Posted by Lono on July 11, 2001 at 00:35:04:
Saturday, July 7, 2001
Native Hawaiian summit forms coalition on governance
By Jean Christensen
Associated Press
Dozens of the Native Hawaiian community's most influential leaders
gathered yesterday to establish what they vowed will be a powerful
united front in the push for federal recognition of Hawaiians.
They announced the creation of a Native Hawaiian umbrella group
modeled after a coalition that successfully pushed for passage of
landmark federal legislation benefiting Alaska natives.
Veterans of the battle for the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement
Act joined Native Hawaiian leaders and Hawaii's congressional
delegation at the Hilton Hawaiian Village for the first Native
Hawaiian-Alaska Native Summit.
Participants included Kamehameha Schools trustee Robert Kihune,
Hokule'a navigator Nainoa Thompson, Office of Hawaiian Affairs
Chairwoman Haunani Apoliona, Department of Hawaiian Home Lands
Chairman Ray Soon and former Hawai'i Supreme Court Justice Robert
Klein.
U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawai'i, called the summit 'the single
most important meeting of the contemporary period in which the final
resolution of Native Hawaiian governance is taking place.'
U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink, D-Hawai'i, said the gathering was an 'awesome beginning.'
In 1971, Congress passed and President Nixon signed the Alaska Native
Claims Settlement Act, which conveyed 44 million acres of Alaska
lands to more than 200 native villages and set up native corporations
to manage the land.
No identical legislation for Native Hawaiians is pending, but
Hawaiians have found themselves defending more than 150 federally
financed programs that benefit their community in the aftermath of
last year's U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Rice v. Cayetano, which
struck down the Hawaiians-only voting restriction for voters electing
OHA trustees.
The Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, sponsor of yesterday's
summit, was formed to help Hawaiian groups defend those programs and
ultimately achieve a form of sovereignty. Its members include
representatives of nonprofit organizations, foundations, private and
public Native Hawaiian trusts, service agencies and businesses.