Kauanui: Listen online: Hawaiian land case

"Indigenous Politics: From Native New England and Beyond" radio program on WESU, Middletown, CT, 88.1FM
~~~
LISTEN ONLINE while the program airs from 4-4:55pm EST (11am HST/1pm PST/3pm CST): http://www.wesufm.org/
On Tuesday, February 17, 2009, join your host, Dr. J. Kehaulani Kauanui for a special edition of Indigenous Politics that will examine the Hawaiian land case that will go before the US Supreme Court on February 25. The Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Hawaii v. Office of Hawaiian Affairs, et al, since the state of Hawaii has asked the Court to rule on whether or not the state has the authority to sell, exchange, or transfer 1.2 million acres of land formerly held by the Hawaiian monarchy as Crown and Government Lands. This land base constitutes 29 percent of the total land area of what is now known as the State of Hawaii and almost all the land claimed by the State as "public lands." Prior to the state government's appeal to the Supreme Court, the Hawaii State Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the state should keep the land trust intact until Native Hawaiian claims to these lands are settled, and prohibited the state from selling or otherwise disposing of the properties to private parties; and did so based on the 1993 Apology Resolution, in which Congress acknowledged and apologized for the United States' role and affirmed, "the indigenous Hawaiian people never directly relinquished their claims to their inherent sovereignty as a people or over their national lands to the United States, either through their monarchy or through a plebiscite or referendum." The guest on the show is Dr. Jonathan Kamakawiwo`ole Osorio, an original plaintiff in the case who sued the state to prevent the sale of these lands. He is now a defendant in the appeal to the Supreme Court and will speak to the complex issues raised by the case including the origins of the lawsuit, land title from a pro-Hawaiian independence position, the politics of the Apology Resolution, and the Hawaiian Nation's claim to these lands under international law. Osorio is an associate professor at the Kamakakuokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies, University of Hawai`i at Manoa, and author of Dismembering Lahui A History of the Hawaiian Nation to 1887.
~~~
All past programs of "Indigenous Politics" are now archived online:
www.indigenouspolitics.com.
~~~
"Indigenous Politics" is syndicated weekly on Pacifica-affiliate stations: WNJR, 91.7 FM, "Washington & Jefferson College Radio" in Washington, PA, and WETX-LP, 105.3 FM, "The independent voice of Appalachia," which includes a region encompassing twelve states and 20 million people: east Tennessee, southwest Virginia, west Kentucky, all of West Virginia, most of Pennsylvania, south New York, west Maryland, west North Carolina, west South Carolina, north Georgia, north Alabama, and northeast Mississippi. In addition, WBCR-lp in Great barrington, MA is also syndicating the show.
~~~
The show's producer and host, Dr. J. Kehaulani Kauanui is an associate professor of American Studies and Anthropology at Wesleyan University. She is the author of a newly released book, Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity (Duke University Press, 2008). http://jkauanui.faculty.wesleyan.edu/
Kanaka Maoli Scholars Against Desecration

Statement on Mauna Kea - February 17, 2009

We declare our opposition to SB 992/HB 1174 and SB 502/HB 1370 and any other legislation bills that would transfer Mauna Kea to the University of Hawai`i (UH). These current legislative proposals would give the UH complete management authority over Mauna Kea and allow implementation of a plan that has no limit on telescope construction, would close public access to the summit, and exempt UH from public oversight in the name of development.

Mauna Kea is a sacred summit, which is already being desecrated by the existing science telescopes. The Hawai`i revised statute 711-1107 on Desecration specifically states that no one may commit the offense of desecrating “a place of worship or burial,” and the statute defines “desecrate” as “defacing, damaging, polluting, or otherwise physically mistreating in a way that the defendant knows will outrage the sensibilities of persons likely to observe or discover the defendant's action.” If this legislation passes, state legislators would be violating their own state law.

These legislative proposals also interfere with on-going litigation on the current regulations governing Mauna Kea. We would also like to remind state representatives and the general public that in the recent Third Circuit Court case regarding the management of Mauna Kea, the court ruled in favor of the Plaintiffs—Kealoha Pisciotta, President of Mauna Kea Anaina Hou; Debbie Ward and Nelson Ho, Co-Chairs of Mauna Kea Issues Committees, Sierra Club Hawai`i Island Chapter; Ali`i `Ai Moku, Paul K. Neves of the Royal Order of Kamehameha I, Moku of Mamalahoa Heiau Helu `Elua; and Clarence Ku Ching, individual Native Hawaiian Practitioner—and against the UH and the state Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) for violation of the regulations protecting Mauna Kea as a conservation district. This lawsuit is currently on review before the Intermediate Court of Appeals (ICA) after the University appealed the lower court ruling against them. Though the University only recently withdrew its appeal from the ICA, counterclaims that go to the fundamental merits of this issue remain before the ICA.

Besides blatant desecration, and interference in on-going litigation, the negative environmental effects are numerous. As noted in the Testimony of the Plaintiffs regarding this legislation, two reports by the State Auditor have found that UH’s misuse and the BLNR’s failed oversight is “inadequate to ensure the protection of natural resources, and neglected ...the cultural value of Mauna Kea." Their report further stated that the University's Institute for Astronomy “focused primarily on the development of Mauna Kea and tied the benefits gained to its research program,” and that its focus on telescope construction has been “at the expense of neglecting the site’s natural resources.” Also, in 2005, an Environmental Impact Statement required by federal court order found that the cumulative impact of telescope activities on Mauna Kea has had a “substantial, adverse, and significant” impact.

The current proposals also violate the land claims of the Hawaiian nation. These legislative attempts to transfer a portion of the Hawaiian Kingdom Crown and Government Lands of which Mauna Kea is a part, is in direct contravention of the Hawai`i State Supreme Court’s holding in OHA v. Housing and Community Development Cororation of Hawai`i, 2008. The Hawaii Supreme Court barred the transfer of this land base by the state. If this legislation passes, state legislators would be violating the state Supreme Court ruling.

This exploitative venture proposed by this legislation must be stopped because the entire scheme promotes the ongoing violation of the sacred summit of Mauna Kea; it would be irresponsible and bad public policy, as well as a continued abuse of state power.


J. Leilani Basham, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Hawaiian Studies, University of Hawai`i at West O`ahu

Kamanamaikalani Beamer, Ph.D., Mellon-Hawai`i Postdoctoral Fellow, Kohala Center

Maenette K.P. Ah Nee-Benham, Ed.D., Dean of Hawai`inuiakea School of Hawaiian Knowledge, University of Hawai`i, Mānoa

Kealani Robinson Cook, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, University of Michigan

J. Noelani Goodyear-Ka`ōpua, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Political Science, University of Hawai`i at Mānoa

Lisa Kahaleole Hall, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Women’s Studies, Wells College

Sydney Lehua Iaukea, Ph.D., Mellon-Hawai`i Postdoctoral Fellow, Kohala Center

Kū Kahakalau, Ph.D., founder and director of Kanu o ka ‘Āina New Century Public Charter School

Val Kalei Kanuha, Ph.D., M.S.W., Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Hawai`i at Mānoa

J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Anthropology and American Studies, Wesleyan University

Brandy Nalani McDougall, Ph.D. Candidate, English, University of Hawai`i, Mānoa

Noenoe K. Silva, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Political Science, University of Hawai`i at Mānoa

Ty Kawika Tengan, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Anthropology and Ethnic Studies, University of Hawai`i at Mānoa

Lani Teves, Ph.D. Candidate, Program in American Culture, University of Michigan

Haunani-Kay Trask, Ph.D., Professor, Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies, University of Hawai`i, Mānoa

Liza Keanuenueokalani Williams, Ph.D. student, New York University

Sweden: Black Mesa Demonstration

http://www.vild-eken.se/ Double click on poster to enlarge

Out of a growing concern for the recent developments regarding the US Office of Surface Mining decision to, grant Peabody Coal a Life of Mine Permit, for the coal mining on Black Mesa, we have decided to hold a demonstration in Sockholm Sweden, on March 7, 2009. This demonstration will be held jointly with Indigenous representatives from Sapmi ( Saami land), Colombia, Peru, Chile, possibly Tibet and Inner Mongolia, as well as with people who support Indigenous Peoples issues and Mother Earth. We will be at Sergels plaza, in downtown Stockholm, and we will walk to the diplomatic headquarters area, to the US Embassy.After the demonstration and march, there will be presentations at ABF educational facility in Stockholm, of different representatives, on the struggles of Indigenous Peoples. Hopefully it will be possible to conclude with a joint statement, to send to media and governments, under the unifying UN Declaration for Indigenous Peoples Rights and Fundamental Freedom. We hope this little spark of "fire" will catch on, in your Hearts and that people in other places will join in, and arrange demonstrations and gatherings for the Black Mesa struggle. More and more people realize that what the Elders on Black Mesa have spoken of for so long, is now materializing before our very eyes. Please Pray for the People on Black Mesa and for All Our Relations Thank You for your time and consideration Sincerely Carina Gustafsson and Elizabeth Karlsson: Flyer: Elizabeth Karlsson-Good

Two voices of truth killed in Buffalo plane crash

Human rights expert and 9/11 widow/activist killed in Buffalo plane crash

Des Forges GRD '72, human rights expert, killed in plane crash

(Photo left: Beverly Eckert, right Alison Des Forges)

Gabriel Barcia
Staff Reporter Yale Daily News
Published Friday, February 13, 2009
Alison Des Forges GRD '72, one of the world's leading experts on the human rights violations in Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, was among the passengers killed in the commuter plane crash outside Buffalo, N.Y., late Thursday. She was 66 and lived in Buffalo.
Her death was confirmed by Human Rights Watch, the New York-based organization for which she worked for nearly two decades as a senior adviser to its Africa division.
Born in Schenectady, N.Y., in 1942, Des Forges wrote her doctoral thesis about Rwanda and began working for Human Rights Watch in the 1980s. She spent four years interviewing organizers and victims of the Rwandan genocide and testified at 11 trials at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda as an expert witness.
According to Human Rights Watch, Des Forges "dedicated her life and work to understanding the country, to exposing the serial abuses suffered by its people and helping to bring about change."
"There was no one who knew more and did more to document the genocide and to help bring the perpetrators to justice,” Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
Considered the definitive account of the Rwandan tragedy, her book, "Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda," was published in 1999 – the same year the MacArthur Foundation awarded Des Forges a "genius grant" for her work.
Des Forges' last research work for Human Rights Watch, still unfinished, was a report about the recent killings in eastern Congo.
After spending some time in Europe, Des Forges was returning home to Buffalo, where she lived with her husband, Roger Des Forges GRD '71, a history professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Des Forges is also survived by a daughter, a son and three grandchildren.
Continental Connection Flight 3407, from Newark, N.J., to Buffalo, crashed about six miles short of the airport in Buffalo during a light snowfall on Thursday night. Des Forges was among 44 passengers who were killed; four crew members, an off-duty pilot and one person on the ground also died.

9/11 activist dies in plane crash:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-eckert14-2009feb14,0,6636504.story
My Silence Cannot Be Bought

by Beverly Eckert
Photo API've chosen to go to court rather than accept a payoff from the 9/11 victims compensation fund. Instead, I want to know what went so wrong with our intelligence and security systems that a band of religious fanatics was able to turn four U.S passenger jets into an enemy force, attack our cities and kill 3,000 civilians with terrifying ease. I want to know why two 110-story skyscrapers collapsed in less than two hours and why escape and rescue options were so limited.I am suing because unlike other investigative avenues, including congressional hearings and the 9/11 commission, my lawsuit requires all testimony be given under oath and fully uses powers to compel evidence.The victims fund was not created in a spirit of compassion. Rather, it was a tacit acknowledgement by Congress that it tampered with our civil justice system in an unprecedented way. Lawmakers capped the liability of the airlines at the behest of lobbyists who descended on Washington while the Sept. 11 fires still smoldered.And this liability cap protects not just the airlines, but also World Trade Center builders, safety engineers and other defendants.The caps on liability have consequences for those who want to sue to shed light on the mistakes of 9/11. It means the playing field is tilted steeply in favor of those who need to be held accountable. With the financial consequences other than insurance proceeds removed, there is no incentive for those whose negligence contributed to the death toll to acknowledge their failings or implement reforms. They can afford to deny culpability and play a waiting game.By suing, I've forfeited the "$1.8 million average award" for a death claim I could have collected under the fund. Nor do I have any illusions about winning money in my suit. What I do know is I owe it to my husband, whose death I believe could have been avoided, to see that all of those responsible are held accountable. If we don't get answers to what went wrong, there will be a next time. And instead of 3,000 dead, it will be 10,000. What will Congress do then?So I say to Congress, big business and everyone who conspired to divert attention from government and private-sector failures: My husband's life was priceless, and I will not let his death be meaningless. My silence cannot be bought.Beverly Eckert, whose husband died at the World Trade Center, is the founder of Voices of September 11th, a victims advocacy group.© Copyright 2003 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Child labor victims in Mexico: 'Green beans, child labor and NAFTA'

Green Beans, Child Labor and NAFTA
by Frontera NorteSur
(Photo News 6 San Diego click photo for more)

Two tragic accidents highlight the human toll of child labor in northern
Mexico’s agricultural export industry. Last Saturday, February 7, a
20-month-old child, Ismael de los Santos Barrea, was reported crushed to
death by truck tires at a farm in Sinaloa where his parents, teenage
migrant laborers from the state of Guerrero, were working to support the
family.

Reportedly, no daycare was available for the boy.

A representative of the Tlachinollan Human Rights Center of the Mountain,
a non-governmental organization headquartered in Tlapa, Guerrero, said the
unfortunate child’s grandfather contacted the advocacy organization to
complain of the tragedy.

Margarita Nemecio Nemesio, Tlachinollan migrant coordinator, said legal
representatives for Agricola Reyes, the farm enterprise where de los
Santos Barrea child died, convinced the child’s parents to bury their son
in Sinaloa in order to avoid paying costs associated with transporting the
body to the family’s Guerrero homeland.

“The argument of the boss was that they would come up with an agreement
later since the boy wasn’t a worker for the company,” Nemecio said.

The death of Ismael de los Santos Barrea followed an accident last month
near Culiacan, Sinaloa, in which 10-year-old Angela Barraza Lopez lost
left her arm to a machine while cleaning green beans. Barraza was earning
about $5 per day without benefits when the accident occurred.

“I let her work with her friends, all of them her age, because they paid
well and it helped me with the household expenses,” said Barraza’s mother
Rosario. Similar to the de los Santos Barrea episode, Barraza’s mother
complained of initial difficulties in getting just compensation for death
or injuries.

Child labor is still common in the fields of Sinaloa and other northern
states where thousands of indigenous migrants and their children from the
states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Veracruz, and Mexico make an annual
trek to perform stoop labor and other hard physical chores.

According to the Guerrero-based Council of Agricultural Laborers of the
Mountain, 8,177 migrants from the indigenous region of the state from
which the de los Santos family hails traveled to northern Mexico to work
during the 2008-09 winter harvest. The group additionally reported that
519 infants aged one year or less were brought along on the migration.

Nationwide, Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics, Geography and
Informatics reported that 3.6 million of 29.2 million Mexican children
aged 5-17 were engaged in some kind of economic activity in 2007. In
Guerrero, 20 percent of the age group studied by the federal census agency
was categorized as being in the labor force.

In the north, the states of Sinaloa, Sonora, Chihuahua and Baja California
function as a vast, transnational farming belt that provides food and
fiber for the urbanized societies of the United States and Mexico.
Cucumber, tomato, green beans and chile peppers are popularly-cultivated
crops, among others. According to the Confederation of Agricultural
Associations of Sinaloa, state vegetable exports to the United States
raked in $572 million in 2007. From Sinaloa, 316,828 tons of tomatoes were
sent to the US during the same year.

Guerrero’s Tchallinolan Human Rights Center has documented five other
cases of children killed or injured in the fields of Sinaloa, Sonora and
Chihuahua in recent years. However, spokeswoman Margarita Nemecio said
more cases might not be officially registered.

“We believe the number could be higher,” Nemecio said, “because many times
the owners harass the parents of minors to not get the authorities
involved.”

Mexico, meanwhile, is also a magnet for children laborers from other
nations. Since the beginning of the year, federal authorities have
discovered three groups of Guatemalan minors contracted to work as street
vendors or domestic workers in the southern state of Chiapas. On February
12, police assigned to the federal unit that investigates crimes of
violence against women and human trafficking picked up 11 Guatemalan
children aged 7 to 17 who were selling candy and balloons on the streets
of Tapachula, Chiapas. Allegedly, the children were being paid with water,
cookies and a tarp to sleep with on the ground.



Sources: El Sur, February 11, 2009. Article by Zacarias Cervantes. La
Jornada, January 29 and February 14, 2009. Articles by Javier Valdez
Cardenas, G. Castillo and A. Mariscal.

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico

For a free electronic subscription email fnsnews@nmsu.edu