Exploring the Legal Status of Hawaii

The Hawaiian subjects, Hawaiian nationals, they're fervent about what they want. There's no questioning that. But on the flip side, there's also 100 years of training. And an old guy in Waimea told us about the elephant. When the baby elephant is small, they chain him to the stick with a chain, a big, huge chain. And after years of trying to break that chain, he figures out that he can't do it. And when that big elephant, when the elephant gets big, they just tie a little rope on his leg. and tie it to the stick and and the smallest the smallest resistance will stop that elephant from trying he can break it it just takes one step like that and and you know for us that's exactly how it is all you got to do is take the step because that chain is just a rope it's and it's all in our minds you know so i didn't hesitate it was for me a no-brainer i said yes i'll be there and The first day of the proceedings, literally, as I'm an attorney, and for six years early in my career, I was a district court judge. I have always been a history buff. Student of history, student of political science. But that first day at The Hague, the proceedings, literally took my breath away. I recognize that... In over a century, the question of the Kingdom of Hawaii as a nation state in the family of nations was not at issue. And I was just kind of like, wow, where are we? And what are the ramifications of these proceedings? I can say that I have not had one instance in court where there's been any opposition to either the factual, the legal, or historical arguments that we made concerning the legal status of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Hawaii's legal and political history today is much more complex, it's much more nuanced, in part because we have a much better understanding of what took place in the 19th century. And so a lot of that, right, a lot of just the basic daily conversations that we have, whether it be on the streets or whether it be with family, the way that we talk about Hawaii has changed. A legitimate legislative assembly to review all the laws etc. How do we operate in the meantime? Right. No, no, I got your point. My name is Dr. Keanu Sai. I have a PhD in political science. I am currently the Minister of the Interior in an acting capacity, as well as Chairman. of the Hawaiian Council of Regency. Well, when I graduated from the Kamehameha Schools in 1982, I went on to a military college, New Mexico Military Institute. I was there for two years. It's like a mini West Point, 24-7 military. military, junior college. I was able to get my commission as a second lieutenant in the Army Reserve as well as an associate's degree in pre-business. I spent 10 years in the military, both active and reserve, out of the first of the 487th Field Artillery. And my last command before I was honorably discharged in 1994 was Charlie Battery Commander. It was a great opportunity serving in the U.S. military. It came to a point where I was point though that I needed to move on and I began to realize that Hawaii was occupied and I needed to address that. I would have never thought that my military training would be so foundational for me to address that situation but it has. After Keanu had gotten back from being in the military He was going to school at UH. I was a new mom. My brother was working construction. And we just, we would hang out and we'd talk about stories, we'd talk about history, we'd start reading things, we'd start digging. The guys started a kind of research group of digging through different things and they were studying the history of Kaua'lana-Napua. And I mean it's just kind of one thing led to another. Mostly it was our curiosity about our history, about where we come from, who we are. And then finding the genealogy of our collective great-grandmother was kind of an important step for us. Because we read about her, our tutu was Alusi Kapohai'ali'i o Kamamalu. Her, in 1896, the Mo'oku Auhau'ali'i were printed in the Hawaiian language newspapers by law. So I look at this genealogy. Which was published in the Kamakainana newspaper in 1896. It starts in the 1400s under Liloa, King Liloa. And it goes all the way from Liloa to my tutu's father, my tutu's uncle, and my tutu's auntie. And then I found my dad's genealogy in the same newspaper. And I found that throughout the year of 1896, The Kamakainana newspaper was printing these articles on genealogy and it was titled Mo'oku Au Hawali'i, which is genealogy of nobility. And I was shocked. I was like, nobility? And I quickly began to remember my tutu's stories about Prince Kuhio, about how she was treated. She would have to eat first. I mean all these stories started to come out. January 14th when Lili'u went to prorogue the legislature, in courtesy of Elke's memoirs, he writes about our Tutu Lucy going with her across to Oli'olanihale and getting out of the carriage and she went in front of Lili'u and was her chanter and chanted her up the steps of the of the Oli'olanihale before she prorogued the legislature, before she prorogued them to introduce her new constitution. So I mean that it was hitting you know that touched us and then we started to study the history of what that meant what you know the whole event was about and and it just kind of it just kept going and we just kept reading and studying and searching. But when we began to realize just who our families were we had to take steps to continue where they left off and that was our kuleana. So we're not only cousins and family, but we knew that we're about to embark on something that's really big and each of us, we needed to cover each other's back. And if there's anyone that I could trust would be my two cousins. Council of Regency was started according to Article 33 of the Constitution of 1864. In similar fashion to the Belgian Council of Regency, which was established when Belgium was in exile, the Hawaiian Council of Regency was established the same way under our laws. The tricky thing here is you can study our laws, you can study the legislative record, you can study the House of Noble reports, you can study a lot of things about our country, but nowhere did anyone ever come up with a plan. For if they steal our country, this is how you get it back. There is no master plan. So, driven by our determination and our dedication to right the wrong of our ancestors, I mean, really, basically, that's what it comes down to. You know, and for once and for all, to address the injustices against our country, our Queen. And our kingdom. Yeah, but we had a strategic plan back then. Now mind you, this was back in 1996. Basically three phases. And this is where my military comes out. You don't enter, you don't engage anything without a plan. So phase one, verification of the Hawaiian kingdom as an independent state. We needed an outside entity to verify Hawaii's existence. Not we saying it exists. We needed verification from outside. Once we get verification, it moves to phase two, exposure of Hawaiian statehood within the framework of international law and the law of occupation as it affects the realm of politics and economics at both the international and domestic level. And then it would naturally move to phase three, restoration of the Hawaiian government, Hawaiian kingdom sorry, as an independent state and subject of international law where the occupation will eventually come to an end. So when the Council of Regency comes to the forefront, they become targets. I've always been a target from day one. A lot of people thought it was just me. The army of one. There are many people behind me that I actually sought to protect. Right now the Counselor Agency is coming out front and center. It has to. It has a duty and obligation to address the violations. And that is where we are right now. So that's how I came to realizing Hawaii's occupied. I didn't learn it from a professor. I didn't learn it from taking a class. I learned it from my experience at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, going through officers advanced course as a captain during the first Gulf War and receiving real life intel coming in. It was only until 1992 when I started to look up my genealogy, because my tutu asked me, I need to know my genealogy, because then she would, she said I would know who I am and what I need to do. is when I started to uncover these things and that's when I started to realize, wow, the parallels. From what happened with Iraq and Kuwait to Hawaii and the United States was undeniable. An independent state has what is called a government. Those two are not synonymous. A country is separate from its government, and a government is separate from its country. Because during international relations between countries, governments get overthrown when they're at war. International law regulates war. That's why it's regulated by the Hague and Geneva Conventions. and what is called international humanitarian law. But the overthrow of the Kuwaiti government back in 1990 did not mean the Kuwait country ceased to exist. It still existed, and we knew that. We called that occupation, and that Iraq was supposed to have been administering Kuwaiti law until they get a treaty of peace. Annexation of Kuwait did not terminate Iraq's liability or responsibility. Well, that same situation happened to Hawaii. So Hawaii's sovereignty was recognized in 1843, November 28th. International law discerns between a country and a government because within international law, they have wars. And the objective of a war is to overthrow the government and enter into a treaty of surrender, ultimately entering into a treaty of peace. That's what happened in Hawaii. The government was overthrown, not the country. So how does a country... become a part of another country. Well, for one, you need a government there to enter into a treaty transferring Hawaii to the United States. We don't have that. The United States overthrew our government. So instead, what the United States did in 1898 was instead of acquiring Hawaii legally by a treaty, they passed a law called a Joint Resolution of Annexation, an agreement between the House and the Senate, which was then signed into law by President McKinley. In 1898, the United States could no more annex Hawaii, a country, by passing a law than it could pass a law today annexing France. That's why we've been occupied. So what does the United States Supreme Court say about U.S. laws? It says neither the Constitution nor the laws passed in pursuance of it, referring to the federal Constitution and the federal statutes, have any force in foreign countries. They don't have any force in a foreign country because of that country's independence. See how important that independence is. And then it goes on to say, the Supreme Court, and operations of the nation in such territory must be governed by treaties, international understandings and compacts, and the principles of international law. My doctoral dissertation focused on international law. That was the area. So you might say we've been unknowingly trying to explain a football game using baseball rules. I'm bringing in football rules. In 1999, the Council of Regency, as a result of its exposure of Hawaii's occupation, will be named in a complaint alleging that the Council of Regency is liable for... Allowing the unlawful imposition of American laws imposed in Hawaii. And this was done on behalf of Lance Paul Larson, who was represented by an attorney, Ninia Parks. What people may overlook is that Lance Larson's rights, and we have conceded that, were violated. He was thrown in jail. He was incarcerated. And seven of those days, seven of those 30 days, he was in solitary confinement. That's a real issue for Lance Larson. People may speak about it lightly. But that wasn't them in that jail. The Larson case in 1999 provided a platform through which the acting council of regency could put forward this history of the Hawaiian kingdom and put forward this idea that it continues to exist today. That's a moment within the Larson case that the arbitrators have to come to this idea that if it existed as an independent. State in the 19th century, right? And if we're missing the mechanism that eliminated or abolished that international character, then what is the status of Hawaii today? The United States of America could have entered the Larson v. Hawaiian Kingdom case, brought their argument for why Hawaii is the 50th state and not an occupied country, and that proceeding would have never happened. For whatever reason, America chose not to do that. That left the door open for the proceeding to continue, right? But they could have falsified it. America could have said, no, you're the 50th state, we got you by joint resolution of annexation in 1898, and a joint resolution, record scratch. Right? No, sorry, joint resolution's not a treaty. Oh, now we see why you didn't show up and prevent your argument, because your argument's not going to stand up. Rather, what we find is that the United States has never expressed itself. As an occupier, who would? They would never admit to occupation. But yet, to admit to occupation is in a sense to admit to the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom as an independent state. There was also a link to the Permanent Court of Arbitration's case repository where it showed a case titled Lance Larson versus the Hawaiian Kingdom. And it was an active case on their case repository, which really proved that the Hawaiian Kingdom does continue to exist. And from what I understood, the acting Council of Regency is what brought that case to the Permanent Court of Arbitration. More so than what happened at the Permanent Court of Arbitration was the information that was presented. The history that was presented by Dr. Tsai and the council was, how can I say, not only enlightening but very much compelling. I mean, the documents, many of the documents that he resourced and sourced spoke for themselves. And it, in my mind and in my analysis, presented a truth that could not be disputed. The people have a hard, hard time to accept the truth. I run into this constantly. I introduce myself, then we start a discussion, then I tell them what we now know. Their eyes become large, they begin to smile incredulously. And then, once you mention the court case in The Hague, things change. They begin to take it seriously. Just the fact that we are in the permanent court of arbitration, in the Peace Palace, in The Hague, and we are, our country's history is on record, now, forever, in perpetuity. Anybody can pull this up anytime after this. On the websites, through the libraries, we have realized our goal. So in return from The Hague, we knew that we had to address denationalization. In 1906, there was a policy that was issued by the Board of Education of the Territory of Hawaii, and it was called Program for Patriotic Exercises to be used throughout the schools. This policy basically embarked on denationalizing Hawaii's people through Americanization. In 1907, Harper's Weekly Magazine published an article on this brainwashing and they visited three schools, Kaiulani Public School grades one through eight, Ka'ahumanu Public School and Honolulu High School before the name was changed to President William McKinley High School in 1911. And here at the command of the principal this picture shows the 714 school children saluting and the caption says what they say at the command of the principal. We give our heads and our hearts to God and our country. One country, one language, one flag. This scene shows a salute to the American flag which flies in the grounds of the K'iulani Public School which has many Japanese pupils. The drill is constantly held as a means of inculcating patriotism in the hearts of the children. That term, inculcate, is brainwashing through repetition. That's the definition of inculcate. Now, when I first saw this... With my experience in the military, I'm saying we go to war against these kind of guys. I could not believe that was in Hawaii. It was so deeply seeded in our society and the world that we had to address it head on. And we felt that the way we could address it head on was at the university, was through academic research to falsify this narrative. And that's what we embarked on. When Keanu had returned back from The Hague, from the Netherlands, one of his motivations after that particular experience was to come back and engage in scholarship and rigorous research that furthered this history of the Hawaiian Kingdom in the 19th century and which furthered An investigation of some of those implications today, right? Yes, I think Keanu's scrappy background, and if you know him personally, I think he would also classify himself as a Karl Popper guy. Karl Popper's falsification, right? In science, the whole point of science is to falsify. And that background of... Hey, let's bring this to the table and can you falsify it? Right. So here he was. Let's bring this information to the university and let's see who can poke holes in it. Right. And that scrappy background gave him the confidence to not be afraid to engage in a fight. And that notion of falsification. Hey, can you prove it wrong if you can't? Step two. Can you prove that wrong? Nope. Step three. Dr. Keanu Tsai's scholarship is sterling. He is really the expert here on international law. He dots all the I's. And I really admire him greatly. And we learned so much from him. And it's so crystal clear what the real situation is really like. Also he has a statesman-like quality. I met him in many situations. For instance in 2013 we had a panel discussion at the University of Zurich. There were seven Swiss ambassadors in the room. The question was, is Hawaii the 50th state or a Polynesian kingdom? And all seven ambassadors reached the conclusion it is indeed still an independent country. And everybody was impressed by Kea'ana's statesman-like presentation. So where I went into the University of Hawai'i, to expose it through the Academic lens or the academic venue. Kaui, she took the route to expose through archival records, historical records, and newspapers. Upon returning from the Permanent Court of Arbitration, we had a meeting and we came up with a plan, a plan of action. And in that plan, Keanu would register at the University of Hawaii, continue his masters and then get his PhD. I was offered a position to take on the Hawaiian Language Newspaper Project. I met Kau'i in 2002-2003. She was the head, she was the director of a project called Hoʻolaupai. At the time they just found out about OCR programs, optical character recognition programs. They would take scans, high resolution scans of the newspapers, Hawaiian language newspapers, run it through these programs. The program would try and pick up what was on the page. There's a handful of us who are Hawaiian language people at the time, Hawaiian language majors in college, and our job was to go through, look at what the OCR program was picking up, and then manually correct those to what we saw on the page. So Kaui was the director of that, and I was one of the limahan. I mean, I could detail it. But it just runs into like a day-to-day run-up. Then there's books, and then there's the newspaper, and then there's the newspaper project, and then it's searchable newspapers, and then it moves into... Now we're starting to get translations that are up and realizing that it won't matter how much we... know if it's just within the language community, how do you get that out? Coming back from the permanent court of arbitration, one of the main topics was how do you educate people to even know that all of this history exists? So that drive. I have links right into this move of new resources being available. We make a huge paradigm shift in the language work that I was doing. It's the whole thing about, it's not about language. It's about knowledge. And that was a piece of what was happening. At the time it shifted all of our boats to a sort of a new course. We still, language is still really, really critical. But it's the knowledge that's contained there that becomes the valuable tool. Hawaii has, if I'm not mistaken, Hawaii has the biggest, the largest repository of indigenous language written resource and that's in the form of all of these newspapers. It was a national thing at the time. People from all over the nation would contribute to it and it was a running thing. People would, you know, there would be back and forth in the newspaper. There would be news of the day, news of away, news from afar, from other continents, news of wars. There were stories, epics, Hawaiian epics. There were translated epics from away. Ivanhole, stories like that, all translated into Hawaiian. Everything was in Hawaiian in the newspapers. But that repository is what? At the time, before 2002, 2003, people knew that there are Hawaiian English newspapers. We were looking at them off of microfilms, but it was so slow because that was the access that we had was through microfilms and microfilm readers. And then once the digitization started to happen, then everything ramped up. Between 2002, 2003 till now, the access to it has blown up. I knew really well black and white of our history. I knew that especially the legal and political history. I knew that really well, right? And so I take this job and now in my hands are 114 years of our people's story, written predominantly by our own people, as they were happening, as it unfolded, cause and effect. of it, how this one reacted to that, how, you know, and so the black and white understanding of history that I had, it filled with a depth, a breadth, and a color that I just, you know, it still, today, it still unfolds in front of me every day, every, you know, a new topic, a new time, a new period. It's informed. It doesn't change my understanding of the history that we knew, but it certainly informs it fuller. deeper and with more color than we get to cover in the legal, you know, running through of history. It's an amazing, it's an epic all in itself, just the history as it happened alone. Nobody has to, you know, add or embellish it. It's an amazing history. We have a lot to be proud of. We have a lot, you know, to learn from. But it's a big and good and fabulous history. And it makes me wonder every day the more why don't our people understand? Why is it that the majority of our people don't understand what happened? They don't connect. It's about identity also. If you don't understand where you came from, there's an old saying, The past is the beacon that will guide us to the future. If you don't know the past, if you don't understand it, or if you're ashamed of it, or if it's been belittled so you don't want to claim it, then your future is unsure and you're always, you know... The papers help bring that to light. The papers help us know in a very real and human way how our people dealt with what what came, you know, whether it was diseases, whether it was political infiltrations, and you know it... It really shows us a more human look to how everything happened and it's empowering. So I've spent the last 16, 17 years, 17 years working in the newspapers and have done amazing, amazing projects, amazing things have come out of it. My children have grown up knowing the newspapers. It's second nature to my kids to... Dig into a paper, they think of something, something, they have a question, they go right in. You know, so it's an access point that is available to us today that was never there before. And it's good work. I like it. So the Council of Regency, in exposing Hawaii's occupation, was not just limiting itself to the academic world. It was also in the courts. I appointed Attorney General for the Council of Regency in about 2013. So I had argued motions to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction in both criminal, civil, as well as administrative proceedings for about a year or two years before that time. Again, we were questioning the very authority of the courts because they cannot prove, in fact, They cannot prove that this is the United States, but in fact it's the Hawaiian Kingdom. And what's interesting in arguing these motions is that in not one instance did the opposition provide any evidence to prove that I was wrong in my argument. In fact, what they did for the most part was not even present any argument at all and simply rely on the courts to deny the motions to dismiss. There are instances where, very few instances, but few... A few instances where the courts actually engaged in dialogue with me about the arguments that I made. And in one particular instance the judge in the case, and it is on transcript, we did have it on transcript, essentially said in court that he couldn't agree with my motion because the do-so would be committing suicide. It would like to be the atomic bomb for the judiciary. So he said I can't do that because that means that everything that we have here is invalid. I have not had one instance in court where there's been any opposition to either the factual, the legal, or historical arguments that we made concerning the legal status of the Hawaiian Kingdom. This information and education also inspired the National Lawyers Guild, its international committee to establish the Hawaiian Kingdom Subcommittee. And the Hawaiian Kingdom Subcommittee, its purpose is to provide support and advice for those who are seeking the United States to comply with the law of occupation. The Guild has always been at the forefront of civil rights in the United States. The National Lawyers Guild has now formed a subcommittee of the International Committee, Hawaiian Kingdom Subcommittee. I'm a member. Its task, its mission, is to investigate and report on the situation in the American occupied Hawaiian Islands that will be taking place here in the summer and fall of 2019. I'll be part of it. So the work that we've done at the University of Hawaii Through education had a direct effect on the National Education Association, the largest union in the United States of American school teachers and faculty and staff. They published three articles on Hawaii's status as an independent state, the illegal occupation and the harmful effects that it has had on the Hawaiian people. As I said in my earlier statement, my earliest statement when I began, I said as more information becomes available to the people. as they become more aware. In fact, many people today still are not aware of the fact that there is no treaty of annexation. Most people, because of propaganda, have always believed that the United States annexed Hawaii by way of treaty of annexation. When they become aware that there wasn't a treaty of annexation, people's minds change. And the reason why I say it's a fair question is that as information becomes available to our community, not only the Hawaiian community, but our community at large, I think more people start to question. The authority, the very validity of state enactments. And I think, and I would have to say, John and I, I'm going to continue to massage Governor Wahe'e because of course he's a great spokesperson, a great representative. So of course I'm always trying to massage him to start to talk about the occupation because I think that's where I need to lead him. It's also starting to seep into local government, right, where local representatives, right, state officials. We're also starting to see the significance of this history and the profound implications that it has today. If public officials are starting to have this conversation, this language, again, another indicator of how important research and education has been in this process. We talked about it being too close to the tree that you can't see the forest. We have a hundred years of indoctrination here. pounded, pounded and programmed into believing certain things. These are our credos, it's our edicts, it's how we walk, it's how we breathe, it's how we think. When something comes along and really tries to crumble or destroy everything you've been taught from a child, that's what makes it hard and you're gonna defend what you thought was once fact, you're gonna defend it to the end, you know, and that's why the fight is so hard here. I'm pretty confident that what we've done to date, you know, It lives up to the dignity of our ancestors, which is what's pushing us to do everything that we're doing right now. The second day we were here, we had a meeting with Phyllis. So, Umi, myself, and Keanu, we went to meet Phyllis. And she comes to the door, and you know how imposing that place is. It's just, you know, you go, oh God, it's here, we're here, oh my goodness. But she comes up this step, and she had her assistant with us, and she turns to him and says, Dane, this is the Hawaiian Kingdom. Um, Part of my job as the acting minister of finance has been to handle the finances of the country. From the time we started, there'd been no finances of this country because we didn't have anything to start with. We were, it's really a name only. We were, you know, so we do sign jobs, we'd get little contracts, we'd do little things to make money to file this, to do this, to get this, or we'd be working, get some money. Okay, let's go file this. Oh, let's go buy these books. You know, it's just the way it's been all these years. Until 2014, when we discussed, when we... Through the years, there have been many people, organizations, individuals who have approached us and wanted to give us money, wanted to make a donation. But we're not an American 501c3. We can't take donations. You certainly can't get a write-off for giving us money. So we couldn't figure out a way to take the money in. We couldn't, and we needed the help. To have all these cases in the world court, you know. All the travel that it takes, counter-traveling internationally, to meet with experts, to get their help, to get justice for our country, it's expensive. And we finagle and finagle and we figure it out. But in 2014, we discovered, we did some research and discovered that bonds, as the acting government, we could issue bonds with repayment. You know, it all has conditions. And that you can buy bonds if justice for your country is important. If it's more than just a passing fancy. So we found the example of Ireland, the Irish Republic, in their fight for their independence from Great Britain in the early 1900s. They traveled to America and they were selling Irish bonds to Irish Americans. to support the revolution back home. And on these bonds that were issued by the Irish Republic was a conditional redemption. It said that the bond can be redeemed at face value and interest accrued one year after Ireland is recognized as an independent state. And that gave us an idea. Not that we are in the same position of becoming an independent state. We are an independent state. But it did show us there's a condition that was used in a bond for the redemption. So what we came up with, logic dictated, that Hawaiian Kingdom bonds can be redeemed five years after the occupation has come to an end and where the Hawaiian government is in complete control of its territory. So by that time, the Hawaiian government would have reparations. For over a hundred years of violations of international law, it would be able to collect revenues through taxation just as a normal government would. We would have more than enough money to pay back the loans. This concept of the people helping their country to seek justice is not a new concept. Everybody is very familiar with the Hau'i Aloha ʻAina. And the Ku'ei petitions that actually was successful in stopping the annexation of Hawaii. On September 6, 1897, James Kaulea, president of the Hui Aloha'ina, the Hawaiian Patriotic League, gave a stirring speech before thousands at Palace Square in Honolulu. He said agreeing to annexation was like agreeing to being buried alive. He asserted that a mass refusal by the people could prevent annexation. Let us take up the honorable struggle. Do not be afraid. Be steadfast in aloha for your land and be united in thought. Protest forever the annexation of Hawaii until the very last patriot lives. A petition to the President, Congress and people of the United States, otherwise known as the Monster Petition, was read and approved at this rally, asking that no further steps be taken toward the ratification of the treaty. There is no annexation. There's a joint resolution in 1898, and that's all that happened. Because of our people. Because the Queen and her people stopped it through the signature petition. Through the efforts of many Hawaiian patriots. But... Partly from doing the newspapers, right, I have at my fingertips, as is now available to everybody, access to the 114 years of Hawaiian language. So if you look through the articles of from in Kealoha'aina newspaper of the signature petitions as they went out and they reported in the paper every time they met in every community there was a Hui aloha'aina branch there was and they have monthly meetings and then they put it in the paper and talk about it. They didn't just go out and collect signatures. That wasn't the only thing they were collecting. They were collecting lulukala. They were collecting the pennies of their people to help their queen and their country. And they won. And they were successful from the pennies of their people. There'd be stories of Mrs. Kauhi and Hana giving, you know, 10 cents is what she could give. And somebody else gave a dollar. And somebody else gave 50 cents. And all of that collectively over the months that they were collecting it was put together and sent the commission out to Washington DC to present this on the floor of the US Congress. You know, so it's not a new concept. As a people, we've always helped for our country, and that's all this is. It's just another means of helping our country. It had to take certain steps to be made to get the council to a point where we now are comfortable and capable of now engaging that specific issue. How do we address the unlawful imposition of American law with the limited resources and the manpower that we have? That is when we had to become experts in international law and international relations and that eventually is what formed the Royal Commission of Inquiry. But accountability also is still coming as well. The Royal Commission of Inquiry was established, this is part of the recap of what we covered on May 15th, and this Commission of Inquiry, its function is to investigate the consequences of the belligerent occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom by the United States since 1893. The purpose shall be to investigate the consequences of the United States'belligerent occupation, including with regard to international law, humanitarian law, and human rights, and the allegations of war crimes committed. In that context, under Article 3, the composition of the Royal Commission shall be decided by the head, which is myself, and shall be comprised of recognized experts in various fields, international law, humanitarian law, human rights law, self-determination, legal and political history. I can assure you that this Commission is all European, and they are all renowned experts. In their areas who have all committed to being a part of this commission of inquiry and the chair can confirm that they have been convened. Now the different war crimes that's going to be under investigation by this commission of inquiry is one, denationalization, pillaging, unlawful appropriation of property. Depriving a protected person of fair and regular trial, destruction of property, unlawful confinement of a protected person, removing protected persons from the country, and involuntary conscription into the United States Armed Forces, which is the draft. That's actually all illegal. Everyone in Hawaii is a Lance Larson. Everyone, everyone has been subjected to unlawful imposition of American laws. Not just lands. And it's not dependent upon your nationality or citizenship. Everyone in Hawaii. And under international law they're called protected persons and they have rights. So that the Council of Regency can represent a nation that is in exile at the international level. And I look forward to their royal commission of inquiry. If we can accept the fact that there still is a kingdom of Hawaii and that it was never annexed, that there was occupation and there still is occupation, then how do we deal with that? And I was really impressed that he followed through with what he told us in the May 15th meeting. with the Council of Regents, or Regency, and created the reconciliation or recognition of our current government. Now, how do we bring the state of Hawaii into a position of being an administration recognizable under international law? What I'm pointing out to you folks here. There is a narrative that I'm explaining through the law. I'm just making it simple, but it's all law-based. It's all based on the principle of rule of law and compliance, given a dire situation. So, governments do have an inherent right to recognize foreign governments. And in 2014, a proclamation was done by the Council of Regency. Recognizing all existing laws in Hawaii as the provisional laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom but with the condition and proviso that they do not run contrary to the letter spirit and intent of Hawaiian Kingdom law. So it was done in a sense of matters Of regulating commerce, matters of regulating relationships, of contracts, of the people themselves would be recognized. Now what needed to follow was the state of Hawaii which is in effective control of territory, which is a condition and a requirement for them to become a military government or a government. of the occupying power to administer the laws of the occupied state, which would include the proclamation, meaning all current laws are recognized so long as they do not run contrary to Hawaiian Kingdom law, they can continue to govern. June 3rd, 2019. Now therefore, we the acting Councilor-Egency of the Hawaiian Kingdom, serving in the absence of the monarch and temporarily exercising the royal power of the kingdom, to hereby recognize the state of Hawaii and its counties, as the administration of the occupying power, whose duties and obligations are enumerated in the 1907 Hague Regulations, the 1949 Geneva Convention, and international humanitarian law. And we do hereby further proclaim that the state of Hawaii and its counties shall preserve the sovereign rights of the outstate government and protect the local population from exploitation of their persons and property, both real and personal, as well as their civil and political rights under Hawaiian Kingdom law. Now, that's just the recognition. of an entity, right? The key is are we authorized to actually do that? We actually are and the Permanent Court of Arbitration verified that we're actually a government. So it's not like it's a self proclaiming it according to certain rules. So the illegality in particular war crimes which are conduct or actions that have been taken, the proclamation does not legitimize it. If anything it reinforces it. Because it brings in international law because that is what the administration of the occupying power was set up as within the framework of international law not within the framework of American law which is limited to US territory. So individuals will still be held accountable no doubt. So I kind of see Hawaii Kingdom law or... Our status as an independent, neutral nation, as giving us, you know, the lifelong residents who aren't going anywhere, the ability to have our own self determination and to, you know, clearly state what matters to us, clearly state where our sacred sites are, clearly state these things without, you know... The continental United States or the occupier, if you will, to be able to dictate what is important to us. And I think part of this movement, the movement to reconcile the kingdom of Hawaii, has to do with people feeling like, it's not just the people of Hawaiian descent or ancestry, but it's the people who are living in a... in a place where they're basically forgotten. The people who are at the lower end of the income scale and feel like they've been forgotten by the leaders in the community. I think that's one of the other benefits is coming to a recognition. It's not about somebody wanting to be king and saying yeah now we're all going to bow down to you. It's about this idea of a place where we all care about everybody of every stature in the community. That's what it means to me, is that there would be a focus on that. Because like you said, that is what the rule of law is supposed to affect. It's supposed to bring equity among us. We don't have that right now. Well, I think when you look at it, I don't only look at it for Hawaiians, I think it's huge for Hawaiians. I'm a Hawaiian, I can speak from that seat, and that I would love to have agency, my own agency. The agency of my people, I'd love to have that agency over the things that I love. I don't want to take over the world. I just want to protect what's here. And to sit here and be at the whim of outside powers, for the place that I love, for the place that my bones will go and the place that my bones came from, that's what I want to fight for. I'd like to have agency in saying how that can continue, not just for me, but for more generations of my kids. Some people are afraid. If the military were to leave, what would happen to Hawaii? They talk about China and... All kinds of other countries, but of course, you know, as confused the world is at the moment, nonetheless you cannot just take over other countries anymore. So we have come, not far enough, but we have come along a certain way. After all, we have the United Nations, we have the three courts, international courts in The Hague. So you cannot just march in and take over. At every step, this information was given every opportunity for people to falsify. They couldn't. This led to master's theses, doctoral dissertations, peer review articles, law review articles. It has taken, it has come to a point where this is the normal. Whereas before it was the lunacy and that was important for the council. Now after 19 years from returning from the Netherlands, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, we now have the ability to now move on another phase of the council of the regency. In addressing over a hundred years of occupation, providing a comprehensive report on that, and also a recommendation on how to fix the problem. And that's where we are right now. Help us end the occupation of Hawaii. We need to end the occupation. It's plain and simple. It's really kind of simple. That's all we're heading for. That's all we've ever headed for. And then once we do that, then our own laws come into play. Once we end the occupation of Hawaii, then Hawaiian laws come into play. And then we've got a lot of work to do, because those laws have to be brought up to 2019. There's really a lot of work to bring it up to today. So, I mean, this is just the pregame we're in, really, you know. When we finally do get there, and I know a lot of people believe that that's what they want. That's when the real work starts. That's when it really gets hard. Keanu was a boxer, right? He attended New Mexico on a boxing scholarship. So this is where I like to use this metaphor. Keanu has been brilliant about if the ring is this big, this is the boxing ring, right? When you're standing here and America's standing there, you're not going to punch, you're not going to land a knockout punch from across the room, right? and America has been evading and dancing and sidestepping, not answering the question, right? You bring anything up in an American court and the political strategy that's used by the courts is to make it a quote-unquote political question. Political question, the courts don't have to answer it, right? So they've kept dancing around not answering the question, not answering the question, and Hawaii has never gotten close enough to corner them to force them to answer the question. And that's what Keanu and the acting council and the Council of Regency have been doing is systematically making that ring smaller and smaller and smaller day by day, step by step, inch by inch. Everybody wants the ring to be this small now, but small steps, increments, and they've been doing that incrementally. If you've been paying attention to what they've been doing, they've been making the ring smaller. Everybody wants to watch the knockout punch. Have some patience, watch the ring get smaller until America has to answer the question, right? When they have to answer the question, that's when you can knock them out.

When the baby elephant is small, they chain him to the stick with a chain, a big, huge chain. And after years of trying to break that chain, he figures out that he can't do it. And when that big elephant, when the elephant gets big, they just tie a little rope on his leg.

and tie it to the stick and and the smallest the smallest resistance will stop that elephant from trying he can break it it just takes one step like that and and you know for us that's exactly how it is all you got to do is take the step because that chain is just a rope it's and it's all in our minds you know so i didn't hesitate it was for me a no-brainer i said yes i'll be there and The first day of the proceedings, literally, as I'm an attorney, and for six years early in my career, I was a district court judge. I have always been a history buff. Student of history, student of political science.

But that first day at The Hague, the proceedings, literally took my breath away. I recognize that... In over a century, the question of the Kingdom of Hawaii as a nation state in the family of nations was not at issue. And I was just kind of like, wow, where are we?

And what are the ramifications of these proceedings? I can say that I have not had one instance in court where there's been any opposition to either the factual, the legal, or historical arguments that we made concerning the legal status of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Hawaii's legal and political history today is much more complex, it's much more nuanced, in part because we have a much better understanding of what took place in the 19th century. And so a lot of that, right, a lot of just the basic daily conversations that we have, whether it be on the streets or whether it be with family, the way that we talk about Hawaii has changed.

A legitimate legislative assembly to review all the laws etc. How do we operate in the meantime? Right. No, no, I got your point. My name is Dr. Keanu Sai.

I have a PhD in political science. I am currently the Minister of the Interior in an acting capacity, as well as Chairman. of the Hawaiian Council of Regency. Well, when I graduated from the Kamehameha Schools in 1982, I went on to a military college, New Mexico Military Institute.

I was there for two years. It's like a mini West Point, 24-7 military. military, junior college.

I was able to get my commission as a second lieutenant in the Army Reserve as well as an associate's degree in pre-business. I spent 10 years in the military, both active and reserve, out of the first of the 487th Field Artillery. And my last command before I was honorably discharged in 1994 was Charlie Battery Commander. It was a great opportunity serving in the U.S. military.

It came to a point where I was point though that I needed to move on and I began to realize that Hawaii was occupied and I needed to address that. I would have never thought that my military training would be so foundational for me to address that situation but it has. After Keanu had gotten back from being in the military He was going to school at UH.

I was a new mom. My brother was working construction. And we just, we would hang out and we'd talk about stories, we'd talk about history, we'd start reading things, we'd start digging. The guys started a kind of research group of digging through different things and they were studying the history of Kaua'lana-Napua. And I mean it's just kind of one thing led to another.

Mostly it was our curiosity about our history, about where we come from, who we are. And then finding the genealogy of our collective great-grandmother was kind of an important step for us. Because we read about her, our tutu was Alusi Kapohai'ali'i o Kamamalu. Her, in 1896, the Mo'oku Auhau'ali'i were printed in the Hawaiian language newspapers by law. So I look at this genealogy.

Which was published in the Kamakainana newspaper in 1896. It starts in the 1400s under Liloa, King Liloa. And it goes all the way from Liloa to my tutu's father, my tutu's uncle, and my tutu's auntie. And then I found my dad's genealogy in the same newspaper.

And I found that throughout the year of 1896, The Kamakainana newspaper was printing these articles on genealogy and it was titled Mo'oku Au Hawali'i, which is genealogy of nobility. And I was shocked. I was like, nobility? And I quickly began to remember my tutu's stories about Prince Kuhio, about how she was treated.

She would have to eat first. I mean all these stories started to come out. January 14th when Lili'u went to prorogue the legislature, in courtesy of Elke's memoirs, he writes about our Tutu Lucy going with her across to Oli'olanihale and getting out of the carriage and she went in front of Lili'u and was her chanter and chanted her up the steps of the of the Oli'olanihale before she prorogued the legislature, before she prorogued them to introduce her new constitution.

So I mean that it was hitting you know that touched us and then we started to study the history of what that meant what you know the whole event was about and and it just kind of it just kept going and we just kept reading and studying and searching. But when we began to realize just who our families were we had to take steps to continue where they left off and that was our kuleana. So we're not only cousins and family, but we knew that we're about to embark on something that's really big and each of us, we needed to cover each other's back. And if there's anyone that I could trust would be my two cousins.

Council of Regency was started according to Article 33 of the Constitution of 1864. In similar fashion to the Belgian Council of Regency, which was established when Belgium was in exile, the Hawaiian Council of Regency was established the same way under our laws. The tricky thing here is you can study our laws, you can study the legislative record, you can study the House of Noble reports, you can study a lot of things about our country, but nowhere did anyone ever come up with a plan. For if they steal our country, this is how you get it back.

There is no master plan. So, driven by our determination and our dedication to right the wrong of our ancestors, I mean, really, basically, that's what it comes down to. You know, and for once and for all, to address the injustices against our country, our Queen.

And our kingdom. Yeah, but we had a strategic plan back then. Now mind you, this was back in 1996. Basically three phases. And this is where my military comes out. You don't enter, you don't engage anything without a plan.

So phase one, verification of the Hawaiian kingdom as an independent state. We needed an outside entity to verify Hawaii's existence. Not we saying it exists.

We needed verification from outside. Once we get verification, it moves to phase two, exposure of Hawaiian statehood within the framework of international law and the law of occupation as it affects the realm of politics and economics at both the international and domestic level. And then it would naturally move to phase three, restoration of the Hawaiian government, Hawaiian kingdom sorry, as an independent state and subject of international law where the occupation will eventually come to an end. So when the Council of Regency comes to the forefront, they become targets. I've always been a target from day one.

A lot of people thought it was just me. The army of one. There are many people behind me that I actually sought to protect. Right now the Counselor Agency is coming out front and center.

It has to. It has a duty and obligation to address the violations. And that is where we are right now. So that's how I came to realizing Hawaii's occupied. I didn't learn it from a professor.

I didn't learn it from taking a class. I learned it from my experience at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, going through officers advanced course as a captain during the first Gulf War and receiving real life intel coming in. It was only until 1992 when I started to look up my genealogy, because my tutu asked me, I need to know my genealogy, because then she would, she said I would know who I am and what I need to do.

is when I started to uncover these things and that's when I started to realize, wow, the parallels. From what happened with Iraq and Kuwait to Hawaii and the United States was undeniable. An independent state has what is called a government.

Those two are not synonymous. A country is separate from its government, and a government is separate from its country. Because during international relations between countries, governments get overthrown when they're at war. International law regulates war. That's why it's regulated by the Hague and Geneva Conventions.

and what is called international humanitarian law. But the overthrow of the Kuwaiti government back in 1990 did not mean the Kuwait country ceased to exist. It still existed, and we knew that.

We called that occupation, and that Iraq was supposed to have been administering Kuwaiti law until they get a treaty of peace. Annexation of Kuwait did not terminate Iraq's liability or responsibility. Well, that same situation happened to Hawaii. So Hawaii's sovereignty was recognized in 1843, November 28th.

International law discerns between a country and a government because within international law, they have wars. And the objective of a war is to overthrow the government and enter into a treaty of surrender, ultimately entering into a treaty of peace. That's what happened in Hawaii.

The government was overthrown, not the country. So how does a country... become a part of another country.

Well, for one, you need a government there to enter into a treaty transferring Hawaii to the United States. We don't have that. The United States overthrew our government. So instead, what the United States did in 1898 was instead of acquiring Hawaii legally by a treaty, they passed a law called a Joint Resolution of Annexation, an agreement between the House and the Senate, which was then signed into law by President McKinley. In 1898, the United States could no more annex Hawaii, a country, by passing a law than it could pass a law today annexing France.

That's why we've been occupied. So what does the United States Supreme Court say about U.S. laws? It says neither the Constitution nor the laws passed in pursuance of it, referring to the federal Constitution and the federal statutes, have any force in foreign countries.

They don't have any force in a foreign country because of that country's independence. See how important that independence is. And then it goes on to say, the Supreme Court, and operations of the nation in such territory must be governed by treaties, international understandings and compacts, and the principles of international law.

My doctoral dissertation focused on international law. That was the area. So you might say we've been unknowingly trying to explain a football game using baseball rules.

I'm bringing in football rules. In 1999, the Council of Regency, as a result of its exposure of Hawaii's occupation, will be named in a complaint alleging that the Council of Regency is liable for... Allowing the unlawful imposition of American laws imposed in Hawaii.

And this was done on behalf of Lance Paul Larson, who was represented by an attorney, Ninia Parks. What people may overlook is that Lance Larson's rights, and we have conceded that, were violated. He was thrown in jail. He was incarcerated. And seven of those days, seven of those 30 days, he was in solitary confinement.

That's a real issue for Lance Larson. People may speak about it lightly. But that wasn't them in that jail. The Larson case in 1999 provided a platform through which the acting council of regency could put forward this history of the Hawaiian kingdom and put forward this idea that it continues to exist today.

That's a moment within the Larson case that the arbitrators have to come to this idea that if it existed as an independent. State in the 19th century, right? And if we're missing the mechanism that eliminated or abolished that international character, then what is the status of Hawaii today?

The United States of America could have entered the Larson v. Hawaiian Kingdom case, brought their argument for why Hawaii is the 50th state and not an occupied country, and that proceeding would have never happened. For whatever reason, America chose not to do that. That left the door open for the proceeding to continue, right? But they could have falsified it. America could have said, no, you're the 50th state, we got you by joint resolution of annexation in 1898, and a joint resolution, record scratch.

Right? No, sorry, joint resolution's not a treaty. Oh, now we see why you didn't show up and prevent your argument, because your argument's not going to stand up.

Rather, what we find is that the United States has never expressed itself. As an occupier, who would? They would never admit to occupation.

But yet, to admit to occupation is in a sense to admit to the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom as an independent state. There was also a link to the Permanent Court of Arbitration's case repository where it showed a case titled Lance Larson versus the Hawaiian Kingdom. And it was an active case on their case repository, which really proved that the Hawaiian Kingdom does continue to exist.

And from what I understood, the acting Council of Regency is what brought that case to the Permanent Court of Arbitration. More so than what happened at the Permanent Court of Arbitration was the information that was presented. The history that was presented by Dr. Tsai and the council was, how can I say, not only enlightening but very much compelling.

I mean, the documents, many of the documents that he resourced and sourced spoke for themselves. And it, in my mind and in my analysis, presented a truth that could not be disputed. The people have a hard, hard time to accept the truth. I run into this constantly.

I introduce myself, then we start a discussion, then I tell them what we now know. Their eyes become large, they begin to smile incredulously. And then, once you mention the court case in The Hague, things change. They begin to take it seriously. Just the fact that we are in the permanent court of arbitration, in the Peace Palace, in The Hague, and we are, our country's history is on record, now, forever, in perpetuity.

Anybody can pull this up anytime after this. On the websites, through the libraries, we have realized our goal. So in return from The Hague, we knew that we had to address denationalization.

In 1906, there was a policy that was issued by the Board of Education of the Territory of Hawaii, and it was called Program for Patriotic Exercises to be used throughout the schools. This policy basically embarked on denationalizing Hawaii's people through Americanization. In 1907, Harper's Weekly Magazine published an article on this brainwashing and they visited three schools, Kaiulani Public School grades one through eight, Ka'ahumanu Public School and Honolulu High School before the name was changed to President William McKinley High School in 1911. And here at the command of the principal this picture shows the 714 school children saluting and the caption says what they say at the command of the principal.

We give our heads and our hearts to God and our country. One country, one language, one flag. This scene shows a salute to the American flag which flies in the grounds of the K'iulani Public School which has many Japanese pupils. The drill is constantly held as a means of inculcating patriotism in the hearts of the children. That term, inculcate, is brainwashing through repetition.

That's the definition of inculcate. Now, when I first saw this... With my experience in the military, I'm saying we go to war against these kind of guys. I could not believe that was in Hawaii. It was so deeply seeded in our society and the world that we had to address it head on.

And we felt that the way we could address it head on was at the university, was through academic research to falsify this narrative. And that's what we embarked on. When Keanu had returned back from The Hague, from the Netherlands, one of his motivations after that particular experience was to come back and engage in scholarship and rigorous research that furthered this history of the Hawaiian Kingdom in the 19th century and which furthered An investigation of some of those implications today, right?

Yes, I think Keanu's scrappy background, and if you know him personally, I think he would also classify himself as a Karl Popper guy. Karl Popper's falsification, right? In science, the whole point of science is to falsify.

And that background of... Hey, let's bring this to the table and can you falsify it? Right.

So here he was. Let's bring this information to the university and let's see who can poke holes in it. Right. And that scrappy background gave him the confidence to not be afraid to engage in a fight. And that notion of falsification.

Hey, can you prove it wrong if you can't? Step two. Can you prove that wrong?

Nope. Step three. Dr. Keanu Tsai's scholarship is sterling. He is really the expert here on international law.

He dots all the I's. And I really admire him greatly. And we learned so much from him.

And it's so crystal clear what the real situation is really like. Also he has a statesman-like quality. I met him in many situations.

For instance in 2013 we had a panel discussion at the University of Zurich. There were seven Swiss ambassadors in the room. The question was, is Hawaii the 50th state or a Polynesian kingdom?

And all seven ambassadors reached the conclusion it is indeed still an independent country. And everybody was impressed by Kea'ana's statesman-like presentation. So where I went into the University of Hawai'i, to expose it through the Academic lens or the academic venue.

Kaui, she took the route to expose through archival records, historical records, and newspapers. Upon returning from the Permanent Court of Arbitration, we had a meeting and we came up with a plan, a plan of action. And in that plan, Keanu would register at the University of Hawaii, continue his masters and then get his PhD. I was offered a position to take on the Hawaiian Language Newspaper Project.

I met Kau'i in 2002-2003. She was the head, she was the director of a project called Hoʻolaupai. At the time they just found out about OCR programs, optical character recognition programs. They would take scans, high resolution scans of the newspapers, Hawaiian language newspapers, run it through these programs.

The program would try and pick up what was on the page. There's a handful of us who are Hawaiian language people at the time, Hawaiian language majors in college, and our job was to go through, look at what the OCR program was picking up, and then manually correct those to what we saw on the page. So Kaui was the director of that, and I was one of the limahan. I mean, I could detail it.

But it just runs into like a day-to-day run-up. Then there's books, and then there's the newspaper, and then there's the newspaper project, and then it's searchable newspapers, and then it moves into... Now we're starting to get translations that are up and realizing that it won't matter how much we...

know if it's just within the language community, how do you get that out? Coming back from the permanent court of arbitration, one of the main topics was how do you educate people to even know that all of this history exists? So that drive.

I have links right into this move of new resources being available. We make a huge paradigm shift in the language work that I was doing. It's the whole thing about, it's not about language.

It's about knowledge. And that was a piece of what was happening. At the time it shifted all of our boats to a sort of a new course.

We still, language is still really, really critical. But it's the knowledge that's contained there that becomes the valuable tool. Hawaii has, if I'm not mistaken, Hawaii has the biggest, the largest repository of indigenous language written resource and that's in the form of all of these newspapers. It was a national thing at the time. People from all over the nation would contribute to it and it was a running thing.

People would, you know, there would be back and forth in the newspaper. There would be news of the day, news of away, news from afar, from other continents, news of wars. There were stories, epics, Hawaiian epics.

There were translated epics from away. Ivanhole, stories like that, all translated into Hawaiian. Everything was in Hawaiian in the newspapers.

But that repository is what? At the time, before 2002, 2003, people knew that there are Hawaiian English newspapers. We were looking at them off of microfilms, but it was so slow because that was the access that we had was through microfilms and microfilm readers. And then once the digitization started to happen, then everything ramped up. Between 2002, 2003 till now, the access to it has blown up.

I knew really well black and white of our history. I knew that especially the legal and political history. I knew that really well, right?

And so I take this job and now in my hands are 114 years of our people's story, written predominantly by our own people, as they were happening, as it unfolded, cause and effect. of it, how this one reacted to that, how, you know, and so the black and white understanding of history that I had, it filled with a depth, a breadth, and a color that I just, you know, it still, today, it still unfolds in front of me every day, every, you know, a new topic, a new time, a new period. It's informed.

It doesn't change my understanding of the history that we knew, but it certainly informs it fuller. deeper and with more color than we get to cover in the legal, you know, running through of history. It's an amazing, it's an epic all in itself, just the history as it happened alone.

Nobody has to, you know, add or embellish it. It's an amazing history. We have a lot to be proud of. We have a lot, you know, to learn from. But it's a big and good and fabulous history.

And it makes me wonder every day the more why don't our people understand? Why is it that the majority of our people don't understand what happened? They don't connect.

It's about identity also. If you don't understand where you came from, there's an old saying, The past is the beacon that will guide us to the future. If you don't know the past, if you don't understand it, or if you're ashamed of it, or if it's been belittled so you don't want to claim it, then your future is unsure and you're always, you know...

The papers help bring that to light. The papers help us know in a very real and human way how our people dealt with what what came, you know, whether it was diseases, whether it was political infiltrations, and you know it... It really shows us a more human look to how everything happened and it's empowering. So I've spent the last 16, 17 years, 17 years working in the newspapers and have done amazing, amazing projects, amazing things have come out of it.

My children have grown up knowing the newspapers. It's second nature to my kids to... Dig into a paper, they think of something, something, they have a question, they go right in.

You know, so it's an access point that is available to us today that was never there before. And it's good work. I like it. So the Council of Regency, in exposing Hawaii's occupation, was not just limiting itself to the academic world.

It was also in the courts. I appointed Attorney General for the Council of Regency in about 2013. So I had argued motions to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction in both criminal, civil, as well as administrative proceedings for about a year or two years before that time. Again, we were questioning the very authority of the courts because they cannot prove, in fact, They cannot prove that this is the United States, but in fact it's the Hawaiian Kingdom.

And what's interesting in arguing these motions is that in not one instance did the opposition provide any evidence to prove that I was wrong in my argument. In fact, what they did for the most part was not even present any argument at all and simply rely on the courts to deny the motions to dismiss. There are instances where, very few instances, but few...

A few instances where the courts actually engaged in dialogue with me about the arguments that I made. And in one particular instance the judge in the case, and it is on transcript, we did have it on transcript, essentially said in court that he couldn't agree with my motion because the do-so would be committing suicide. It would like to be the atomic bomb for the judiciary. So he said I can't do that because that means that everything that we have here is invalid. I have not had one instance in court where there's been any opposition to either the factual, the legal, or historical arguments that we made concerning the legal status of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

This information and education also inspired the National Lawyers Guild, its international committee to establish the Hawaiian Kingdom Subcommittee. And the Hawaiian Kingdom Subcommittee, its purpose is to provide support and advice for those who are seeking the United States to comply with the law of occupation. The Guild has always been at the forefront of civil rights in the United States.

The National Lawyers Guild has now formed a subcommittee of the International Committee, Hawaiian Kingdom Subcommittee. I'm a member. Its task, its mission, is to investigate and report on the situation in the American occupied Hawaiian Islands that will be taking place here in the summer and fall of 2019. I'll be part of it. So the work that we've done at the University of Hawaii Through education had a direct effect on the National Education Association, the largest union in the United States of American school teachers and faculty and staff.

They published three articles on Hawaii's status as an independent state, the illegal occupation and the harmful effects that it has had on the Hawaiian people. As I said in my earlier statement, my earliest statement when I began, I said as more information becomes available to the people. as they become more aware. In fact, many people today still are not aware of the fact that there is no treaty of annexation. Most people, because of propaganda, have always believed that the United States annexed Hawaii by way of treaty of annexation.

When they become aware that there wasn't a treaty of annexation, people's minds change. And the reason why I say it's a fair question is that as information becomes available to our community, not only the Hawaiian community, but our community at large, I think more people start to question. The authority, the very validity of state enactments.

And I think, and I would have to say, John and I, I'm going to continue to massage Governor Wahe'e because of course he's a great spokesperson, a great representative. So of course I'm always trying to massage him to start to talk about the occupation because I think that's where I need to lead him. It's also starting to seep into local government, right, where local representatives, right, state officials.

We're also starting to see the significance of this history and the profound implications that it has today. If public officials are starting to have this conversation, this language, again, another indicator of how important research and education has been in this process. We talked about it being too close to the tree that you can't see the forest.

We have a hundred years of indoctrination here. pounded, pounded and programmed into believing certain things. These are our credos, it's our edicts, it's how we walk, it's how we breathe, it's how we think. When something comes along and really tries to crumble or destroy everything you've been taught from a child, that's what makes it hard and you're gonna defend what you thought was once fact, you're gonna defend it to the end, you know, and that's why the fight is so hard here. I'm pretty confident that what we've done to date, you know, It lives up to the dignity of our ancestors, which is what's pushing us to do everything that we're doing right now.

The second day we were here, we had a meeting with Phyllis. So, Umi, myself, and Keanu, we went to meet Phyllis. And she comes to the door, and you know how imposing that place is. It's just, you know, you go, oh God, it's here, we're here, oh my goodness. But she comes up this step, and she had her assistant with us, and she turns to him and says, Dane, this is the Hawaiian Kingdom.

Um, Part of my job as the acting minister of finance has been to handle the finances of the country. From the time we started, there'd been no finances of this country because we didn't have anything to start with. We were, it's really a name only. We were, you know, so we do sign jobs, we'd get little contracts, we'd do little things to make money to file this, to do this, to get this, or we'd be working, get some money.

Okay, let's go file this. Oh, let's go buy these books. You know, it's just the way it's been all these years.

Until 2014, when we discussed, when we... Through the years, there have been many people, organizations, individuals who have approached us and wanted to give us money, wanted to make a donation. But we're not an American 501c3.

We can't take donations. You certainly can't get a write-off for giving us money. So we couldn't figure out a way to take the money in. We couldn't, and we needed the help. To have all these cases in the world court, you know.

All the travel that it takes, counter-traveling internationally, to meet with experts, to get their help, to get justice for our country, it's expensive. And we finagle and finagle and we figure it out. But in 2014, we discovered, we did some research and discovered that bonds, as the acting government, we could issue bonds with repayment.

You know, it all has conditions. And that you can buy bonds if justice for your country is important. If it's more than just a passing fancy.

So we found the example of Ireland, the Irish Republic, in their fight for their independence from Great Britain in the early 1900s. They traveled to America and they were selling Irish bonds to Irish Americans. to support the revolution back home. And on these bonds that were issued by the Irish Republic was a conditional redemption.

It said that the bond can be redeemed at face value and interest accrued one year after Ireland is recognized as an independent state. And that gave us an idea. Not that we are in the same position of becoming an independent state.

We are an independent state. But it did show us there's a condition that was used in a bond for the redemption. So what we came up with, logic dictated, that Hawaiian Kingdom bonds can be redeemed five years after the occupation has come to an end and where the Hawaiian government is in complete control of its territory. So by that time, the Hawaiian government would have reparations. For over a hundred years of violations of international law, it would be able to collect revenues through taxation just as a normal government would.

We would have more than enough money to pay back the loans. This concept of the people helping their country to seek justice is not a new concept. Everybody is very familiar with the Hau'i Aloha ʻAina.

And the Ku'ei petitions that actually was successful in stopping the annexation of Hawaii. On September 6, 1897, James Kaulea, president of the Hui Aloha'ina, the Hawaiian Patriotic League, gave a stirring speech before thousands at Palace Square in Honolulu. He said agreeing to annexation was like agreeing to being buried alive.

He asserted that a mass refusal by the people could prevent annexation. Let us take up the honorable struggle. Do not be afraid. Be steadfast in aloha for your land and be united in thought. Protest forever the annexation of Hawaii until the very last patriot lives.

A petition to the President, Congress and people of the United States, otherwise known as the Monster Petition, was read and approved at this rally, asking that no further steps be taken toward the ratification of the treaty. There is no annexation. There's a joint resolution in 1898, and that's all that happened.

Because of our people. Because the Queen and her people stopped it through the signature petition. Through the efforts of many Hawaiian patriots. But...

Partly from doing the newspapers, right, I have at my fingertips, as is now available to everybody, access to the 114 years of Hawaiian language. So if you look through the articles of from in Kealoha'aina newspaper of the signature petitions as they went out and they reported in the paper every time they met in every community there was a Hui aloha'aina branch there was and they have monthly meetings and then they put it in the paper and talk about it. They didn't just go out and collect signatures.

That wasn't the only thing they were collecting. They were collecting lulukala. They were collecting the pennies of their people to help their queen and their country.

And they won. And they were successful from the pennies of their people. There'd be stories of Mrs. Kauhi and Hana giving, you know, 10 cents is what she could give. And somebody else gave a dollar. And somebody else gave 50 cents.

And all of that collectively over the months that they were collecting it was put together and sent the commission out to Washington DC to present this on the floor of the US Congress. You know, so it's not a new concept. As a people, we've always helped for our country, and that's all this is.

It's just another means of helping our country. It had to take certain steps to be made to get the council to a point where we now are comfortable and capable of now engaging that specific issue. How do we address the unlawful imposition of American law with the limited resources and the manpower that we have? That is when we had to become experts in international law and international relations and that eventually is what formed the Royal Commission of Inquiry. But accountability also is still coming as well.

The Royal Commission of Inquiry was established, this is part of the recap of what we covered on May 15th, and this Commission of Inquiry, its function is to investigate the consequences of the belligerent occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom by the United States since 1893. The purpose shall be to investigate the consequences of the United States'belligerent occupation, including with regard to international law, humanitarian law, and human rights, and the allegations of war crimes committed. In that context, under Article 3, the composition of the Royal Commission shall be decided by the head, which is myself, and shall be comprised of recognized experts in various fields, international law, humanitarian law, human rights law, self-determination, legal and political history. I can assure you that this Commission is all European, and they are all renowned experts. In their areas who have all committed to being a part of this commission of inquiry and the chair can confirm that they have been convened.

Now the different war crimes that's going to be under investigation by this commission of inquiry is one, denationalization, pillaging, unlawful appropriation of property. Depriving a protected person of fair and regular trial, destruction of property, unlawful confinement of a protected person, removing protected persons from the country, and involuntary conscription into the United States Armed Forces, which is the draft. That's actually all illegal.

Everyone in Hawaii is a Lance Larson. Everyone, everyone has been subjected to unlawful imposition of American laws. Not just lands.

And it's not dependent upon your nationality or citizenship. Everyone in Hawaii. And under international law they're called protected persons and they have rights.

So that the Council of Regency can represent a nation that is in exile at the international level. And I look forward to their royal commission of inquiry. If we can accept the fact that there still is a kingdom of Hawaii and that it was never annexed, that there was occupation and there still is occupation, then how do we deal with that?

And I was really impressed that he followed through with what he told us in the May 15th meeting. with the Council of Regents, or Regency, and created the reconciliation or recognition of our current government. Now, how do we bring the state of Hawaii into a position of being an administration recognizable under international law?

What I'm pointing out to you folks here. There is a narrative that I'm explaining through the law. I'm just making it simple, but it's all law-based. It's all based on the principle of rule of law and compliance, given a dire situation. So, governments do have an inherent right to recognize foreign governments.

And in 2014, a proclamation was done by the Council of Regency. Recognizing all existing laws in Hawaii as the provisional laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom but with the condition and proviso that they do not run contrary to the letter spirit and intent of Hawaiian Kingdom law. So it was done in a sense of matters Of regulating commerce, matters of regulating relationships, of contracts, of the people themselves would be recognized.

Now what needed to follow was the state of Hawaii which is in effective control of territory, which is a condition and a requirement for them to become a military government or a government. of the occupying power to administer the laws of the occupied state, which would include the proclamation, meaning all current laws are recognized so long as they do not run contrary to Hawaiian Kingdom law, they can continue to govern. June 3rd, 2019. Now therefore, we the acting Councilor-Egency of the Hawaiian Kingdom, serving in the absence of the monarch and temporarily exercising the royal power of the kingdom, to hereby recognize the state of Hawaii and its counties, as the administration of the occupying power, whose duties and obligations are enumerated in the 1907 Hague Regulations, the 1949 Geneva Convention, and international humanitarian law. And we do hereby further proclaim that the state of Hawaii and its counties shall preserve the sovereign rights of the outstate government and protect the local population from exploitation of their persons and property, both real and personal, as well as their civil and political rights under Hawaiian Kingdom law. Now, that's just the recognition.

of an entity, right? The key is are we authorized to actually do that? We actually are and the Permanent Court of Arbitration verified that we're actually a government. So it's not like it's a self proclaiming it according to certain rules.

So the illegality in particular war crimes which are conduct or actions that have been taken, the proclamation does not legitimize it. If anything it reinforces it. Because it brings in international law because that is what the administration of the occupying power was set up as within the framework of international law not within the framework of American law which is limited to US territory. So individuals will still be held accountable no doubt. So I kind of see Hawaii Kingdom law or...

Our status as an independent, neutral nation, as giving us, you know, the lifelong residents who aren't going anywhere, the ability to have our own self determination and to, you know, clearly state what matters to us, clearly state where our sacred sites are, clearly state these things without, you know... The continental United States or the occupier, if you will, to be able to dictate what is important to us. And I think part of this movement, the movement to reconcile the kingdom of Hawaii, has to do with people feeling like, it's not just the people of Hawaiian descent or ancestry, but it's the people who are living in a...

in a place where they're basically forgotten. The people who are at the lower end of the income scale and feel like they've been forgotten by the leaders in the community. I think that's one of the other benefits is coming to a recognition.

It's not about somebody wanting to be king and saying yeah now we're all going to bow down to you. It's about this idea of a place where we all care about everybody of every stature in the community. That's what it means to me, is that there would be a focus on that.

Because like you said, that is what the rule of law is supposed to affect. It's supposed to bring equity among us. We don't have that right now. Well, I think when you look at it, I don't only look at it for Hawaiians, I think it's huge for Hawaiians. I'm a Hawaiian, I can speak from that seat, and that I would love to have agency, my own agency.

The agency of my people, I'd love to have that agency over the things that I love. I don't want to take over the world. I just want to protect what's here. And to sit here and be at the whim of outside powers, for the place that I love, for the place that my bones will go and the place that my bones came from, that's what I want to fight for.

I'd like to have agency in saying how that can continue, not just for me, but for more generations of my kids. Some people are afraid. If the military were to leave, what would happen to Hawaii? They talk about China and... All kinds of other countries, but of course, you know, as confused the world is at the moment, nonetheless you cannot just take over other countries anymore.

So we have come, not far enough, but we have come along a certain way. After all, we have the United Nations, we have the three courts, international courts in The Hague. So you cannot just march in and take over.

At every step, this information was given every opportunity for people to falsify. They couldn't. This led to master's theses, doctoral dissertations, peer review articles, law review articles. It has taken, it has come to a point where this is the normal.

Whereas before it was the lunacy and that was important for the council. Now after 19 years from returning from the Netherlands, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, we now have the ability to now move on another phase of the council of the regency. In addressing over a hundred years of occupation, providing a comprehensive report on that, and also a recommendation on how to fix the problem. And that's where we are right now. Help us end the occupation of Hawaii.

We need to end the occupation. It's plain and simple. It's really kind of simple.

That's all we're heading for. That's all we've ever headed for. And then once we do that, then our own laws come into play.

Once we end the occupation of Hawaii, then Hawaiian laws come into play. And then we've got a lot of work to do, because those laws have to be brought up to 2019. There's really a lot of work to bring it up to today. So, I mean, this is just the pregame we're in, really, you know. When we finally do get there, and I know a lot of people believe that that's what they want. That's when the real work starts.

That's when it really gets hard. Keanu was a boxer, right? He attended New Mexico on a boxing scholarship.

So this is where I like to use this metaphor. Keanu has been brilliant about if the ring is this big, this is the boxing ring, right? When you're standing here and America's standing there, you're not going to punch, you're not going to land a knockout punch from across the room, right? and America has been evading and dancing and sidestepping, not answering the question, right? You bring anything up in an American court and the political strategy that's used by the courts is to make it a quote-unquote political question.

Political question, the courts don't have to answer it, right? So they've kept dancing around not answering the question, not answering the question, and Hawaii has never gotten close enough to corner them to force them to answer the question. And that's what Keanu and the acting council and the Council of Regency have been doing is systematically making that ring smaller and smaller and smaller day by day, step by step, inch by inch.

Everybody wants the ring to be this small now, but small steps, increments, and they've been doing that incrementally. If you've been paying attention to what they've been doing, they've been making the ring smaller. Everybody wants to watch the knockout punch. Have some patience, watch the ring get smaller until America has to answer the question, right? When they have to answer the question, that's when you can knock them out.

Transcript for:Exploring the Legal Status of Hawaii

Transcript for:
Exploring the Legal Status of Hawaii