.
What’s next?- an naval armada to accompany a unwanted ferry boat and attack surfers and kayakers who are armed with only bathing suits and surfboards?.
Oh, wait...
And supposedly that’s why we have people who call themselves reporters. Their job is to figure out what the “news” is as it occurs, news being not the usual Dog Bites Man” but the unexpected “Man Bites Dog”.
But in this age of corporate newsrooms and busy if not jaded reporters, journalists often have their stories written- at least in their minds- before going in.
Many have apparently forgotten how to, or don’t have the time to, do the job and so often it falls to the alternative press- both professionals and every day citizens- to let us know what actually happened.
And yesterday’s coverage of the meeting of the Kaua`i Burial Council is a case study in how preconceptions can make reporters blind to the overarching “news”.
One could avoid taking their bedtime dose of Ambien by they reading the three mainstream press articles from the attending scribes.
Oh there was plenty of the perfunctory reporting of “five hours of testimony” and “emotion packed, anger-fueled blah-de-blah” and the like as well as tons of regurgitation of background info.
But we had to learn of the fact that the place was filled with armed state “conservation” cops from eyewitness bloggers Katy Rose and Joan Conrow.
Katy describes the scene that greeted her
When I arrived at the meeting at 9:45 a loud debate had broken out about the presence of armed DOCARE officers in the room. The outcry against having guns in the room was so intense that Mark Hubbard, the Burial Council chair, requested that the officers be asked to leave. Pua Aiu, the SHPD administrator, explained that the armed officers were called in because of "unruly meetings" in the past, but she did honor the request to remove them from the room.
As inappropriate as their presence was, it is an indication of the power of the people that the State felt so threatened by emotional testimony that it felt it necessary to call them in the first place.
Joan was even more outraged and provided a little more detail.
I’ll start with the words uttered by Pua Aiu, administrator of the State Historic Preservation Division, when several people asked why men with guns were in the room. She replied that she had requested DOCARE officers because of “unruly meetings in the past” and noted: “They come with guns. That’s how they come equipped.”
As Sharon Pomroy ironically observed, standing up and holding the traditional wood staff carried by Hale Mawae: “Guns are here because there’s a Hawaiian with a stick in the room.”
At the request of Chair Mark Hubbard, the three state enforcement officers did leave the Council Chambers and spent the rest of the day hanging out in the heat and humidity on the front steps of the Historic County Building. Some Kauai cops also showed up because people had called them to complain about the DOCARE officers. It was not only an utter waste of da guys with guns’ time and taxpayer money, but a tragic commentary on the climate of fear that seems to pervade the state when it comes to Hawaiians and their issues.
The last time I saw armed officers at a meeting was when Office of Hawaiian Affairs hit the road to explain to folks why its proposed settlement with the state was such a good deal. Strange, that the two state agencies that deal most closely with Hawaiian issues are so quick to call in the guns. Could it be because they know best how badly the kanaka are getting screwed?
As Tracey Schavone, who is not a kanaka, noted in her testimony to the Council: “It’s very disturbing to think, this is a Hawaiian issue, and oh my god, they think they need to have guns in the room.”
It’s hard to say what’s more appalling, the fact that lawbreakers like Grove Farm VP, Chair Hubbard (he also being the Chair of the unethical Kaua`i Ethics Board) along with dufusses like State Archeologist Nancy McMahon and her coconut overlord Aiu (who caused the whole mess in the first place by skirting the law) though they needed armed guards to protect them at the meeting, or the fact that it went unreported in the mainstream press.
We’ve probably been to well over a thousand meetings in that room, many regarding issues just as, if not more, contentious and have never seen armed guards.
Perhaps that’s what happens when you have a para-military force that isn’t subject to regulation by a citizen panel, only to Land and Natural Resources Chief Laura Thielen.
Her private “Conservation Enforcement” crew is comprised in large part of people who were too unstable to continue being real law enforcement officers... just the type of people we want holding guns at an emotion-packed meeting.. .
But perhaps it’s another chapter in the truly perplexing recent response of the thieves who stole these islands to challenges of their authority to rape the very land they stole.
In the 30 some-odd years since the native Hawaiian cultural and political renaissance the worst thing that the authorities might have physically suffered at the hands of kanaka maoli is a paper cuts from the documents the Hawaiians routinely waive under their arrogant noses.
This disproportionate response is even more bewildering when you look at the words of the common beneficiaries of the genocide who see the theft of Hawai`i as a fait accompli.
To hear them tell it in comment sections of newspapers and blogs throughout the state they don’t seem to be worried that their land deeds may be worthless and that they are illegal immigrants, according to the UN and international law.
They know that crooked Amerikan courts and the yield of bloated military budgets are standing in wait behind the curtain to support and carry out their nefarious piracy.
These worthless slugs laugh like the maniacal James Bond villains they are when someone dares to suggest that their morally bankrupt value system is being challenged by a bunch of peaceful lava-lave clad victims of their genocide.
And perhaps it’s because no matter how restless the natives are it isn’t like anyone can think of even one incident of armed insurrection in this or the last century in response to their “you and what army” challenges.
But obviously these western condo-conquerors either don’t know something their militaristic overlords do or the “authorities” are insanely overreacting to a threat that their minions on the other hand pooh-pooh.
In one way, like Joan and Katy say, it’s a complement to the Hawaiian sovereignty movement that the Amerikan powers that be think they need to arm themselves in response to kanaka demands for justice.
Lately it hasn’t been enough to have the cops and courts harass peaceful non violent protesters like those whose plight we’ve detailed or those in yesterday’s show trial for the handful of Maui denizens who were arraigned yesterday for their actions at Iolani Palace this summer, both in attempts to peacefully highlight injustices.
Now they are bringing armed guards to community meetings where both cultural and ethnic non-westerners might show up to challenge the very idea of their authority to desecrate, denigrate and commit genocide.
What’s next?- an naval armada to accompany a unwanted ferry boat and attack surfers and kayakers who are armed with only bathing suits and surfboards?.
Oh, wait...
Saturday, August 9, 2008
A NOT SO DIFFERENT BREED
A NOT SO DIFFERENT BREED: It seems like today is some kind of day of self examination for white people across the state, not just the supporters of the Naue protesters on Kaua`i but also the those involved in a planned cultural visit by children to Kaho`olawe in light of the refusal of the military to even test for much less acknowledge the use of depleted uranium on the sacred island.
A comment on the discussion of the direct action to preserve the north shore graveyard and the police response on Katy Rose’s Breaking The Spell was quite provocative in response to Katy’s description and discussion with Joan Conrow of some of the actions and reactions.
The anonymous poster said:
It’s amazing to observe the effects of the tremendous influx of malahini who have come here to “settle” and “immerse” themselves in the “host” culture; to hear them voice in their best PC manner their support of the island’s “indigenous” residents’ struggles bemoaning their plight. How, incredibly hypocritical this is! They totally ignore the fact that it is their continuing invasion that has caused the severe lack of affordable housing here; caused by their renting and buying up everything in that category. It is their competition for housing that has caused the steep rise in rents as more and more of these working class immigrants arrive. All that’s left available are expensive luxury homes that local folks can’t afford. So, with their true colors flying, they voice their objections to all the overbuilding on expensive properties that they helped create. It is their numbers which have contributed by their unnecessary presence to Kauai’s traffic problems, crowding of beaches and surf sights. They compete for what decent jobs there are on the island, and by their hand enable the contractors and developers to do the very over building they so openly despise. They fill the jobs in the islands tourist industry thereby enabling its expansion that they so strongly bemoan for all its ill effects on this once rural environment. This is more than hypocritical; this is duplicitous. How can they look themselves in the mirror, write their blogs and present their testimonies on how Kauai is losing its cultural identify when it is they who are the problem; it is they who are killing it. If it weren’t for them, local folks could more easily find housing so that their children can remain on the island of their birth and find decent jobs so they don’t have to leave. The voices of these patronizing malahini ring false when it is their very presence that hurts most those they seem to want to support. This is the inconvenient truth!
Some good points, as Katy said. But the problem with that is that mainlanders are not just one monolithic demographic.
The settlers causing the problems are the ones who come to develop and rip-off the local resources and culture. They come and rape the land and give back nothing but degrading low pay jobs in an offensive tourism industry, instilling plantation mentality in their wake.
And although pacific islander immigrants including the undocumented ones probably equal those from the states you don’t hear people complain about “ those stupid f—in’ Filipinos”.
It’s not the working class people who are causing this mess. As a matter of fact to say so is to blame the victims of the system whether locally born and raised or immigrant..
It’s not the transplant population explosion itself that has cause the problems but rather it’s the imposition of another culture that values money and progress over the individual rights and local lifestyle of working people who are caught in a trap, not of their making or in their ability to directly resolve it.
And there’s the rub.
Because even assuming the poster’s premise was correct and all the people who came here are destroying the island, is the correct response to say “join the club” with an “if you can’t beat them join them attitude” as many who comment in the various blogs and newspaper comment sections across the state emphatically pronounce?
Or is the right action to do all you can to curb the negative effects of the invasion by doing what you can to stop the degradation of exploitive predatory development that is causing it?
Another cultural clash within the non-native community came across our desk late this morning in an email to a list of almost 100 community activists, politicians and journalists sent by Maui public interest attorney par excellance Lance Collins in response to a letter from Big Island depleted-uranium (DU) activist Shannon Rudolpf .
Rudolpf saw a press release from Collins’ Malama Hawai`i organization announcing a workshop regarding “(a)n opportunity to go to Kaho`olawe with the Protect Kaho`olawe 'Ohana and learn about the island firsthand” for secondary school teachers and presumably students.
This caused Shannon to write to Collins saying:
Aloha,
It's completely irresponsible to take children to Kaho'olawe unless you are CERTAIN no depleted uranium has been used there. I've asked this question many times over the years but have never gotten a straight answer from anyone. I'm no expert but I would guess a lot of DU was used there. (The Target Island)
Please don't let your children go to Kaho'olawe without a working and properly calibrated radiation monitor.
I was present (across the road) from the Pohakuloa Training Range, on the Big Island in May 2007...many of us watched the radiation levels stay at or below background levels for an hour and a half, (5-20 counts per minute) on residents monitors...suddenly the wind came up and blew dust directly across the monitors... which then zoomed up to 75 cpm.
I would never have gone up there if I had known this was going to happen and would have discouraged others. Please heed this warning. Please discourage anyone from going to Kaho'olawe until there is a long term, 24/7 monitoring system in place, preferably with independent verification, such as the Hawai'i County Council has recently recommended for our training range.
Sincerely,
Shannon Rudolph– Kona
This drew what some might call an outrageous response from Collins, who has admirably worked with and represented many cultural and political Hawaiian groups including apparently this workshop. He wrote:
Shannon,
I think the issue of going to Kaho'olawe is more complex for many people than your black and white assessment -- which impregnates the issue with Western medical/scientific reasoning as the basis for your moral claims of what responsibility is for other people and their practice of culture.
During the cholera outbreaks in the turn of the century in the Philippines, U.S. military authorities used Western medical discourse to make similar black/white claims regarding what the proper conduct of Filipinos should be towards themselves and their children -- characterizing those that didn't listen to them as irresponsible and childish.
Western medicine and science has a long history of partnership with U.S. military and cultural imperialism and I would suggest caution before or nuance in telling other people how to practice their culture.
lance*
Wailuku, Maui
Ooooo- snap....
But who is the one telling whom how to help someone else practice their culture?
It’s certainly not an easy issue. It sounds similar to clashes that occurred in the northwestern US and Canada and in Alaska regarding whale hunting.
With good intentions many western activist said killing whales is killing whales and shouldn’t be allowed in an age when they are endangered no matter what the cultural importance.
The indigenous cultural practitioners and their supporters argued that even the questioning of the cultural significance is cause for outrage and to stop them from practicing their ritual was sacrilege tantamount to cultural genocide.
But then again some “cultural practice” claims regarding whales like those in Japan are seen by most as a thinly veiled attempt to engage in commercial whaling.
Rudolph was apparently just assuring the health and safety of children and the need to have the military to clean up their act and either admit to or show that there has never been use of depleted uranium on Kaho`olawe.
Does insuring that children aren’t exposed to radiation violate cultural practices of kanaka maoli- isn’t keeping children safe part of that culture too?
It seems presumptuous of Collins to attack Rudolpf even if it is in the name of sustaining cultural and religious practices. It feels disingenuous to claim that ascertaining the safety of the people going to Kaho`olawe is somehow an excuse for continuing cultural suppression.
Collins’ apprehension may be well placed because some of the most sacred places in the islands have been desecrated by the military such as Makua Valley on O`ahu.
The military has used dangerous conditions they created as an excuse to keep native practitioners out of the sacred valley of Makua, battling against practitioners in court and using and twisting court- mandated cleanup and access to actually keep practitioners out during traditional ceremonial periods like this year’s makahiki.
But the response Collins gave is not that maybe the importance of instilling culture in our children outweighs the risk of the DU but in fact he’s apparently dismissive of even finding out what the danger is much less taking the dangerous realities into account when people, especially children, visit
Would Collins object to taking a Geiger counter and keeping children away from radioactive areas if they exist? He doesn’t say
Does he want to keep the parents of those children- and for that matter the teachers and anyone else traveling to the island- ignorant of the risks and possible presence of DU on Kaho`olawe? He doesn’t say.
It certainly sounds like he is saying to Rudolph “shut up- what people don’t know won’t hurt them”.
Seems the least Collins and Malama Hawai`i could do is to insure full disclosure and the consent of those whose culture he’s defending.
Kipling’s white man’s burden thrives when westerners think they “know what’s best” for the “noble savages” and endeavor to protect them from themselves.
It’s the kind of attitude apparent in the way the state and federal governments still hold the never-really ceded “crown” Hawaiian lands they stole “in trust” and wants to pass the Akaka bill to “steal them one last time, fair and square”
Most Americans routinely say “we’d be glad to give them their land back and insure their cultural and political self-determination if they’d all just agree on what they want”.
Uh, they have- they want their land back and their cultural and political self determination insured.
As our friend, Anahola kanaka maoli sovereignty activist Michael Grace once said to us: “Hey- we big boys now- can handle”.
If they can handle, can’t we?
A comment on the discussion of the direct action to preserve the north shore graveyard and the police response on Katy Rose’s Breaking The Spell was quite provocative in response to Katy’s description and discussion with Joan Conrow of some of the actions and reactions.
The anonymous poster said:
It’s amazing to observe the effects of the tremendous influx of malahini who have come here to “settle” and “immerse” themselves in the “host” culture; to hear them voice in their best PC manner their support of the island’s “indigenous” residents’ struggles bemoaning their plight. How, incredibly hypocritical this is! They totally ignore the fact that it is their continuing invasion that has caused the severe lack of affordable housing here; caused by their renting and buying up everything in that category. It is their competition for housing that has caused the steep rise in rents as more and more of these working class immigrants arrive. All that’s left available are expensive luxury homes that local folks can’t afford. So, with their true colors flying, they voice their objections to all the overbuilding on expensive properties that they helped create. It is their numbers which have contributed by their unnecessary presence to Kauai’s traffic problems, crowding of beaches and surf sights. They compete for what decent jobs there are on the island, and by their hand enable the contractors and developers to do the very over building they so openly despise. They fill the jobs in the islands tourist industry thereby enabling its expansion that they so strongly bemoan for all its ill effects on this once rural environment. This is more than hypocritical; this is duplicitous. How can they look themselves in the mirror, write their blogs and present their testimonies on how Kauai is losing its cultural identify when it is they who are the problem; it is they who are killing it. If it weren’t for them, local folks could more easily find housing so that their children can remain on the island of their birth and find decent jobs so they don’t have to leave. The voices of these patronizing malahini ring false when it is their very presence that hurts most those they seem to want to support. This is the inconvenient truth!
Some good points, as Katy said. But the problem with that is that mainlanders are not just one monolithic demographic.
The settlers causing the problems are the ones who come to develop and rip-off the local resources and culture. They come and rape the land and give back nothing but degrading low pay jobs in an offensive tourism industry, instilling plantation mentality in their wake.
And although pacific islander immigrants including the undocumented ones probably equal those from the states you don’t hear people complain about “ those stupid f—in’ Filipinos”.
It’s not the working class people who are causing this mess. As a matter of fact to say so is to blame the victims of the system whether locally born and raised or immigrant..
It’s not the transplant population explosion itself that has cause the problems but rather it’s the imposition of another culture that values money and progress over the individual rights and local lifestyle of working people who are caught in a trap, not of their making or in their ability to directly resolve it.
And there’s the rub.
Because even assuming the poster’s premise was correct and all the people who came here are destroying the island, is the correct response to say “join the club” with an “if you can’t beat them join them attitude” as many who comment in the various blogs and newspaper comment sections across the state emphatically pronounce?
Or is the right action to do all you can to curb the negative effects of the invasion by doing what you can to stop the degradation of exploitive predatory development that is causing it?
Another cultural clash within the non-native community came across our desk late this morning in an email to a list of almost 100 community activists, politicians and journalists sent by Maui public interest attorney par excellance Lance Collins in response to a letter from Big Island depleted-uranium (DU) activist Shannon Rudolpf .
Rudolpf saw a press release from Collins’ Malama Hawai`i organization announcing a workshop regarding “(a)n opportunity to go to Kaho`olawe with the Protect Kaho`olawe 'Ohana and learn about the island firsthand” for secondary school teachers and presumably students.
This caused Shannon to write to Collins saying:
Aloha,
It's completely irresponsible to take children to Kaho'olawe unless you are CERTAIN no depleted uranium has been used there. I've asked this question many times over the years but have never gotten a straight answer from anyone. I'm no expert but I would guess a lot of DU was used there. (The Target Island)
Please don't let your children go to Kaho'olawe without a working and properly calibrated radiation monitor.
I was present (across the road) from the Pohakuloa Training Range, on the Big Island in May 2007...many of us watched the radiation levels stay at or below background levels for an hour and a half, (5-20 counts per minute) on residents monitors...suddenly the wind came up and blew dust directly across the monitors... which then zoomed up to 75 cpm.
I would never have gone up there if I had known this was going to happen and would have discouraged others. Please heed this warning. Please discourage anyone from going to Kaho'olawe until there is a long term, 24/7 monitoring system in place, preferably with independent verification, such as the Hawai'i County Council has recently recommended for our training range.
Sincerely,
Shannon Rudolph– Kona
This drew what some might call an outrageous response from Collins, who has admirably worked with and represented many cultural and political Hawaiian groups including apparently this workshop. He wrote:
Shannon,
I think the issue of going to Kaho'olawe is more complex for many people than your black and white assessment -- which impregnates the issue with Western medical/scientific reasoning as the basis for your moral claims of what responsibility is for other people and their practice of culture.
During the cholera outbreaks in the turn of the century in the Philippines, U.S. military authorities used Western medical discourse to make similar black/white claims regarding what the proper conduct of Filipinos should be towards themselves and their children -- characterizing those that didn't listen to them as irresponsible and childish.
Western medicine and science has a long history of partnership with U.S. military and cultural imperialism and I would suggest caution before or nuance in telling other people how to practice their culture.
lance*
Wailuku, Maui
Ooooo- snap....
But who is the one telling whom how to help someone else practice their culture?
It’s certainly not an easy issue. It sounds similar to clashes that occurred in the northwestern US and Canada and in Alaska regarding whale hunting.
With good intentions many western activist said killing whales is killing whales and shouldn’t be allowed in an age when they are endangered no matter what the cultural importance.
The indigenous cultural practitioners and their supporters argued that even the questioning of the cultural significance is cause for outrage and to stop them from practicing their ritual was sacrilege tantamount to cultural genocide.
But then again some “cultural practice” claims regarding whales like those in Japan are seen by most as a thinly veiled attempt to engage in commercial whaling.
Rudolph was apparently just assuring the health and safety of children and the need to have the military to clean up their act and either admit to or show that there has never been use of depleted uranium on Kaho`olawe.
Does insuring that children aren’t exposed to radiation violate cultural practices of kanaka maoli- isn’t keeping children safe part of that culture too?
It seems presumptuous of Collins to attack Rudolpf even if it is in the name of sustaining cultural and religious practices. It feels disingenuous to claim that ascertaining the safety of the people going to Kaho`olawe is somehow an excuse for continuing cultural suppression.
Collins’ apprehension may be well placed because some of the most sacred places in the islands have been desecrated by the military such as Makua Valley on O`ahu.
The military has used dangerous conditions they created as an excuse to keep native practitioners out of the sacred valley of Makua, battling against practitioners in court and using and twisting court- mandated cleanup and access to actually keep practitioners out during traditional ceremonial periods like this year’s makahiki.
But the response Collins gave is not that maybe the importance of instilling culture in our children outweighs the risk of the DU but in fact he’s apparently dismissive of even finding out what the danger is much less taking the dangerous realities into account when people, especially children, visit
Would Collins object to taking a Geiger counter and keeping children away from radioactive areas if they exist? He doesn’t say
Does he want to keep the parents of those children- and for that matter the teachers and anyone else traveling to the island- ignorant of the risks and possible presence of DU on Kaho`olawe? He doesn’t say.
It certainly sounds like he is saying to Rudolph “shut up- what people don’t know won’t hurt them”.
Seems the least Collins and Malama Hawai`i could do is to insure full disclosure and the consent of those whose culture he’s defending.
Kipling’s white man’s burden thrives when westerners think they “know what’s best” for the “noble savages” and endeavor to protect them from themselves.
It’s the kind of attitude apparent in the way the state and federal governments still hold the never-really ceded “crown” Hawaiian lands they stole “in trust” and wants to pass the Akaka bill to “steal them one last time, fair and square”
Most Americans routinely say “we’d be glad to give them their land back and insure their cultural and political self-determination if they’d all just agree on what they want”.
Uh, they have- they want their land back and their cultural and political self determination insured.
As our friend, Anahola kanaka maoli sovereignty activist Michael Grace once said to us: “Hey- we big boys now- can handle”.
If they can handle, can’t we?
Friday, August 8, 2008
BONEHEADED
BONEHEADED: All’s quiet on the northern front it seems- for at least another week..
As detailed on the front pages of the local and two Honolulu newspapers
and excellently reported by Kaua`i Eclectician Joan Conrow today all it took was a linked chain of defenders to stand up for justice in order to get a week reprieve in construction at the Naue graveyard owned by genocidal-maniac and illegal-vacation-rental-baron Joe Brescia until next Thursday when the case will be heard in court.
Belying the constant press reports that repeat the lie that Brescia is just a businessman who wants to build his house, his string of non-VDA vacation rentals- also cited as illegal by the State DLNR for their commercial activity in a conservation area- he continues to use his millions to slap the host culture in the face and buy administrative and judicial actions by corrupt self-serving boards, commissions and assorted government lackeys and legislators.
For Brescia this is no longer about building a house. It’s about a line in the sand to insure that money talks and people don’t matter in a cesspool of corruption like Hawai`i and specifically Kaua`i.
But an article accompanying the excellent on-site story by Blake Jones in the local paper provided coverage of the Kaua`i Burial Council meeting being held simultaneously with the north shore events and contained information that helps explain “how the heck did this guy get this far” in trying to build his pseudo-hotel in a graveyard.
The “new”- or new to us- fact reported was not what happened at the meeting but who chaired it- none other than the man cited recently here and in the pubic eye as the chief defender if corruption on Kaua`i- functionaries Mark Hubbard. .
Hubbard, as we previously detailed, is the former Grove Farm honcho whose own ethically challenged actions as head of the Kaua`i Ethics Board has led to establishment of a body that refuses to enforce the primary conflicts-of-interest laws on Kaua`i because he would have to leave his position if they did so.
Grove Farm- one of the largest land owners on Kauai-has had numerous projects stopped by discovery of iwi kupuna- bones of the dead of kanana maoli- and his presence on the council is as conflicted as conflicted can be.
The incident’s conclusion- the stand down by police and the establishment of a “people’s injunction” in place after the local judge refused to stop it- is driving the western property-rights nut-cases and self-absorbed, juvenile troll crowd up the wall because the police stood down and avoided a confrontation, presumably at the behest of new chief Darryl Perry.
Perry has again garnered, if not full support, at least respect from many in the community that have criticized the militarization of the local police force they fear will be used against non-violent civil disobedience such as yesterday’s direct action or the Superferry protests last year, including the harassment of the head of the Hawaiian sovereignty group Nation of Atooi. who was arrested and is bring tried in connection with the Superferry events.
It’s fun to watch steam coming out of the ears of some western invaders as they call for Perry’s head for this with their pathetic little bleatings of “death to all who would get between a rich man and his desires” and use the “rule of law” to call for more desecration.
But the problem is that genocide isn’t against the law because the one with the most money gets to say what the law says. Seems a couple of hundred years ago that attitude on the part of “the authorities” caused quite the little protest on the very mainland they come from and whose laws they cherish so.
Sorry to inform you but justice doesn’t come from laws. Laws are supposed to come from the concepts of justice.
Theoretically a governance by laws in a “nation of laws” provides justice. But it does not in the US these days.
The laws are written by corporate thieves and administered by corrupt petty bureaucrats like Hubbard and State Archeologist Nancy McMahon who lie as to what the law says and manipulate the system to make sure that justice is only for those who hire the most lawyers and have the right connections.
When that happens actions like those in Naue yesterday are not only understandable and predictable but are imperative. Despite what the self-obsessed maniacs of the property-rights movement try to tell us in their ratings and support for Brescia’s asinine behavior, the people have the real rights..
And when the law is flouted and manipulated and turned on its head they have every right to stand up to the law... to stand up for justice, not just adjudication.
The rule of law is subject to the consent of the ruled and when the other golden rule- he who has the gold, rules- is the law of the land, the ruled withdraw their consent and it can’t be blamed on those who will not follow the law but on those who do not join them is violating it..
If defenders of Naue are arrested next time, inappropriate questions like “what are you doing in jail” will be answered with the Thoreau retort of “what are you doing out there?”
When the law fails to provide justice and the ability to change the law is subject to others’ paying for their own versions of the laws, it’s time for revolutionary acts such as those in Naue yesterday.
As detailed on the front pages of the local and two Honolulu newspapers
and excellently reported by Kaua`i Eclectician Joan Conrow today all it took was a linked chain of defenders to stand up for justice in order to get a week reprieve in construction at the Naue graveyard owned by genocidal-maniac and illegal-vacation-rental-baron Joe Brescia until next Thursday when the case will be heard in court.
Belying the constant press reports that repeat the lie that Brescia is just a businessman who wants to build his house, his string of non-VDA vacation rentals- also cited as illegal by the State DLNR for their commercial activity in a conservation area- he continues to use his millions to slap the host culture in the face and buy administrative and judicial actions by corrupt self-serving boards, commissions and assorted government lackeys and legislators.
For Brescia this is no longer about building a house. It’s about a line in the sand to insure that money talks and people don’t matter in a cesspool of corruption like Hawai`i and specifically Kaua`i.
But an article accompanying the excellent on-site story by Blake Jones in the local paper provided coverage of the Kaua`i Burial Council meeting being held simultaneously with the north shore events and contained information that helps explain “how the heck did this guy get this far” in trying to build his pseudo-hotel in a graveyard.
The “new”- or new to us- fact reported was not what happened at the meeting but who chaired it- none other than the man cited recently here and in the pubic eye as the chief defender if corruption on Kaua`i- functionaries Mark Hubbard. .
Hubbard, as we previously detailed, is the former Grove Farm honcho whose own ethically challenged actions as head of the Kaua`i Ethics Board has led to establishment of a body that refuses to enforce the primary conflicts-of-interest laws on Kaua`i because he would have to leave his position if they did so.
Grove Farm- one of the largest land owners on Kauai-has had numerous projects stopped by discovery of iwi kupuna- bones of the dead of kanana maoli- and his presence on the council is as conflicted as conflicted can be.
The incident’s conclusion- the stand down by police and the establishment of a “people’s injunction” in place after the local judge refused to stop it- is driving the western property-rights nut-cases and self-absorbed, juvenile troll crowd up the wall because the police stood down and avoided a confrontation, presumably at the behest of new chief Darryl Perry.
Perry has again garnered, if not full support, at least respect from many in the community that have criticized the militarization of the local police force they fear will be used against non-violent civil disobedience such as yesterday’s direct action or the Superferry protests last year, including the harassment of the head of the Hawaiian sovereignty group Nation of Atooi. who was arrested and is bring tried in connection with the Superferry events.
It’s fun to watch steam coming out of the ears of some western invaders as they call for Perry’s head for this with their pathetic little bleatings of “death to all who would get between a rich man and his desires” and use the “rule of law” to call for more desecration.
But the problem is that genocide isn’t against the law because the one with the most money gets to say what the law says. Seems a couple of hundred years ago that attitude on the part of “the authorities” caused quite the little protest on the very mainland they come from and whose laws they cherish so.
Sorry to inform you but justice doesn’t come from laws. Laws are supposed to come from the concepts of justice.
Theoretically a governance by laws in a “nation of laws” provides justice. But it does not in the US these days.
The laws are written by corporate thieves and administered by corrupt petty bureaucrats like Hubbard and State Archeologist Nancy McMahon who lie as to what the law says and manipulate the system to make sure that justice is only for those who hire the most lawyers and have the right connections.
When that happens actions like those in Naue yesterday are not only understandable and predictable but are imperative. Despite what the self-obsessed maniacs of the property-rights movement try to tell us in their ratings and support for Brescia’s asinine behavior, the people have the real rights..
And when the law is flouted and manipulated and turned on its head they have every right to stand up to the law... to stand up for justice, not just adjudication.
The rule of law is subject to the consent of the ruled and when the other golden rule- he who has the gold, rules- is the law of the land, the ruled withdraw their consent and it can’t be blamed on those who will not follow the law but on those who do not join them is violating it..
If defenders of Naue are arrested next time, inappropriate questions like “what are you doing in jail” will be answered with the Thoreau retort of “what are you doing out there?”
When the law fails to provide justice and the ability to change the law is subject to others’ paying for their own versions of the laws, it’s time for revolutionary acts such as those in Naue yesterday.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
DEM BONZ:
DEM BONZ: In a yet another somewhat stunning development in the case of the desecration of kanaka maoli burials at Ha`ena point the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) Tuesday requested that the attorney general’s office send a cease and desist order to halt all construction there.
The letter questions not only the legitimacy of the state burial council’s administrative rules under state constitution and statues but details how the State Archeologist Nancy McMahon and the developer’s attorney’s Walton Hong lied to both the Kaua`i Planning Commission and the Burial Council.
The highly legally notated letter, available only in a pdf file for now, first cites HRS 6E-13 and 6E-13(b) allowing the attorney general or any citizen to file suit “for the protection of an historic site or burial site and public trust therein or improper demolition alteration or transfer of property or burial site”
Then it cites 10(4)4 and 10 1(b) which essentially requires state agencies to assist OHA saying “(i)t shall be the duty and responsibility of all state departments ... to actively work toward (OHA’s) goals”.
But the heart of the request is based on Article Vii Section 7 of the State Constitution which says the state “shall protect all rights customarily and traditionally exercised for substance cultural and religious purposes”.
Then citing HRS 6E and Chapter 13-300 of Hawaii Administrative rules which regulate the Burial Council it quotes McMahon and Hong misrepresenting the law to the two citizen panels.
At the heart of the claim is the state’s contention that the burial councils, as they have been told, have no right to have any say over burials other than to say either remove them or let them sit where they are.
OHA goes on to show that this is not true when the actual laws and rules are read, claiming that the burial council also has the right to say “no- you’ can’t build there” or other appropriate actions.
It questions the legitimacy of the process and says because the process was abused that the current decision allowing Joe Brescia to build a house on top of the numerous burials, both discovered and undiscovered at the north shore parcel at Naue in Ha`ena must be revisited and the decision of the burial council be considered void and illegitimate.
The letter includes many other specific details of and objections to the way the Burial Council, under the State Historic Preservation Department (SHPD) has violated the constitution and state laws and presents the transcripts of the misrepresentation by SHPD head McMahon, and Brescia’s attorney Hong before both the Kaua`i Planning Commission and the Burial Council.
What’s most surprising is that it took so long for OHA to start going through this process. But the confluence of events brought to light by Ka`iulani Edens Huff, Nani Rogers Louise Marston and a host of others over the last month or so has perhaps spurred them to action
And perhaps the very adamancy of the right wing wacko property rights crowd in supporting Brescia’s “right to desecrate” because he “followed all the rules” was just the thing needed to spur action by OHA,
OHA outrages their own community with regularity in its state-lap-dog habit of fighting against its own beneficiaries on so many occasions that it has become a joke to most kanaka in light of its mission.
And the fact that Chief Darryl Perry on Kaua`i brought up the state law against desecration- even though it is written separately from the laws protecting the traditional cultural and religious rights of the descendent of pre-western contact islanders- might have been contributory enough to finally provoke the ever conservative OHA to finally stand up for the rights of the people they represent.
It is an election year- for OHA too- and this story has been getting statewide media attention of late and has gotten to the point where not just many but most, in the Kaua`i community agree that something is wrong as typified by a letter in today’s local paper .
The one problem may be that the person who OHA is requesting/demanding write the cease and desist letter is allegedly the most corrupt of the hacks in the Linda Lingle administration Attorney General Mark Bennett who is responsible for the Superferry debacle and various other gubernatorial sleazy ploys, using blatantly unethical if not illegal secrecy ploys to cover-up alleged crimes by administration personnel.
How he answers the letter will be most interesting but it is apparent that asking him to do it is only OHA’s first move and that if he refuses, OHA makes it most clear that they will proceed on their own.
We leave you with the words of Nani Rogers on the current situation written this week when the corrupt pols in the AG’s and the local Kaua`i Prosecutor Craig Decosta’s office refused to back up Police Chief Perry ’s assertion that Bescia’s and Hong’s actions were desacratory.
I pray all is maita`i with you and your loved ones. Auwe! Auwe! Auwe! Kaua`i na po`e are crying over the unbelievable disrespect and denial of State and County agencies. For their disrespect of sacred burials and their denial of the truth and cultural and natural laws that protect graveyards from desecration. It is a criminal act, in anybody's law book, to desecrate burials; the Naue burials date back to the 13th century and are of great significance to our na po`e that are lineal descendants ofna iwi at Naue and to all na po`e and supporters that have been camping near by to protect them from harm for the last three months. It has been a long and hard battle but we will go on, we will continue to be there and to stand up to any challenges they may throw at us.
We urge na kanaka to come to Naue and be eye witnesses to the desecration so you can go home and tell your ohana and children. They need to learn our ways.
Ka`iu, myself, and others will be at Naue this afternoon to camp overnight again. We made a vow to protect our na po`e buried there, we must keep our promise to do all we can to do so.
To Mr. Joseph Brescia, who says he owns the `aina, to Mr. Walton Hong, his lawyer, to Mr. Galante, the contractor, to Pua Aiu, SHPD Director, to the Police Dept., the Attorney General and to Governor Lingle, et al, we say, BEWARE! get ready for the grave (pardon the pun) spiritual consequences your actions will cause. Remember that you will have brought it all upon yourselves, nobody else is to be blamed but you for anything that may happen to you and your family. Can you see that?
We pray that our na Akua, na Aumakua and na Tupuna continue to surround and protect us at Naue. We pray that our na po`e; men, women and children; buried there may continue to rest in peace. Mahalo!
The letter questions not only the legitimacy of the state burial council’s administrative rules under state constitution and statues but details how the State Archeologist Nancy McMahon and the developer’s attorney’s Walton Hong lied to both the Kaua`i Planning Commission and the Burial Council.
The highly legally notated letter, available only in a pdf file for now, first cites HRS 6E-13 and 6E-13(b) allowing the attorney general or any citizen to file suit “for the protection of an historic site or burial site and public trust therein or improper demolition alteration or transfer of property or burial site”
Then it cites 10(4)4 and 10 1(b) which essentially requires state agencies to assist OHA saying “(i)t shall be the duty and responsibility of all state departments ... to actively work toward (OHA’s) goals”.
But the heart of the request is based on Article Vii Section 7 of the State Constitution which says the state “shall protect all rights customarily and traditionally exercised for substance cultural and religious purposes”.
Then citing HRS 6E and Chapter 13-300 of Hawaii Administrative rules which regulate the Burial Council it quotes McMahon and Hong misrepresenting the law to the two citizen panels.
At the heart of the claim is the state’s contention that the burial councils, as they have been told, have no right to have any say over burials other than to say either remove them or let them sit where they are.
OHA goes on to show that this is not true when the actual laws and rules are read, claiming that the burial council also has the right to say “no- you’ can’t build there” or other appropriate actions.
It questions the legitimacy of the process and says because the process was abused that the current decision allowing Joe Brescia to build a house on top of the numerous burials, both discovered and undiscovered at the north shore parcel at Naue in Ha`ena must be revisited and the decision of the burial council be considered void and illegitimate.
The letter includes many other specific details of and objections to the way the Burial Council, under the State Historic Preservation Department (SHPD) has violated the constitution and state laws and presents the transcripts of the misrepresentation by SHPD head McMahon, and Brescia’s attorney Hong before both the Kaua`i Planning Commission and the Burial Council.
What’s most surprising is that it took so long for OHA to start going through this process. But the confluence of events brought to light by Ka`iulani Edens Huff, Nani Rogers Louise Marston and a host of others over the last month or so has perhaps spurred them to action
And perhaps the very adamancy of the right wing wacko property rights crowd in supporting Brescia’s “right to desecrate” because he “followed all the rules” was just the thing needed to spur action by OHA,
OHA outrages their own community with regularity in its state-lap-dog habit of fighting against its own beneficiaries on so many occasions that it has become a joke to most kanaka in light of its mission.
And the fact that Chief Darryl Perry on Kaua`i brought up the state law against desecration- even though it is written separately from the laws protecting the traditional cultural and religious rights of the descendent of pre-western contact islanders- might have been contributory enough to finally provoke the ever conservative OHA to finally stand up for the rights of the people they represent.
It is an election year- for OHA too- and this story has been getting statewide media attention of late and has gotten to the point where not just many but most, in the Kaua`i community agree that something is wrong as typified by a letter in today’s local paper .
The one problem may be that the person who OHA is requesting/demanding write the cease and desist letter is allegedly the most corrupt of the hacks in the Linda Lingle administration Attorney General Mark Bennett who is responsible for the Superferry debacle and various other gubernatorial sleazy ploys, using blatantly unethical if not illegal secrecy ploys to cover-up alleged crimes by administration personnel.
How he answers the letter will be most interesting but it is apparent that asking him to do it is only OHA’s first move and that if he refuses, OHA makes it most clear that they will proceed on their own.
We leave you with the words of Nani Rogers on the current situation written this week when the corrupt pols in the AG’s and the local Kaua`i Prosecutor Craig Decosta’s office refused to back up Police Chief Perry ’s assertion that Bescia’s and Hong’s actions were desacratory.
I pray all is maita`i with you and your loved ones. Auwe! Auwe! Auwe! Kaua`i na po`e are crying over the unbelievable disrespect and denial of State and County agencies. For their disrespect of sacred burials and their denial of the truth and cultural and natural laws that protect graveyards from desecration. It is a criminal act, in anybody's law book, to desecrate burials; the Naue burials date back to the 13th century and are of great significance to our na po`e that are lineal descendants ofna iwi at Naue and to all na po`e and supporters that have been camping near by to protect them from harm for the last three months. It has been a long and hard battle but we will go on, we will continue to be there and to stand up to any challenges they may throw at us.
We urge na kanaka to come to Naue and be eye witnesses to the desecration so you can go home and tell your ohana and children. They need to learn our ways.
Ka`iu, myself, and others will be at Naue this afternoon to camp overnight again. We made a vow to protect our na po`e buried there, we must keep our promise to do all we can to do so.
To Mr. Joseph Brescia, who says he owns the `aina, to Mr. Walton Hong, his lawyer, to Mr. Galante, the contractor, to Pua Aiu, SHPD Director, to the Police Dept., the Attorney General and to Governor Lingle, et al, we say, BEWARE! get ready for the grave (pardon the pun) spiritual consequences your actions will cause. Remember that you will have brought it all upon yourselves, nobody else is to be blamed but you for anything that may happen to you and your family. Can you see that?
We pray that our na Akua, na Aumakua and na Tupuna continue to surround and protect us at Naue. We pray that our na po`e; men, women and children; buried there may continue to rest in peace. Mahalo!
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