Dr. Kalama O Ka Aina Niheu (Kanaka Maoli), lifelong protector of sacred Native Hawaiian lands and co-founder of the Mauna Medic Healers Hui, interviewed with People’s Tribune correspondent Adam Gottlieb shortly after Hawaii Gov. David Ike announced on June 20 that the state gave the green light to the controversial Thirty Meter Telescope project (TMT) on Mauna Kea, after years of protests and legal battles.
“Where I came from, my family has been in generations on the front line struggles in protecting Kanaka Maoli land, life, and culture . . . We’ve always stood up for protecting the people and, if necessary, putting our bodies on the line.
From 1840 we were an internationally recognized sovereign nation. We had 98% literacy, and a fully developed free medical and educational system that is in ways what people envision communism or socialism to be. We have the first constitution that enshrined non-discrimination. So we have this very egalitarian nation, which was taken over by greedy businessmen, and also the U.S., for Manifest Destiny and spreading a military might throughout the world . . .
These lands that Mauna Kea is on are Hawaiian Kingdom lands. And in our traditional way of land stewardship . . . the oceans were for the deep whales, and considered sacred. And we know now with climate change how important the whales are at producing phytoplankton. Half the oxygen produced in the world is actually produced by the ocean, so keeping that sacred is really important.
Then you have the Wao Kanaka, where the humans, the people, lived. And we cultivated that. And then we had layers and stratifications up to the highest peaks, and that is where Mauna Kea and Haleakala are, which we deemed the Wao Akua, or the realm of the Gods, and people are not supposed to destroy those lands. They are only to be accessed for traditional and sacred ceremony.
[Mauna Kea] is the aquifer source for the entire island of Moku o Keawe, the Big Island. If they were to put an 18-story [building] and dig into the surface of this very delicate ecosystem, they risk incredible contamination of the entire island’s aquifer. And the U.S., has already destroyed one of the water plates and aquifers from Kaho’olawe, due to the bombing there.
So that’s the important thing: understanding it is really a native land issue; it’s a scientific technological issue for sustainability; and not specifically about a telescope, although they’re trying to frame it as that. It’s about the destruction of the environment and the people who are willing to stand up and protect it. The only thing that’s going to be able to stand in the way of the destruction of the sacred is us.
The government entity that protects that particular site has purchased an LRAD [Long Range Acoustic Device]; they already have MRAPs [Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles] and several other paramilitary types of equipment developed as part of the militarization of the police throughout the U.S. It entered the Hawaii law enforcement strongly, and they’re gonna ramp up. And you know we’re going to show up again in peaceful prayer, and we’re going to protect the sacred. We will remain in ceremony, as we always have, but it sounds like they are prepared to bring violence into our communities and upon our people.
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