The coat of arms of the Kingdom of Hawai'i hangs on the gates of 'Iolani Palace.- Photo: Blaine Fergerstrom

Tyranny and iwi exposed
Why the U.S. Joint Resolution failed to annex Hawai'i and the occupiers want us not to look at our treaties

By Alika Poe Silva
Kahu Kulaiwi, Koa Mana,
Kupukaaina o Wai'anae Wahipana,
O'ahu, Hawaiian National

Aloha nō 'ohana, remember what our kūpuna visualized, practiced and taught us, that those who rule by deception are doomed to fail. “Ua mau ke ea o ka 'āina i ka pono!” (The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness!)

• Our great nation, the Hawaiian Kingdom, will prevail because it is of a righteous people and righteous land.

• The democratic and Independent Hawaiian Kingdom State has more than five (5) ratified Treaties with the United States of America.

• The Joint Resolution of the U.S. Congress (1898) has no legal power beyond U.S. limits, simply because it is a resolution of one nation in its attempt to take the territory of another nation (the sovereign Kingdom of Hawai'i).

• An occupying power does not acquire the power of eminent domain or the power of quiet title. In summary Article 43 of the 1907 Hague Convention (IV, Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land) verifies that the occupied state's sovereignty is inalienable: The Kingdom of Hawai'i still exists by international law and justice [cf. Lance Larsen vs. Hawaiian Kingdom case, 1998]. Therefore, Hawai'i is illegally occupied.

History reveals how the sovereign Kingdom of Hawai'i came to be illegally occupied – and what the justifications were then and now. Let us look at the debate on the Joint Resolution in the Senate (Congressional Record – Senate, 1898, XXXI, 399f. [6369]) about the annexation of the Kingdom of Hawai'i.

Mr. Allen: Then we can annex the world?

Mr. Stewart: We can annex anything. But we do not suppose that Congress is going to do those things. The fact that sovereign power exists implies that it might be abused. It is not abused in this case, because we know that the people of the Sandwich Islands want to be annexed to this country.

Mr. Allen: Where do you find the power to annex?

Mr. Stewart: It is sovereign power. It is not written in the Constitution.

Mr. Allen: If it is not written in the Constitution or is not implied to carry out some written power, then it does not exist.

Mr. Stewart: We are doing things every day that are not written in the Constitution. We could not carry on the Government for a week if we had to look to the letter of the Constitution for everything we do.

After some minutes of arguing of what this implies, another senator clarifies the issue.

Mr. Mallory: The power to annex territory exists, I understand the Senator to say?

Mr. Stewart: Certainly.

Mr. Mallory: Has the method of exercising that power been defined?

Mr. Stewart: No.

Mallory brings in the Supreme Court decision in the case of the Mormon Church vs. The United States to state that the power of annexation rests on its “treaty-making power or else through the war-making power.”

Sen. Stewart from Nevada championed the Republican administration's Manifest Destiny doctrines. When questioned in the Senate, he admitted that it was not mentioned in the Constitution. Senator Mallory stated that there were only two ways that annexation could occur, one by treaty and another by war. Stewart defended the annexation of a territory that he called the Sandwich Islands under the war-making powers of the United States. The Kingdom of Hawai'i adamantly refused to give its sovereignty or territory to the U.S. by treaty. Since Hawai'i refused, the United States had to occupy Hawai'i by deception and the illusion that a treaty was made when it wasn't. The 1897-98 Kū'ē Petition of the Hawaiian people rejected annexation by the U.S. and so the petition concluded the vision for our Mo'opuna and wishes of our Kūpuna.

The facts reveal that the U.S. attempted to annex Hawai'i through its powers of war. This was a justification used at the height of Manifest Destiny but is clearly seen for what it is: pure aggression and illegal by any international standard of justice. The American peoples' lack of knowledge of the first period of imperialism (Manifest Destiny) continues in the present period of imperialism today. The same kind of arguments that Senator Stewart made in 1898 to justify the occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom are now made by the Bush administration to ignore (or change) the Constitution to use torture, invasion and occupation in building surrogate governments friendly to its policies.

If you do not believe in a higher law than nationalism (national sovereignty), then you cannot condemn another country's territorial aggressions. How does Bush's America condemn Russia for its territorial aggression in Georgia and China's aggressions with Tibet? Most of the world has condemned America's surrogate territorial aggression in Iraq. The leaders of America cannot condemn Russia and China without condemning the territorial aggressions of American imperialism – and this means the continuing occupation of the independent and sovereign Hawaiian Kingdom.

Our Kūpuna taught us: A hiki mai ke aloha. (Come with Love.) A e pono mai ana. (Come with righteousness.) A me 'Onipa'a kākou. (Seek justice, my people, and be loyal to our Kūpuna and Mo'opuna of the Hawaiian Kingdom.)'Ike maka 'Ohana, see more information at hawaiiankingdom.org and learn more about the facts and illegal occupation of our sovereign and continually existing nation.

Hawaiian Nationals, please come to witness Ho'ola'a (the ancient blessing of a new kahuna) at Kū Kaniloko, Piko of the Hawaiian Nation, on Sept. 20, 2008, at 5 a.m.

Mahalo. I 'o lako 'ohana.