Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2014 23:40:12 +0200
Hawaii and Crimea
<http://www.opendemocracy.net/author/amit-singh> Amit Singh 17 April 2014
In 1898, Hawaii was officially annexed to the US illegally under a joint
resolution of Congress, with the US using the excuse of 'military necessity'
in the advent of the Spanish-American War.
The United States government and the United States press have been up in
arms over what they perceive to be Russia's illegal annexation and
occupation of Crimea, formally part of Ukraine.
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/03/16/statement-press-secre
tary-ukraine> .The US Press Secretary summed up the official line ,''The
United States has steadfastly supported the independence, sovereignty, and
territorial integrity of Ukraine since it declared its independence in
1991.''
The US and the EU are looking for ways to discredit the secession of Crimea
on the grounds that the
<http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/03/16/crimea-votes-in-illegal-referendum-
on-whether-to-separate-from-ukraine-and-seek-to-join-motherland-russia/>
referendum held was illegal. Whilst this is all well and good in presenting
the US as a benevolent world power, dedicated to upholding the integrity of
international law and defending the sovereignty of fellow nations, there are
clearly other factors at play apart from the self-determination of the
Crimean people.
The use of the word sovereignty by the US government and also their
references to occupation are both interesting and hypocritical. Not only
does the US's foreign policy contradict this stance but their domestic
policy is also in contravention of their own official stance with regards to
the current occupation of the sovereign Kingdom of Hawaii,
<http://hnn.us/article/49818> which is a de facto colony of the United
States.
The US occupation of Hawaii
Whilst most people outside of the US recognize Hawaii as a state of America,
an idyllic holiday destination and the place of birth of current US
President Barack Obama, few people are fully aware of how all this happened.
According to
<http://www2.hawaii.edu/%7Ehslp/journal/vol1/Craven_Opinion_%28HJLP%29.pdf>
international law professor Mathew Craven, the Hawaiian state still exists
and thus the <http://www.opendemocracy.net/amit-singh/hawaii-and-crimea>
extensionhttp://savingsslider-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png of
US law onto Hawaii is a contravention of international law. Craven
extensively shows in his study that Hawaii fulfilled all the requisite
criteria to be regarded as a sovereign state during the nineteenth century,
citing various diplomatic agreements that the Kingdom of Hawaii had at the
time (that are technically still in existence) as well as the fact that
Britain and France declared in 1843 that Hawaii (The Sandwich Islands) was
an independent state.
Despite that, in 1898 the islands were officially annexed to the US
illegally under a joint resolution of Congress, with the US using the excuse
of 'military necessity' in the advent of the Spanish-American War. The rogue
Republic of Hawaii (that attempted a coup in 1893) accepted the
''annexation'' and Hawaii has been under US occupation ever since.
The movement to reclaim Hawaii
In 1993 the US stoked the fires of independence through issuing the 'Apology
Law' which admitted to the fact that the US illegally participated in the
seizure of the Hawaiian Kingdom back in 1893.
<http://hawaii-nation.org/rape.html> The joint resolution "acknowledges that
the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii occurred with the active
participation of agents and citizens of the United States and further
acknowledges that the Native Hawaiian people never directly relinquished to
the United States their claims to their inherent sovereignty as a people
over their national lands, either through the Kingdom of Hawaii or through a
plebiscite or referendum." This clearly indicated an acceptance of
wrongdoing on the US' part and furthered claims for Hawaiian independence,
by accepting the fact that Hawaii was a sovereign state prior to the illegal
annexation. That being said, the US have never built on this apology or
assisted attempts to reconcile past wrongs through consideration of ending
the occupation.
The movement have been going down a legal route in an attempt to regain
their state recognition. In 2000 for example a case that was heard at the
Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague (the World Court) which involved
a subject of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the government of the Hawaiian Kingdom
itself.
<http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/HAWAII/leonsiu/Basis%20for%20Rest
oration.htm> In the words of Leon Sui, the Minister of Foreign Affairs for
the Kingdom of Hawaii, this 'established that both parties - the subject and
the government - had standing in an international court' essentially, the
World Court regarded the Hawaiian Kingdom to be a sovereign state under
international law, which set a precedent for wider debate on the legality of
Hawaii.
Currently, the State of Hawaii remains an administrative branch of the
United States government, rather than a means for the indigenous Hawaiian
people to gain sovereignty. The critical point is that the Kingdom of Hawaii
never ceased to exist and thus has been under occupation since the illegal
annexation that the US subsequently apologised for.
US hypocrisy
Obama has spoken about the
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/european-leaders-weigh-additional-sanct
ions-against-russia/2014/03/20/c427861e-b016-11e3-95e8-39bef8e9a48b_story.ht
ml> illegality of Russia's occupation and subsequent annexation of Crimea,
yet he, Hawaiian born, has failed to acknowledge his own hypocrisy in
ignoring the US' own illegal annexation and continued occupation of Hawaii.
The US claim they will never recognize Crimea's secession, despite the fact
that there is an argument to be made that people in Crimea do
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/opinion/how-to-punish-putin.html?referrer
=> feel closer to Moscow than Kiev, which adds some legitimacy to the case
for Crimean secession, even in spite of Vladimir Putin's heavy handed
tactics and irrespective of his motives.
The double standard seems lost on the President and on the United States
press. The media in the US are singing from the same hymn sheet in support
of the US government position and spouting anti-Putin rhetoric, without ever
picking up on the case of the Hawaiian people and the obvious breach of
their <http://www.unpo.org/article/4957> right to self-determination. Some
might of course argue that this shows some consistency, as the US clearly
seem to be
<http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2014/03/17/obama-declares-crimean-self-
determination-a-threat-to-us-national-security/> against the Crimean right
to self-determination, whilst also being against the right to
self-determination of the Hawaiian people. This is despite the fact that
article I of the UN Charter notes that the purpose of the UN is to 'develop
friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal
rights and self-determination of peoples' something alluded to by
<http://rt.com/usa/ron-paul-crimea-secedes-610/> former Republican
Representative for Texas, Ron Paul.
What is clear is that the USA are not concerned with the sovereignty of
fellow nations, nor are they fussed about extending the right to
self-determination to people of all over the globe. In the interim period
there needs to be more attention given to the occupation of the Hawaiian
people and the failure of the US to respond in the light of the 1993
apology.
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