End Pohakuloa Training Area & War on Earth
The United States Army is taking public comments through June 7, 2024 on the training ground they occupy on sovereign Hawaiian lands:
Pohakuloa Training Area Draft EIS Public Meetings May 6 & 7, 2024:
https://www.youtube.com/live/SmMsqp4Nf88?si=AH5Ty-_y-D3BrRPI
https://www.youtube.com/live/iatfNZijWyg?si=XFzrIHs2Rlk15b1z
“Akamai” by Moanike’ala Akaka
Editorial in her paper, Aloha ‘Aina, vol. 2, no. 4, Spring 2012, pp. 1-3
Akamai (smart) Hawaiian Islanders should be alarmed at the horrendous military build-up taking place on our Island with the expansion of the Pohakuloa Training Area. July of last year Governor Abercrombie, like a puppet on the Pentagon’s string, in a speech to the Kon0Kohala Chamber of commerce said that “PTA will be the center for training in the Pacific for the 20st century”! The governor spoke of the possibility of building housing for military families, in West Hawai’i who will relocate from Okinawa and Guam. (Meanwhile we locals have difficulty finding affordable housing for ourselves.) What the governor doesn’t say is that this relocation from Okinawa is because these troops are being “kicked out of Okinawa;” the Okinawan people do not want them there anymore because of social problems of years past created by the U.S. Military presence, including numerous assaults against Okinawan women. Understandably, there has been a movement to reduce U.S. occupation on that island. The Japanese government has also refused to have the MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft helicopter because it is “too dangerous.” It is a fact that after several crashes, it was back to the drawing board where the so-called new and improved Osprey has emerged and will be used widely in Hawai’i.
Twenty-four of these Osprey and 24 Cobra helicopters will be based at Mokapu, Kane’ohe on O’ahu and will be in training throughout these islands, but mainly at Pohakuloa, (which doesn’t mena they wont’ train on Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa), ‘Upolu Point, North Kohala near Mo’okini Heiau, as well as Kalaupapa on Moloka’I will also be used, including Nohili, Kaua’i, and Maui
The programmatic Agreement for the Osprey helicopter is a part of the Section 106 Review Process of the national Historic Preservation Act (HPA) and requires Federal agencies, including the military, to take into account the effects of their undertakings on historic properties. However, only a few lines of the seventeen pages of that document even refer to Pohakuloa, “Pohakuloa Training Area (PTA) main parcel has not been fully evaluated and may require additional archaeological survey to determine if historic properties are present within the APE (Area of Potential Effect) and unanticipated surveys may also be required.” This programmatic Agreement also states that “relating to historic properties when previously unanticipated and unidentified as historic properties, they must stop work in the vicinity of the discovery and apply for National Register eligibility.”
If you recall, in our last issue of AAEE, my Editor’s column referred to the fact that the Cultural-Monitor’s Reports on Pohakuloa have not been passed onto the Office of Hawaiian Affairs by the Army, and important obligation of the U.S. Military to the Hawaiian Community and OHA. Numerous letters were sent to the army by OHA’s Staff requesting these absent reports. These Cultural Monitors are our “eyes and ears” at Pohakuloa, there to protect our historical and cultural legacy from the continuous desecration and destruction of our ‘aina and history by the U.S. Military forces in their quest for unlimited military training and expansion in this area.
One eights of this island, the size of four islands of Kaho’olawe, encompasses the Pohakuloa Training Area, (PTA). At the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) hearing on this training expansion proposal in early November of last year, in testimony, we of AAEE raised the issue of missing reports to Lieutenant Colonel Chris Niles, who is in charge of Pohakuloa. It was reported that the colonel apologized for the reports not being passed on to OHA.
However, from what I’ve been t old (as of our press deadline in late Feb) OHA has still not received these monitor reports dating back to 2009. We of the Hawaiian community continue to be stone walled, blocked, and jerked around by the U.S. military and others with the knowledge to help us protect the remains of our past, left to us by our ancestors. In their war games – practice for death and destruction, they obliterate our history and culture. There is no respect being shown to the host culture because Hawai’i is the protective shield for the U.S. Mainland. The Aloha Spirit is being brutalized and sacrificed for the sake of defending a rapidly evaporating ideal of American Freedom. America should fall upon her knees and beseech us in Hawai’i to teach her the ways of PONO and Living Aloha. Instead, we are asked to stand by as our lands and culture ae laid to waste and we are told to be proud Americans, I was born on the Fourth of July, and know all about America, and I say the price of being the Fiftieth State is too great. Hawai’i is more important to the world that it is to the corporate military industrial complex that now rules the USA, this is what General and President (Republican) Eisenhower warned us about as he left office!
Remember, Pohakuloa is our Hawaiian Ceded Trust Lands, and the lease is up in 2026. At that time, the U.S. Military is obligated to remove all of their lethal, dangerous, toxic opala (garbage) – just like on Kaho’olawe. Once Hawaiians prospered in beautiful Makua Valley, O’ahu. Today it is uninhabitable due to military training. Can we expect anything else for the center of this Island of Hawai’i?
OHA has asked for a 90-day extension on submitting the comments to the Pohakuloa expansion EIS which ended December 27, 2011. The review process for the Osprey and Cobra helicopters is now at hand and we insist on face-to-face Public Meetings in Hilo, Waimea, and Kona. It is fact that historical and cultural studies that have been done thus far, are inadequate and incomplete as admitted int eh Porgrammatic Agreement dealing with Pohakuloa. We Native Hawaiians and our Cultural Practitioners of Hawaii Island and these Islands deserve no less!!!
Ua Mau Ke Ea o Ka ‘Aina I Ka Pono
