Jan. 17, 1893 Hawaii Overthrow Anniversary!
Free Hawai’i!
End US Illegal Occupation
Now!
On Jan. 17, 1893, the US and European Sugar Barons, with the direct assistance of US military troops, carried out a coup — an illegal overthrow of the independent Nation of Hawaii and Queen Liliu’okalani. Six years earlier in 1887, these same business interests orchestrated “the Bayonet Constitution” that forced King David Kalakaua to give more power to these business interests, including a free trade agreement with the US, and exclusive use of Pearl Harbor to the US military. But they wanted more. They wanted total control. In 1898, Hawaii was illegally annexed to the US. Illegal Statehood, followed illegal annexation, which followed the illegal overthrow. It now has been 131 years of illegal occupation.
From the time of Hawaii’s first western contact in 1778, western diseases reduced Hawaii’s native population drastically, by over 75% in just a few decades. Lands became privatized in former missionary hands that became Big 5 private corporations, sugar, and pineapple plantations, instead of a self-sufficient ahupua’a (mauka to makai –mountain to the sea) village system. Today, instead of being 100% self-sufficient in food, Hawaii now imports over 95% of what is consumed here.
Mass tourism and over 100 US military installations are the new plantations. Former Sugar barons still control a lot of land in Hawaii. But there are new Hi-tech barons with net worth in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The likes of Jeff Bezos ($177B) of Amazon, Mark Zuckerberg ($128B) of Facebook, Larry Ellison ($123B) of Oracle software company, and Michael Dell ($78B) of Dell computers, all have palatial vacation estates here in Hawaii. Ellison owns over 98% of the island of Lanai. Zuckerberg besides his mansions and large land holdings has an underground 5000 square foot doomsday bunker on Kauai, Bezos has a $78 million estate on Maui, and Dell has a multimillion-dollar place in Kukio, the vacation land of the 1/10 of the 1% just north of Kailua-Kona on Hawaii Island. Meanwhile, native Hawaiians have been priced out of Hawaii, their homeland. More Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) now live in the Las Vegas and the LA area than in Hawaii. Shameful! Justice demands fundamental change and a restored independent Hawaii nation, and ahupua’a village homeland for Kanaka Maoli.
In 1993 President Bill Clinton signed an apology bill for the illegal overthrow of Hawaii. But an apology is not enough.
No Lie Can Live Forever! Free Hawai’i Now!
Malu ‘Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action
P.O. Box 489 Ola’a (Kurtistown), Hawai’i 96760
Phone (808) 966-7622 Email ja@malu-aina.org to receive our posts.
For more information see https:malu-aina.org
January 17, 2024
