The Office of Hawaiian Affairs Board of Trustees announced Thursday a six-month extension to its nation-building effort, a move that will delay the election of delegates until January, the convention until April and the formal referendum until July 2015.
At the same time, however, trustees rejected another proposal by OHA CEO Kamana’opono Crabbe to start a new registry of names to add to the official roll of Native Hawaiians eligible to vote for nationhood.
"We believe that this new timetable helps to position us to build a strong sovereign governing entity that will be embraced by all of our people," OHA Chairwoman Colette Machado said in a statement.
Crabbe made his recommendations in May based largely on the public comments he and his staff heard during a statewide series of town hall meetings regarding OHA’s nation-building efforts. Those comments were punctuated by calls for an independent Hawaiian nation and included concerns there was a lack of education over the issues and the fact that more people needed to be involved.
That was before Native Hawaiians loudly rejected a proposal for federal recognition of a native government during two weeks of raucous U.S. Interior Department hearings in late June and early July.
On Thursday, Molokai activist and former OHA trustee Walter Ritte said he was disappointed by the board’s action. He said advocates of Hawaiian independence were pushing for a two-year delay to allow enough time to educate Hawaiians on the issues surrounding nation building and were also hoping to fix what he described as a flawed Kanaiolowalu, the official roll of eligible voters established by the state Legislature.
"We were looking for different ways to open up participation," he said. "This sounds too restrictive. I guess OHA isn’t listening."
Kamana Beamer, University of Hawaii assistant professor of Hawaiian studies, said he too was disappointed OHA wasn’t adding to the roll and allowing adequate time for a full exploration of the issues, including the questions about the Hawaiian kingdom included in Crabbe’s "unauthorized" letter to Secretary of State John Kerry.
"Let’s not be afraid of the truth," Beamer said.
The proposed nation-building timeline had called for the election of delegates in September. A convention, or aha, to draft a governing document, would have occurred in October or November, while an up-or-down vote on the document would be held in January.
Trustee Oswald Stender said the trustees made the decision to delay the process behind closed doors in executive session July 8 and then voted Thursday to make the action public.
Planning for the convention and the election of delegates had been put on hold anyway, he said, and the six-month delay would not only lead to more education, but allow OHA time to prepare for the effort.
Stender said trustees believe the existing Kanaiolowalu roll, featuring more than 125,000 Native Hawaiians from three different registries, is adequate to serve the nation-building process.
"Starting a new roll would be confusing and unproductive," he said. With the Kau Inoa and OHA Hawaiian Registry rolls already added into Kanaiolowalu, "it covers all the bases" regarding widespread participation, he said.
Former Gov. John Waihee, chairman of the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, said he wasn’t surprised by the delay.
"It was a very ambitious schedule to start with," he said.
Waihee said the commission may now decide to reopen Kanaiolowalu to additional names. And he said he’s inclined to do so because there is enough time.
"But it’s not my decision," he said, noting that the commission meets next week.
The OHA trustees held a special public hearing on the nation-building process in late May, and most of those who filled OHA’s Iwilei board room asked for additional time so people can be educated about the Hawaiian nation’s history and learn how independence can be achieved through international arenas.
Like the Interior Department hearings that would follow, most of the speakers expressed strong support for independence and the reinstatement of the Hawaiian kingdom and described the wrongs the United States committed against the Hawaiian nation. They described as illegal the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani, the annexation of the Hawaiian kingdom and the statehood referendum. They said Hawaii has been — and still is — illegally occupied by the U.S.
On Thursday, Ritte said he’s disappointed that trustees didn’t follow through with their call for unity and their promise to remain neutral. He said it appears trustees favor the nation-within-a-nation model of government like that of the American Indians.
"The Hawaiian community is in no mood to be part of the Indian scenario," he said, pointing to the Interior Department hearings.
Ritte said it could lead to "a big battle" between OHA and those seeking an independent Hawaiian nation.
But Stender said the trustees aren’t pushing anything. Native Hawaiians as a whole will decide in the upcoming nation-building referendum, he said.
Machado, in her statement, said, "It is now time to work together to be sure that the contemporary Native Hawaiian governing entity is rooted in our ancestral wisdom."
