Tag Archives: Kahoolawe

Throwback Thursday: Another Kahoolawe moment

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January 4, 1976.

It was the beginning of America’s bicentennial year year when nine people made an early morning landing on Kahoolawe to protest the island’s use as a U.S. Navy bombing range. We were part of a larger group that set out from Maalaea Harbor that morning. The rest turned back after a flyover and Coast Guard warning that boats entering the area of the island could be seized by the government.

Some hours later, the Coast Guard delivered an Assistant U.S. Attorney and Navy police to the beach where we had landed, and most of our group of nine were detained for being on the island unlawfully, and then shuttled on a CG launch to the waiting Coast Guard Cutter Mallow.

That’s me with the full beard, sitting closest to the camera along with Steve Morse. Gail Kawaipuna Prejean is seated in the stern, holding up a clenched fist, and the two Coast Guard men are unidentified.

With Kawaipuna Prejean & Steve Morse

1976 Poster: Stop the Bombing, Makua Valley

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Another oldie.

This poster by Hawaiian artist Rocky Jensen was made in 1976 to protest the Army’s destruction of Makua Valley. It was distributed by Gail Kawaipuna Prejean, then director of the Hawaiian Coalition of Native Claims, not long after the January 1976 protest against the bombing of Kahoolawe, which was organized to coincide with the American bicentennial. It promoted a rally at Makua, which took place on February 26, 1976.

Makua Poster

Thirty-five years later, and the Army’s use of Makua remains a festering and unresolved issue.

Clutter becomes history: 1978 newsletters showcase early efforts to stop Navy bombing of Kahoolawe

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[text]For an inside look at the early years in movement to stop the navy bombing of Kahoolawe, check out these early issues of the Aloha Aina newsletter, published on Molokai by the Protect Kahoolawe Fund.

I found several early issues in a box of old papers which luckily had avoided being thrown away over the years, including Volume 1, Number 1, dated June 1978. I’m so glad that I inherited from my parents a tendency to save too much old stuff.

The first issue of Aloha Aina (Vol. 1, No. 1) reports on statewide public hearings on the Navy’s draft environmental impact statement on the bombing of Kahoolawe.

Preparation for the best-attended hearings in the history of our State began in late March. WIth less than three weeks notice from the Navy, the Protect Kaho’lawe Fund, in conjunction with each island’s ‘Ohana, sponsored eight informational workshops, wrote and distributed hundreds of educational handouts, and organized scores of people to come forth and testify. It was a fantastic, energizing experience. One which occupied many of us, day and night, for six sleepless weeks.

The second issue features a number of substantive articles, including Haunani Trask on negotiations with the state and the navy, Emmett Aluli on litigation strategies, Isaac Hall on the Protect Kahoolawe Fund, Jack Grambusch on the State Democratic Convention, and Ian Lind on Senator Inouye’s role.

The third issue, August-September 1978, includes Hauanani Kay Trask on “Negotiations and Politics”, an article which I wrote about Viequest (an island in Puerto Rico which was also being used for military training), Steve Morse on geothermal policy, poetry, and more.

The 24-page October-November 1978 issue includes seasons greetings from the folks putting out Aloha Aina, along with articles including another Ian Lind piece on the selling of Kahoolawe, Moanikeala Akaka on the Hilo Airport 54, testimony in the EIS hearings by Julia Kaupu of Milolii, Mililani Trask on the 1978 Con-Con proposals (including the creation of OHA), and a lot more.

The March 1979 issue contains articles by Ilima Piianaia, John Charlot, Mike Hanchett, Judy Napoleon, June and Zelda Kapuni, Kahala-Ann Trast Gibson, and others.

The Summer 1979 issue of 32-pages includes articles, photographs, and poetry by those taking part in two legal accesses to the island that resulted from ongoing negotiations that were part of a civil suit aimed at stopping the bombing, as well as notes from those ongoing negotiations.