His Majesty Edmund K. Silva, Jr.

Nou Ke Akua Ke Aupuni O Hawaii

July 22, 2015

Trustees
Office of Hawaiian Affairs
711 Kapiolani Blvd., Suite 500
Honolulu, Hawaii 96813
Subject: For trust not him that hath once broken faith William Shakespeare
Aloha Kakou,
As your relevance fades away, it is perhaps useful to take one last look at your agency, its
dysfunction, and its legacy.
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs never really had a chance to be a true voice for the Hawaiian people.
As a State agency working for the occupying power, OHA could not challenge the fundamental
injustice of the overthrow and call for restoration of our nation.
To the contrary, you promoted and continue to promote schemes that would frustrate the
restoration of the Kingdom. In doing so, you are like a child who covers her eyes and pretends no
one can see her.
You act blind to the fact that the Kingdom had subjects from a wide divergence of origins, not just
people of Hawaiian ancestry. In the nation-within-a-nation, those of non-Hawaiian ancestry get
nothing.
You pretend to set up an independent body that will objectively pursue nation building. Yet the
only ones who can participate in the process are those who signed up on the various rolls you
created while you were promoting the nation-within-a-nation.

Ka Puuhonua O Na Wahi Pana O Hawaii Nei

kingdomofhawaii.info
hmkingdomofhawaii@gmail.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bilateral_treaties_signed_by_the_Kingdom_of_Hawaii
The United Nations Charter provides the rest of the authority to do it. (An autonomous independent sovereign nation-state contemplated
under Article 1 of the 1933 Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States requiring the state as a person of international law
possessing the four qualifications of (a) a permanent population, (b) a defined territory, c) government;
and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.)

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You thereby restricted participation in this latest effort to those willing to sign up with an
organization that has been trying to destroy the Kingdom for decades. In doing so, you
compromised the integrity of the new organization before its work ever began. Certainly, those
who did not support your reservation model did not bother signing up for your latest version of
that proposal.
You ignore the fact that the United States Supreme Court treats Hawaiians as a race. That Court
struck down the requirement that voters who elected OHA trustees be of Hawaiian descent because
that electorate was racially discriminatory.
Now you would have everyone believe that a process that involves only a limited number of people
of one race is going to be found constitutional. That limited group will be allowed to elect a body
to make recommendations on whether to set up a nation-within-a-nation composed of one race
that will be given public lands as their exclusive jurisdiction (or at least semi-autonomous
jurisdiction).
Since people who support restoration of the Kingdom would never have signed up on your rolls, the
recommendation that will come from the convention is easy to predict.
Those who thrive on challenging anything providing compensation at all to Hawaiians (nationality)
for the illegal overthrow of their government are like sharks waiting for your racially
discriminatory nation to try claiming public lands. At a minimum, they will tie you up in the courts
for years. At worst, the occupying courts will rule the creation of the race-based nation
unconstitutional. That you would set up a process with such an expected outcome is one measure
of how your agency lacks the freedom to do what is right, so it pursues what is wrong in order to at
least appear relevant.
Too many years of pursuing policies contrary to the best interests of the people have corrupted
your agency to the point that it has even abandoned the people trying to protect Mauna a Wkea.
First, on July 30, 2009, OHA passed a resolution supporting the construction of the Thirty Meter
Telescope on the sacred mountain despite numerous objections raised by your staff and others.
Then when the uprising took place this year, OHA rescinded that support so as not to appear to be
totally a slave to the State masters.

Ka Puuhonua O Na Wahi Pana O Hawaii Nei

Nou Ke Akua Ke Aupuni O Hawaii
kingdomofhawaii.info
hmkingdomofhawaii@gmail.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bilateral_treaties_signed_by_the_Kingdom_of_Hawaii
The United Nations Charter provides the rest of the authority to do it. An autonomous independent sovereign nation-state contemplated under
Article 1 of the 1933 Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States requiring the state as a person of international law possessing the
four qualifications of (a) a permanent population, (b) a defined territory, c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other
states.

Page 3

Yet OHA could not bring itself to oppose the project. You chose to be more irrelevant than you
already were.
The DLNR sought to enact new rules allowing closure of large areas where hunting takes place. In
testimony filed, OHA said such closures could severely impact constitutionally-protected Native
Hawaiian traditional and customary rights, the perpetuation of Native Hawaiian cultural values, as
well as a major means of providing food for Native Hawaiian families and communities.
Subsequent to the DLNR adopting the rules, OHAs attorney told the Trustees that the rules are
unconstitutional. Yet OHA did nothing to challenge the rules legally.
Of course such a challenge might well have ended up proving that the rules have nothing to do with
hunting and everything to do with shutting down opposition to the TMT. OHA could not risk that
outcome, given its current position of neutrality regarding the desecration of the sacred Mountain.
How long will you participate in the charade that OHA speaks for the Hawaiian people. What use is
a voice that goes silent when the need is critical?
In closing
Historical Note:
Our Kupunas were divinely guided to organize the Office of Hawaiian Affairs in the 1970s, to right
past wrongs. In 1978, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs became a reality; the people were jubilant, filled
with hope that a voice of the people could be heard. My parents and tutu were part of this campaign
that helped create OHA. They along with many others had high hopes for our future as Kanaka
Maolis that one day, we would emerge a Free, independent Nation.
As trustees, you held the trust of the people in every aspect of Common law, compassion, intelligence,
good-will, integrity, truth and honor. A trustee's duties to the trust beneficiaries (Kanaka Maoli
Hawaiian of blood) are one of the law's highest duties in improving the well-being of Native Hawaiians
throughout the Hawaiian Islands Archipelago.
Unfortunately, what was created in love for the people became a catalyst to destroy the very fabric of
our cultural and traditional beliefs held sacred in the hearts of us all. Alii Nui Mi Kelii

Ka Puuhonua O Na Wahi Pana O Hawaii Nei

Nou Ke Akua Ke Aupuni O Hawaii
kingdomofhawaii.info
hmkingdomofhawaii@gmail.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bilateral_treaties_signed_by_the_Kingdom_of_Hawaii
The United Nations Charter provides the rest of the authority to do it. An autonomous independent sovereign nation-state contemplated under
Article 1 of the 1933 Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States requiring the state as a person of international law possessing the
four qualifications of (a) a permanent population, (b) a defined territory, c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other
states.

Page 4

`lelo No `eau Aunty Mary Kawena Pukui

Ku ke` i ka hale o Kaup.
The lava is heaped at the house of Kaup.
A saying from the legend of Pmano.
Pmano shouted this as his uncle Waip was trying to make him drunk with `awa before killing
him.
The saying denotes great distress.

Ua Mau ke Ea o ka Aina i ka Pono,

Edmund K. Silva, Jr.

Alii Nui Mi
cc:

Na Kupuna Council O Hawaii Nei ame Moku

Alii Manao Nui Lanny Sinkin
Chief Justice Kingdom Supreme Court
Minister of Foreign Affairs

Ka Puuhonua O Na Wahi Pana O Hawaii Nei

Nou Ke Akua Ke Aupuni O Hawaii
kingdomofhawaii.info
hmkingdomofhawaii@gmail.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bilateral_treaties_signed_by_the_Kingdom_of_Hawaii
The United Nations Charter provides the rest of the authority to do it. An autonomous independent sovereign nation-state contemplated under
Article 1 of the 1933 Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States requiring the state as a person of international law possessing the
four qualifications of (a) a permanent population, (b) a defined territory, c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other
states.