Posted on: Friday, May 2, 2003

OHA unveils nationhood plan

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs yesterday added more fuel to the drive toward sovereignty by unveiling a nationhood timetable that calls for a council to convene in late November and draw up documents for a native Hawaiian government.

The "Ho'oulu Lahui Aloha" (To Build a Beloved Nation) governance plan will begin this month with halawai (community meetings) to be presented by a coalition of Hawaiian organizations and independent volunteers, as well as a media campaign, to disseminate information about the plan.

By September, the plan calls for candidates to gather 100 signatures to vie for a seat in an 'aha (council), similar to constitutional conventions hosted by various sovereignty groups in the past. An election will take place by mid-November.

OHA is underwriting the expenses, estimated at as much as $500,000 up to the formation of the 'aha, said Clyde Namu'o, OHA administrator.

But the announcement was made in the "neutral location" of Bishop Museum's Hawaiian Hall, said Haunani Apoliona, chairwoman of the OHA board of trustees, as a demonstration that OHA is not pulling the strings.

Apoliona rebutted assertions by rival Hawaiian organizations that the involvement of OHA, a state agency, preordains an outcome favoring the federal recognition bill, for which OHA has lobbied, or any particular government design.

"The product of the 'aha is not something OHA has in its pocket, ready to lay on the table," Apoliona said.

However, Lilikala Kame-'leihiwa, director of the University of Hawai'i's Center for Hawaiian Studies and an invited speaker at the unveiling, criticized the timetable as being too sluggish. The 'aha should be convened in July, she said.

Lehua Kinilau is treasurer of the sovereignty organization Ka Lahui, to which Kame'eleihiwa also belongs. She said her group is concerned that involvement of a state agency like OHA may invite legal challenges to the process.

But Kame'eleihiwa endorsed the general idea of a unified Hawaiian government structure as a means to persuade Congress to pass a federal recognition bill that Hawaiians want.

"You can't do that when you're fractured, because they don't listen," she said.

Reach Vicki Viotti at vviotti@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8053.