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Live Fire Training in Paradise
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Christine Ziebold, MD, PhD
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I recently returned from a visit to a sacred but troubled spot in the Pacific Ocean: Makua. Makua means “parent” and is the bosom of the Hawaiian Sovereignty movement.
The Makua Valley lies at the end of a dead-end road on the extreme west of the Hawaiian island of O’ahu. To get there, my travel companions and I traveled about an hour on the freeway from Honolulu along the shoreline past the gigantic bastion of Pearl Harbor. As one passes a coal power plant, the freeway becomes a two-lane road. We saw old homes, rundown stores and poorly kept beach parks. Hawaiian people live here. The road runs past Waianae High School and beautiful Makaha surfing beach. Then it narrows at what was formerly a cave, destroyed for road construction to the U.S. military base at Lualualei. Here Makua Beach begins. The beauty of the beach, with its volcanic rocks and surf, is striking, but deceiving.
Because of its bounty and beauty, Hawaiians have always been drawn to Makua to practice their simple and traditional lifestyle. For centuries, they have come here to fish, gather salt, and teach their children about their heritage.
Half a mile past Makua Beach the road dead-ends at a rocky outcrop called Kaena Point, stuffed with military antennas. Land inward, across the road from the beach, is Makua Valley, the 4,400 acre military reservation. Most of the training site is covered with low shrubs and trees. Several areas in the impact area and at firing locations are completely cleared of vegetation. Leaking military munitions have entered the water table and the ocean, poisoning marine life. There is no squid, almost no fish, and very little limu (edible seaweed).
The U.S. military arrived here in the 1920s. They acquired parcels in the upper floor of the valley for howitzer placements. None of the valley residents, with the exception of a white settler, were paid for the land. Military war games in the 1930s used Makua for amphibious landings. Hawaiian families were finally evicted in the 1940s to allow the U.S. infantry and artillery “live-fire training.” The Navy sent planes to bomb the valley while battleships shelled it from the ocean and troops were landed from amphibious crafts. White crosses were painted on the roofs of homes and on the church and church hall, and the sites were bombed. Even gravestones in Makua Cemetery were damaged by live target practice.
The Army promised to give the valley back, but has been bombing it for nearly 60 years instead. As a result, the valley is dotted with an unknown number of tons of ordnance. Over ten million pounds of waste were “disposed” of here, at least half of which is considered hazardous. This includes high explosives (TNT, DNT, white phosphorus), toxic chemicals and heavy metals (cyanide, cesium, lead, mercury, chromium, picric acid), and 350 nine-hundred-pound napalm bombs. Open burning and open detonation were accepted practice for disposing of unusable military ordnance up until 1992. Brush fires were the rule; at least 279 are on record.
Dangerous levels of lead and nickel have already been found in the groundwater at one site in Makua. The valley sits over the Kea’au aquifer, which may be connected to the Makaha aquifer, from which over 4,000 residents of Makaha get their drinking water.
The impact of military training on the people and environment of Makua has never been investigated. In 2001, a group of local activists with the beautiful name “Malama Makua” (taking care of the parents) filed a lawsuit against the Army. With the help of the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, a settlement was reached in October 2002: The Army is allowed to continue to train in the valley but has to complete an “environmental impact statement” within three years. Malama Makua was granted limited visitation privileges on the reservation each month. This small victory may amount to nothing, however, if the Pentagon is successful in exempting the military from environmental laws.
Despite live-fire training in the upper valley, some Hawaiians have found refuge at Makua Beach. The government labels such families “squatters.” For more than three decades now, they have been chased from Makua Beach; the last time in July 1996 when 400 Hawaiian men, women, and children were “evicted” by an estimated 200 Hawaii state police and federal marshals.
Cultural practitioners cannot access the heiaus (Hawaiian temples) and other cultural resources. The cultural knowledge of the last generation to have lived in Makua is about to die off and youth are losing touch with the cultural practices tied to Makua. The Makua valley is an example of ongoing cultural genocide in the U.S.
Please talk to your friends and elected officials about this. Aloha (“love”). |
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Makua Resources
Malama Makua
Sparky Rodrigues
808-599-2436 (phone)
American Friends Service Committee
Kyle Kajihiro
Hawaii Area Program
2426 O’ahu Avenue
Honolulu, HI 96822
808-988-6266 (phone)
808-988-4876 (fax)
kkajihiro@afsc.org
www.afsc.org
Earthjustice Honolulu Office
223 S. King St., Ste. 400
Honolulu, HI 96813-4501
808-599-2436 (phone)
eajushi@earthjustice.org
www.earthjustice.org
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© 2003 Women Against Military Madness. All rights reserved.
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Complete July/August 2003 Index - click here
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