Fight for sovereignty gains ground in Hawaii

WAIMANALO BEACH,

Hawaii — From Honolulu, it takes an hour to drive to Waimanalo Beach on the outermost corner of Oahu, the island known by some as the Hawaiians' Hawaii.

Tour buses don't stop except to gas up. Those who step off the bus find a sleepy, rough-edged, working-class town of 10,000 people, some of whom don't like tourists and don't mind saying so.

"Haole, go home!" and variations of whites-aren't-welcome are occasionally shouted, a reminder this isn't Waikiki. It's a different world. Locals rule.

Half the residents are Native Hawaiians, and many more are part-Hawaiian. This is a place where Hawaiian is taught as a first language in some schools and spoken among neighbors, a place where it is widely held that Hawaii was stolen from Hawaiians by the United States and that these lands will return to the Kanaka Maoli, who settled the islands.

Scattered throughout neighborhoods are state flags hanging upside-down, a symbol of defiance. In this corner of Oahu, Hawaiian sovereignty — a government of Hawaiians for Hawaiians — isn't just a tropical dream. The people have seen a version of it in action.

In the foothills above town, there is a village unlike any in Hawaii. It's called Pu'uhonua o Waimanalo ("Refuge of Waimanalo"), a community of 80 Native Hawaiians living communally on 45 acres.

Some people refer to it as "Bumpy's town," after the 300-pound, tattooed, activist ex-con who negotiated the village into existence, wrangling with the state's most powerful politicians.

Native ways rule

Dennis "Bumpy" Kanahele, 50, is a descendant of King Kamehameha I. When asked how far removed he was from the king, Kanahele thought for a moment and lifted a massive leg onto a nearby table. He studied a row of blue-and-red triangular markings tattooed on his calf.

"Eleven generations, brah," he said.

Kanahele is a folk hero in these parts. He did what no other Hawaii activist has done: carved out a little kingdom within a kingdom, allowing natives to live by their own rules and revive the ways of the Kanaka Maoli. The village for many locals represents the most tangible gain in more than 30 years of agitating for Hawaiian sovereignty.

When the movement emerged in the 1970s, even Native Hawaiians were skeptical. "I didn't think it could happen, myself, but people like Bumpy made us see it could," said Sandra Barney, 59, a Native Hawaiian from Kaneohe Bay.

Sovereignty has become part of Hawaii's mainstream consciousness, with the state's most powerful political leaders — Republican Gov. Linda Lingle and Democratic Sens. Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka — supporting some version of it.

The U.S. Senate is considering a Hawaiian-sovereignty law known as the Akaka bill, after its chief sponsor and the first Native Hawaiian in Congress. The bill, stalled in the Senate for the past five years, was blocked again last week by a Nevada senator concerned it might encourage Hawaiians to build casinos. The House passed an earlier version.

The legislation would lead to federal recognition of Native Hawaiians in the same way the government recognizes American Indians and Native Alaskans. It also would initiate a process under which Native Hawaiians could set up their own government, giving them the same nation-within-a-nation status as Indian tribes.

A 2003 survey by the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs, like most in recent years, found that the majority of Hawaii residents supported sovereignty. But the Akaka bill has inspired an odd spectrum of opponents.

On one hand are political conservatives, mostly Caucasian, who call the idea divisive and immoral. "Every country that has used racial ancestry as the basis for who deserves recognition, who is entitled to privileges, has ended up disastrously," said William Burgess, an attorney who has challenged the legality of state-sponsored entitlement programs for native people. Burgess said the Akaka bill would create "a race-based government."

On the other side are Native Hawaiian activists such as Kanahele who want nothing less than total independence from the United States. They see it as the only way to right the wrong of 1893, when U.S. troops helped overthrow the Hawaiian monarchy, leading to annexation and statehood, and, for the Kanaka Maoli, loss of a kingdom.

Taking it back

Today, the state's estimated 240,000 Native Hawaiians — those with 50 percent or more Hawaiian blood — make up about 20 percent of the population and fare poorest in almost all socioeconomic indicators. They have the state's worst health statistics, highest number of school dropouts, highest unemployment rate and highest levels of incarceration.

Kanahele grew up in Waimanalo as one of the statistics, dropping out of high school and serving time for theft and assault. In his 20s, he turned into a ferocious advocate for his people, leading protests against the "illegal occupation" of Hawaii.

In 1987, Kanahele recalled, he went to a beach and saw homeless people camped out. Nearly all were Kanaka Maoli. How could this happen in their own homeland?

The next thought changed his life: "The government will never give back our land. How about if we just take it back?"

By that time, Kanahele had a following. He and about 50 protesters took over a former Coast Guard station and the surrounding 300 acres at Makapuu Lighthouse, the easternmost tip of Oahu.

The group occupied the site for two months. During one confrontation with police, Kanahele pulled a shotgun. He was arrested and served 14 months in state prison, where he recruited new followers.

In 1993, the 100-year anniversary of the U.S. takeover of the islands, Kanahele led 300 people in an occupation of nearby Makapuu Beach.

The political climate had shifted. John Waihee, then the state's governor and the first of Hawaiian ancestry, had told constituents sovereignty was only "a matter of how, when and in what form."

Polls showed that 3 of 4 Hawaiian residents supported sovereignty, and Kanahele gained a reputation as a thug-hero.

He began building houses on the beach. After 15 months, Waihee intervened. The governor proposed a deal: If Kanahele and his group left the beach peacefully, the state would give them 45 acres above Waimanalo in the foothills of the Koolau Mountains. Kanahele accepted.

Life in "Bumpy's town"

In June 1994, the protesters disbanded and the core group went to the future site of Pu'uhonua o Waimanalo.

The entrance to the village lies at the end of a long country road. A metal gate swings open to another road that winds uphill into a clearing, where a string of 22 cottages rests along the sway of the land. It isn't a place of straight lines.

A lot has happened in 11 years. Kanahele's group agreed to sign a renewable 55-year lease at a cost of $3,000 a year, about $60 annually per adult, a token payment.

Village affairs are managed by four women — a "council of aunties" — who appoint responsibilities, hear grievances and settle disputes.

One villager is in charge of collecting garbage, one tends the taro patch, one cultivates ti leaf and another provides security by patrolling the village perimeter. Everyone has a job, and every adult contributes to paying the lease and whatever other expenses come up.

Of the 80 residents, about 30 are children. Most adults work piecemeal jobs on the outside, mainly in the building trades.

Every adult is in charge of instructing the children in at least one traditional skill, such as killing a wild animal or catching reef fish with throw nets.

Not long after his group moved into the hills, Kanahele was convicted of harboring an activist who had refused to pay federal taxes. Kanahele spent four months in federal prison and emerged with a greater reputation among activists. And the political establishment continued to warm up to him.

In 2002, Gov. Ben Cayetano granted Kanahele a full pardon for his previous convictions and hailed him as "a leader in the Hawaiian community."

Kanahele, with his three children grown and his wife of 28 years busy with her projects, spends his days in his office. He cobbles together a living as a speaker and consultant on native issues, but his main work is trying to spread the seeds of Pu'uhonua village.