Update on Federal Lawsuit Sai v. Obama, et al.

Plaintiff files Opposition Memorandum to Defendants Clinton, Gates, and Willard’s Motion to Dismiss.

The plaintiff has also requested a hearing on the Opposition pursuant to Local Civil Rule 7(f) of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

For more information: David Keanu Sai v. Barack Obama, et al. at The Hawaii Kingdom website.

I will also be periodically posting updates on this case as documents are being filed with the Federal District Court in Washington D.C.

— Lynette Cruz

Aha Kanaka Ku’oko’a

Analysis and Editorial

by Kale Gumapac

Video: Pono Kealoha

The Aha Kanaka Ku’oko’a on Saturday was a partial success in its effort to unify the sovereign groups under one entity.

Approximately 100-125 people attended the first unification attempt. The format allowed for each speaker to introduce their organizations position or process for restoration and/or continuance of the Kingdom of Hawaii government.

The speakers were Poka Laenui of Aha Hawaii Oiwi, Leon Siu, Minister of Foreign Affairs, The Kingdom of Hawaii, Russell Stewart, Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, Kingdom of Hawaii, Henry Noa, Prime Minister, Reinstated Kingdom of Hawaii, Richard Pomaikai Kinney, Sovereign and Kuhio Vogeler, PhD.

Poka Laenui: Favors passage of the Akaka Bill and will work on drafting a new constitution for a newly formed government. He cannot sit in on any unification meeting representing his group but can do so as an individual.

Leon Siu: Recognizes the Hawaiian Kingdom Constitution of 1887 in existence at the time of the overthrow in 1893. He is willing to sit at the unification table upon full disclosures of any rules or proceedings in advance could be reviewed.

Russell Stewart: Recognizes the Hawaiian Kingdom Constitution of 1887. He will only sit at the unification table under certain conditions. to be disclosed later.

Henry Noa: His government has already taken the necessary steps to exist. All others should join his organization. He is not willing to sit at the table of unification when his government is already in existence. The only thing left is for people to join his organization and vote in his upcoming 2011 Elections.

Richard Pomaikai Kinney and Kuhio Vogeler do not represent any organization.

The overall outcome in my personal view was good because it is the beginning of the unification process.

It also showed that those who presented information are not far off from agreeing. The downside is the egos are still in the way of progress. However, we are going to call for a summit meeting of all the leaders to sit at the table to work on unification.

Na Poe Kanaka needs to stand up and tell the leaders to put aside their egos and come up with a solution so we can onipaa!

Pupukahi i holomua!

Reenactment of Ka Lei Maile Alii – The Queen’s Women at Iolani Palace

Sunday, Sept. 5, 2010 / Iolani Palace

Mahalo to Pomai Kinney, Luwella Leonardi, and Niklaus Schweizer for telling the story of our signs yesterday on the palace grounds!

The rest of us were inside the Kanaina Building doing the reenactment (Ka Lei Maile Alii – The Queen’s Women) with cast and crew mostly from Ka Lei Maile Alii Hawaiian Civic Club, including Keanu Sai, who provided historic background prior to the drama.

It was one of the best performances we have ever done, with one of the more receptive audiences we’ve ever had. And was standing room only!

Actually, it felt like all 1500 of our ancestors whose names were on those signs also joined us in the packed room.  Very maika`i!

Mahalo, mahalo, mahalo to the 40 or 50 people who volunteered throughout the day to lay out the signs and malama them once they were in the ground, who shared info with passersby, and who passed out brochures to local and off-island folks.

— Lynette Cruz

Read the Star Advertiser story:

Liliuokalani’s day noted with solemnity

By Leila Fujimori
POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Sep 06, 2010
Native Hawaiians, other Hawaii residents and visitors gathered to celebrate Queen Liliuokalani’s birthday yesterday with hula, mele and prayer on the grounds of Iolani Palace.

Among others, the girls of Halau La Onohi Mai Haehae, dressed in lavender and white, performed hula and sang songs commemorating the queen, a composer herself of poetry and music, including “Aloha Oe.”

But a number of attendees solemnly walked through roughly 1,500 names handwritten on white placards that lined the lawn of Iolani Palace yesterday, searching for ancestors who may have signed the 1897 petition against the annexation of Hawaii to the United States.

The 1,500 names represent just a few of the more than 21,000 who signed the petition against annexation of Hawaii in 1897. The petition was retrieved from the U.S. National Archives to Hawaii in 1997 by Noenoe Silva.

“It’s significant because there was a segment of the population that believed annexation was wrong,” said Kerry Yen, 56, of Mililani.

Yen was looking for his great-great-grandmother on his father’s side, Jane Buckle Clark, who served as a lady-in-waiting to the queen and was imprisoned with her at Iolani Palace for at least one night.

“She was in prison up there,” he said, pointing to the palace.

Pomaikai Kinney, 71, said he discovered the first of three relatives’ names among the thousands of signatures when a copy of the petition opened up to the page containing R. Kinney, whom he believed to be his great-great granduncle Raymond Kinney. “My legs just wobbled,” he said. “The name was just looking at me.”

“What is significant to me is that William A. Kinney tried the queen for treason, so when I saw this book, I said, ‘Well at least not all the Kinneys went against the queen.’”

“A lot of people don’t know what this meant,” he said.

He pointed out that many of the names are not only Hawaiians, but also non-Hawaiians.

About 600 names were first displayed on Presidents Day this year at McKinley High School. Then 1,100 names were displayed at Iolani Palace on Kamehameha Day, June 12. On July 31, a third display was set up for Sovereignty Day.

A small group, with the aid of U.S. military, overthrew the Hawaiian kingdom in 1893 during the reign of Queen Liliuokalani. The petition was later delivered to the U.S. Senate in 1897, while Liliuokalani was in Washington.

Luwella Leonardi, 62, of Waimanalo said her ancestor, Alexander Auld, was part of a Hawaii delegation that hand-delivered the petition to Washington, D.C.
Leonardi has been participating in the queen’s birthday celebrations since 1992, when she, as a University of Hawaii student, would sit with other students at the corner of the palace under the queen’s bedroom and “sing to her all night.”

She said her grandmother, Tutu Keleileki, was a seamstress for the queen, and that the queen would stop at their home in Maunawili where she would bathe at a swimming hole.

Leonardi took part in writing the names on the placards, saying, “We were emotional just writing the names,” adding, “we could just imagine” what they were feeling as they signed the petition.

Leonardi discussed those historic events with Niklaus Schweizer, who wrote “Turning Tide,” in which the overthrow and events leading up to it are discussed, and who teaches a UH class on Europeans in the Pacific.

Schweizer said it was a very small group of sons of missionaries who overthrew the monarchy despite the whole nation being against it.

He said the Senate lacked the needed votes to support annexation after realizing the citizenry opposed annexation, so it was never put to a vote. So President William McKinley used a joint resolution to annex Hawaii, which cannot legally be used to annex a country.

He said the story has gotten “so twisted and hidden for such a long time.”
Within 30 years’ time, through the educational system and the media, the story became confused as elders died off, he said.