COUNTY OF CHAMPAIGN
STATE OF ILLINOIS
AFFIDAVIT OF FRANCIS A. BOYLE
I, FRANCIS A. BOYLE, depose and declare under penalty of perjury as follows:
1. I am a Professor of Law at the University of Illinois College of Law at Champaign. My area of expertise is in international law. I teach courses in international law at the College of Law at Champaign. I am also an Attorney-at-Law in good standing before the Bars of the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the United States Supreme Court, as well as a variety of United States Federal Courts. I have also practiced law before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the so-called World Court of the United Nations System. I have attached my Resumé to this Affidavit and I hereby incorporate that information herein by reference.
2. I have a longstanding attorney-client relationship with Mr. Dennis "Bumpy" Kanahele that goes back to December of 1993. Mr. Kanahele is currently on trial in Federal District Court in Honolulu Hawaii. I have been asked by his attorney of record for this trial, Mr. Hayden Aluli, to produce this Affidavit. This request has been made with the full knowledge and approval of Mr. Kanahele. Therefore, this Affidavit is being produced pursuant to a strictly limited and one-time only waiver of attorney-client confidences by Mr. Kanahele.
3. To the best of my recollection, sometime during the early Fall of 1993, I received a telephone call from Mr. Kanahele who identified himself as a Native Hawaiian, the leader of the Ohana Council, and a Commissioner of the Hawaiian Sovereignty Advisory Commission (HSAC) for the State of Hawaii. Mr. Kanahele informed me that he and his people were giving serious consideration to moving toward independence. In his capacity as HSAC Commissioner, Mr. Kanahele invited me to come out to Hawaii and speak before the HSAC and to his people about the international legal right of the Native Hawaiian People to establish an independent nation state of their own. I informed Mr. Kanahele that I would be happy to do this, but that outstanding professional commitments would prevent me from coming to Hawaii until the end of December 1993.
4. Mr. Kanahele then put me in touch with Ms. Lulani McKenzie, who was the Executive Director of HSAC. All three of us agreed that I would come out to Hawaii during the last week of December 1993. We further agreed that I would give one public lecture to the HSAC Commissioners and the general public on the right of the Native Hawaiian People to establish an independent state of their own--specifically with reference to Public Law No. 103-150, that had just been signed into law by President Clinton. We also agreed that I would make one personal appearance before the HSAC Commissioners to answer any questions they might have about my public lecture. In return, Ms. McKenzie informed me that the State of Hawaii would pay all of my out-of-pocket expenses incident to my trip to Hawaii and a modest Honorarium for my professional services. These terms were acceptable to me. The State of Hawaii did indeed pay all of my out-of-pocket expenses and I was later sent a check by the State of Hawaii signed by then Governor Waihee for the Honorarium. Therefore, I considered myself to have been hired by the State of Hawaii as an official consultant on international law to HSAC and the Commissioners, including Mr. Kanahele, for the aforementioned purposes.
5. On Sunday, December 26, 1993, I flew to Hawaii and met Mr. Kanahele for the first time. He immediately proceeded to seek my legal advice and counsel as to the establishment of an independent nation state for Native Hawaiians. Therefore, I date the establishment of my attorney-client relationship with Mr. Kanahele to these conversations on December 26, 1993. These conversations with Mr. Kanahele continued almost fulltime until my departure from Hawaii on the late evening of Thursday, December 30, 1993.
6. On the evening of December 28, 1993, I gave a public lecture to the Hawaiian Sovereignty Advisory Commission on the subject of The Restoration of the Independent Nation State of Hawaii Under International Law at Mabel Smyth Hall in Honolulu under the official auspices of HSAC. The address and question-and-answer session with the Commissioners and the members of the public took approximately three hours. Mr. Kanahele sat in the audience with the other HSAC Commissioners for the entire Address and question-and-answer session. There is available a verbatim transcription of my 28 December 1993 Address to the HSAC Commissioners that I would be happy to make available to the Honorable Court upon your request. As I understand it, there is also a videotape of my Address that I believe Mr. Aluli could make available to the Honorable Court at your request. I later published a slightly revised and edited version of my Address in Volume 7 of the St. Thomas Law Review Symposium Issue on "Tribal Sovereignty: Back to the Future?" under the title Restoration of the Independent Nation State of Hawaii Under International Law, pages 723-56 (Summer 1995). I believe a copy of this article has been submitted to the Court by Mr. Aluli.
7. The very next morning, on December 29, 1993, I made a personal appearance before the HSAC Commissioners at a government building in downtown Honolulu to answer any questions they might have about my Address the preceding evening. This session was open to the public, but essentially it was designed to permit a dialogue between the Commissioners and me. This session lasted approximately three hours. Mr. Kanahele was present at this session for the entire time in his capacity as HSAC Commissioner.
8. Later that day, and after further consultation with me, Mr. Kanahele decided to resign as HSAC Commissioner because he concluded that his fellow Commissioners were not seriously interested in considering the option of creating an Independent Nation State for Native Hawaiians. Sometime after my departure from Hawaii on 30 December 1993, Mr. Kanahele informed Governor Waihee of his decision to resign from HSAC for these reasons.
9. While I was in Hawaii Mr. Kanahele asked me to help draft the functional equivalent of a Declaration of Independence for him, the Ohana Council, and all the Native Hawaiian People. I agreed to do this. This document was completed just before my departure from Hawaii. Pursuant to conversations I had with Mr. Kanahele, we decided to call this document "Proclamation Restoring the Independence of the Sovereign Nation State of Hawaii." I believe a copy of this Proclamation has already been provided to the Court by Mr. Aluli.
10. During my time in Hawaii, and at my express request, Mr. Kanahele took me around all of the Hawaiian Islands to meet his people at their homes and encampments on the beaches of Hawaii. During these meetings, I gave many lectures that basically repeated the substance of my 28 December 1993 Address, and answered any questions these people might have. I estimate that I gave approximately two to three lectures per day for every day I was in Hawaii. Mr. Kanahele attended almost all of these lectures in his then current capacity as HSAC Commissioner.
11. Quite frankly, as a human being and as a lawyer, I was appalled by the atrocious conditions in which these Native Hawaiians were forced to live in a beautiful land that was once all their own.
12. I flew back home on the late evening of Thursday, December 30, 1993 in order to arrive home on time to spend New Years Eve with my wife. I have not yet had the opportunity to return to Hawaii. But I have remained in continuous contact with Mr. Kanahele and his people by phone, fax, and mail until today.
13. On 16 January 1994, Mr. Kanahele and a fairly large number of Native Hawaiians declared their independence from the United States for all Native Hawaiians and issued the Proclamation to that effect which I helped him draft. Soon thereafter, Mr. Kanahele and his people established themselves as the Independent Nation State of Hawaii. Mr. Kanahele asked me to serve as Legal Adviser to the Nation of Hawaii, which I agreed to do. Thereafter, I have provided legal advice and counsel to Mr. Kanahele and the citizens of the Nation of Hawaii concerning the establishment of their state continuously until today. I have also given them all legal advice and counsel concerning the protection of the human rights of Native Hawaiians continuously until today.
14. Pursuant to Mr. Kanahele's request, I participated in drafting a Constitution for the Nation of Hawaii. Upon the adoption of the Constitution by the citizens of the Nation of Hawaii, Mr. Kanahele became Head of State of the Nation of Hawaii. In this capacity, Mr. Kanahele is entitled to receive all the privileges and immunities, respect and deference, that must be accorded to a Head of State as required by the general principles of public international law.
15. During my many conversations with Mr. Kanahele over the phone and in person during the past two years, he has repeatedly emphasized to me the critical importance of adopting exclusively peaceful and nonviolent means for the establishment of the Nation of Hawaii in accordance with the Native Hawaiian spirit of Aloha. During the past two years, I have never had any reason to doubt Mr. Kanahele's sincere commitment to the pursuit of peaceful, nonviolent means for the establishment of the Nation of Hawaii in the spirit of Aloha.16. I have never charged Mr. Kanahele or the Nation of Hawaii any fee for my professional services and they have never paid me any fee. I have assumed the representation of Mr. Kanahele and the Nation of Hawaii out of great respect and admiration for him personally and for the Native Hawaiian People. My representation of Mr. Kanahele and the Nation of Hawaii is pro bono publico in the true sense of that term.
Further sayeth Affiant not.
Respectfully submitted,
Francis A. Boyle
Professor of Law
Attorney at Law