Contact: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Lynette Cruz
(808) 284-3460
palolo@hawaii.rr.com
50th STATE or HAWAIIAN STATE UNDER OCCUPATION?
Demonstration for the History the State Does Not Want Remembered
Honolulu, Hawaii – The Hawaiian Independence Action Alliance (HIAA) is calling a press conference at 11a.m, March 18, in front of the Queen Lili‘uokalani statue between ‘Iolani Palace and the State Capitol. HIAA, comprised of more than 10 different Hawaiian groups, will peacefully draw attention to the wrongs committed against the Hawaiian nation and the fraudulence of the history being celebrated at the capitol.
Statehood is memorialized as a civil rights victory, where Hawai‘i defeated a notion that it was unqualified for statehood because of its largely Asian population and rumors of communism. Lynette Cruz organizer of the demonstration argues, “the human rights violations committed against Hawaiians do not warrant celebration. Why should we commemorate theft?”
Hawai‘i was listed as a Non-Self-Governing-Territory by the United Nations in 1946, and the United States had a “sacred trust” obligation to promote self-determination. In 1953 the U.N. General Assembly passed Resolution 742, which stated that offering “independence,” “separate systems of self-government,” and “Free Association” were factors that would determine “whether a Territory is or is not a Territory whose people have not yet attained a full measure of self-government.” The federal ballot used in 1959 did not afford the people of Hawai‘i several possibilities besides statehood, and thus violated U.N. Resolution 742.
Furthermore, on January 17th 1948, the 55th anniversary of the overthrow, Alice Kamokila Campbell filed a lawsuit against the Hawaii Statehood Commission in Campbell v. Stainback et. al. Her lawsuit won an injunction against the legislature for using taxpayer money to advertise nationally for statehood, which the Hawai‘i Supreme Court ruled in 1949 “are to the exclusion and detriment of citizens and taxpayers …opposed to statehood for Hawaii.”
Indeed, in 1998, United Nations Special Rapporteur Miguel Martinez, after reviewing the process by which Hawai‘i was made a territory and state of the U.S., recommended that Hawai‘i be placed back on the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing-Territories.
In 1988, the Justice Department issued a memo to the State Department stating that the annexation of Hawaii required a two-thirds vote, which never took place.
For more information visit www.hawaiianindependencealliance.org or call Lynette Cruz at (808) 284-3460.
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