Hawaii - Jeff Campbell [348]
TARGET PRACTICE
The US military had long felt that Kaho′olawe had strategic importance. In early 1941, it subleased part of the island from MacPhee for bombing practice. Following the December 7 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, martial law was declared in Hawaii and the military took control of Kaho′olawe entirely. Until the war’s end, it used it to practice for invasions in the Pacific theater; in addition to ship-to-shore and aerial bombing, it tested submarine torpedoes by firing them at shoreline cliffs. It is estimated that of all the fighting that took place during WWII, Kaho′olawe was the most bombed island in the Pacific.
After the war, bombing practice continued. In 1953, President Eisenhower signed a decree giving the US navy official jurisdiction over Kaho′olawe, with the stipulation that when Kaho′olawe was no longer ‘needed,’ the unexploded ordinance would be removed and the island would be returned to Hawaiian control ‘reasonably safe for human habitation.’
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THE KAHO′OLAWE MOVEMENT
In the mid-1960s Hawaii politicians began petitioning the federal government to cease its military activities and return Kaho′olawe to the state of Hawaii. In 1976, a suit was filed against the navy, and in an attempt to attract greater attention to the bombings, nine Native Hawaiian activists sailed across and occupied the island. Despite their arrests, more occupations followed.
During one of the 1977 crossings, group members George Helm and Kimo Mitchell mysteriously disappeared in the waters off Kaho′olawe. Helm had been an inspirational Hawaiian-rights activist, and with his death the Protect Kaho′olawe ′Ohana movement arose. Helm’s vision of turning Kaho′olawe into a sanctuary of Hawaiian culture became widespread among islanders.
In 1980, in a court-sanctioned decree, the navy reached an agreement with Protect Kaho′olawe ′Ohana that allowed them regular access to the island. The decree restricted the navy from bombing archaeological sites. In 1981 Kaho′olawe was added to the National Register of Historic Places as a significant archaeological area. For nearly a decade, the island had the ironic distinction of being the only such historic place being bombed by its government.
In 1982 the ′Ohana began to go to Kaho′olawe to celebrate makahiki, the annual observance to honor Lono, god of agriculture and peace (this celebration continues today). That same year – in what many Hawaiians felt was the ultimate insult to their heritage – the US military offered Kaho′olawe as a bombing target to foreign nations during the biennial Pacific Rim exercises.
The offer and the exercises brought what was happening to Kaho′olawe to worldwide attention. International protests over the bombings grew, and New Zealand, Australia, Japan and the UK decided to withdraw from the Kaho′olawe exercises. The plan was scrapped. In the late 1980s, Hawaii’s politicians became more outspoken in their demands that Kaho′olawe be returned to Hawaii. Then in October 1990, as Hawaii’s two US senators, Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka, were preparing a congressional bill to stop the bombing, President George Bush issued an order to immediately halt military activities.
THE NAVY SETS SAIL
In 1994, the US navy finally agreed to clean up and return Kaho′olawe to Hawaii. In a Memorandum of Understanding, the US navy promised to work until 100% of surface munitions and 30% of subsurface munitions were cleared. However, the catch was that the federally authorized cleanup would end in 10 years, regardless of the results (and regardless of Eisenhower’s original promise).
Ten years later, after spending over $400 million, the navy’s cleanup