In a textbook United States regime change operation, wealthy businessmen manufactured a revolution in Hawai’i and executed a coup d’état in 1893. The Queen of the Hawai’ian Kingdom surrendered the administration of the country, but never its sovereignty. A Hawai’ian Kingdom government continues to operate to this day and is working to regain its sovereignty. We speak with Hawai’ian Kingdom Foreign Minister Leon Siu about the story of Hawai’i’s struggle for independence and the broken promises of the US government over the past century. This struggle is escalating through the current protests at Mauna Kea and has big plans in store this fall. We discuss where people in the US can learn more and how to support the Hawai’ian independence movement.
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Guest:
H.E. Leon Kaulahao Siu is the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Ke Aupuni Ko Hawaii Pae Aina — the Kingdom of the Hawaiian Islands
— and has served in that capacity since the year 2000. Mr. Siu has been involved since the mid 1990s with the reactivation of the lawful Hawaiian Kingdom as an independent nation-state. In 1997 he was appointed the Deputy the Minister of Foreign Affairs by the Privy Council of Ke Aupuni O Hawaii and became the Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2000.
His duties are to revive, develop, nurture and advance diplomatic, trade and other forms of friendly relations with sovereign states and international bodies.
He was nominated in 2016 for the Nobel Peace Prize — the only Hawaiian to have had that distinction.
Mr. Siu participates in numerous international fora concerning human rights and the rights of original peoples and nations, particularly with regard to self-determination in governance, economic development, human rights, maintaining sovereign and cultural integrity, and so forth. He has advocated these matters before the UN Human Rights Committee, Human Rights Council, Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Permanent Forum on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, World Intellectual Properties Organization, and others.
He has also led the reentry of the Hawaiian Islands into crucial discussions on global sustainability. He participated in the Marshall Islands conference on climate change at Columbia University, and attended and contributed to regional discussions on sustainable development in the Pacific conducted by the Melanesian Spearhead Group, the Pacific Islands Development Forum and the Pacific Islands Forum.
Minister Siu is the current chair of the Decolonization Alliance a coalition of original nations and supporting organizations working to improve the UN’s decolonization process in order to provide the opportunity for self-governance to original peoples and nations. Minister Siu was nominated for the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for his collaborative work in espousing the legal basis for independence for West Papua. He was also a recipient of the Decree of Consecration Diploma and Gold Medal UN Peacemaker Sergio Vieira de Mello award from the International Parliament in 2017. In 2015 he was awarded the Knights Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Kamehameha. Minister Siu is the co-author of the book, Modus Vivendi Situation of West Papua (2017) the seminal analysis of the West Papua situation under international law.
Mr. Siu attended the University of Hawaii, majoring in fine arts and minoring in history. He has an illustrious career as a musician, composer, recording artist and a pioneer producer of multi-arts, multi-media projects using cutting edge technology.