May 29, 1983: Hawaiians told it’s still possible to get reparations

Native Hawaiians may still win reparations from the U.S. government for the 1893 overthrow of the Island monarchy despite a federal study that concludes they have no legal claim, a Hawaiian rights legal conference was told yesterday.

Kina‘u Kamali‘i, chairwoman of the deeply divided Native Hawaiians Study Commission that produced the controversial report, said the descendants of the original Polynesian settlers of the Hawaiian Islands should receive reparations “because it’s what’s right.”

The two-day gathering, which focused on a variety of legal issues of critical importance to Hawaiians and part-Hawaiians, drew about 200 participants and ended yesterday at Kamehameha Schools. …

Kamali‘i said she and her two fellow Island commissioners have repudiated the majority report. It was endorsed by the six Mainland commissioners who were appointed by Reagan administration officials.

The Hawaii members have instead submitted their own minority report, called “Claims of Conscience,” to Congress. Kamali‘i said she hopes House and Senate committees will hold hearings on both commission reports, probably next year.

She said yesterday she is enlisting the aid of the state’s congressional delegation to see that hearings are scheduled.

The issue that split the federal commission has to do with recommending to Congress who, if anyone, is now responsible for the 1893 overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani by American “annexationist” businessmen in Honolulu.

Despite the fact that the Americans were aided by the U.S. minister to Hawaii and backed up by armed Marines who marched into Honolulu from a U.S. gunboat, the majority report maintains that the coup d’etat took place without the permission of the American government, said H. Rodger Betts, another speaker at the conference. …

Betts told the conferees that the majority report’s exoneration of the U.S. government is ridiculous. It is doubly so, he said, because the United States eventually annexed all of Hawaii in 1896. The overthrow, the seizure of the kingdom’s land and annexation, Betts reminded his listeners, took place “without the permission of the Hawaiians.”