 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Hello. Welcome to People's Dispatch in Globetrotter. This is the first in a series of interviews that I'll be doing on the question of the United States. Well, I was going to say the Navy, but what I really mean is the United States military in the Pacific. We're going to start in Hawaii. We're going to go to Okinawa, to Guam. Perhaps we'll stop over in the Solomon Islands. Let's see where we go. This is a part of the world, the Pacific, little known to many people. Sadly, little known. It has a great history. It is an important role in the development of our human family. In the story we tell ourselves, it's important to pay attention to. We're going to start with an ugly part of the history, which is the role of the military. Could very well start with nuclear testing. We'll get there eventually. Bear with us. It's super to be joined today by Kavina Ola Okala, Kapohua. Kavina, welcome to People's Dispatch and Globetrotter. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to have you because you've been outspoken. You're an activist for Hawaiian independence movement. You're a labor activist. You've been involved in a number of important issues. Of course, you're studying at the University of Hawaii, which is something that we were talking about earlier, which we could just spend time talking about political science and revolutions. But we have more serious things to talk about. Let's start with an issue that has been on the table recently, which is, there have been these petroleum tanks at the Red Hill Fuel Storage Facility, a US military facility leaking 180,000 gallons of fuel, we're told. Tell us about this particular crisis. Start over there, please. Sure. So this crisis takes place in Hawaii, of course, which has been an occupied nation of held militarily by the United States since 1893 when they overthrew our government. The Red Hill Fuel Storage Facility represents a long history of US military occupation here. Red Hill, or the area known as Red Hill, along with over a third of Hawaiian land in general, was taken by the US military for its operations, especially around World War II. And so that's when these tanks were built. Red Hill Fuel Storage Facility is this underground fuel storage facility that holds up to 250 million gallons of petroleum. And it was built just around the outbreak of World War II. And so these tanks are situated about 100 feet directly above our main source aquifer. So for those who don't know an aquifer, it's the primary water source for the island of Oahu. And so this island has almost 800,000 to a million people on it. And so this source aquifer provides water for all of them. And the Navy's fuel tanks are directly over it, which have been leaking over their almost 80-year history. They've leaked almost 76 times, of which we only knew about the first week in 2014. These tanks were only declassified into public knowledge in 1984. And so for the majority of their history, we've actually been unaware of their existence and the fact that they've been actively leaking fuel into our water source. And so in November of last year, late November, it was revealed that thousands of people were smelling gasoline in their homes when they turned on their faucets. Thousands of people, hundreds of people were being admitted to the ER into the hospital with chemical burns in the mouth from drinking their water with symptoms of jet fuel contamination in their bodies, outbreaking and rashes, vomiting, headaches, really serious symptoms that caused them to be admitted to the hospitals. People had to be evacuated from their homes because it was no longer safe for them to live there. And this wasn't just military families. The military families have unfortunately been getting all of the press, but numerous civilian communities have also been contaminated and have received no restitution from the military. The military knew about the contamination of the water since July of 2021 and withheld and smothered the information and evidence until it became public in November of last year because people were sent to the hospital and only then did the military admit it. And they kept it from the state and local governments as well, despite the fact that usually the state and the military usually align in acting against the interests of the people. And so the military and the state of Hawaii had to shut down multiple water wells that service well over 400,000 people in Hawaii. And almost 100,000 people, mainly military personnel, have been displaced from their homes. And so this is a really major unfolding crisis because never before in the history of Hawaii has our water and threatened in such a major way. The Board of Water Supply, which is the utility of water management and water resources for the island of Oahu, says that if something is not done soon, we may never be able to drink our water again and it may be permanently contaminated, which is, like I said, unprecedented and has never happened in our thousand-year history in this land. And the US military has managed to do it in a little under 80 years. And so this is a major significant crisis because Hawaii is on many scales because not only is this water necessary for sustaining life in Hawaii, it's necessary on many other levels. Hawaii is unfortunately undergoing a massive living crisis or living cost crisis of native people, indigenous people being forced from their homes because they no longer afford it. If the cost of water goes up because we've imported, that's another major issue. This plays into another problem of Hawaiian independence. We have not had control of our land for 129 years now. And the US military has again and again continually abused and desecrated and damaged our land, whether it's through live fire bombings, whether it's through the storage of chemical weapons, whether it's through the pollution destruction of land like here at Red Hill. This is a really long-standing issue. And if something is not done soon, we may never be able to drink our water again, like I said. And the military has continued to suppress information about this, to do nothing about it, to try and play it off until they can just say the water is safe again. Just today, actually, there was a news story came out. It was leaked that the US military now has reports on the leaks that occurred over the past year and is refusing to release them. And so this is critical information that helps us how many gallons were leaked into the water, what the contamination looks like, are the tanks actively continuing to leak, is the leak stopped, is it contained, or is it continuing? How is the water moving or the water in the field moving in this underground aquifer? Currently, it threatens, we have over three wells that are shut down. Is it going toward other wells across the island that service other areas? We've lost 20% of our access to drinking water currently. 20% of our capacity to feed water to the island is gone because of the wells that have been shut down. So every other well on the island has happened to pick up the slack. And so we may see a water shortage next summer when in the hot months. The Board of Water Supply has said water rationing is very likely. They've already been putting out information about asking people to be cautious of water used to turn off the water if you're washing your hands, to turn off the water if you're brushing your teeth. Even a seeing really minor ways of conserving water, that's how worried the water management utility is about what we may be facing in the future. And water shortages have almost never happened here in Hawaii. We live in a very abundant land of resources, thankfully. Our ancestors chose a really great place to live. And yet now we're seeing these major resource shortages because the US military has come in and destroyed really vital agricultural land to feed our people. We already import over 80% of our food and now we may be forced to import a large percentage of our water because we can no longer safely source it from our own life. It's incredible what you just said that Hawaii, a place that I associate with abundance, as you said our ancestors chose a good place to live. It's incredible what you just said that 80% of the food is imported onto the archipelago and you also said now water will be imported. I mean people have an understanding of Hawaii, of course it's in the middle of the Pacific Ocean but you're not asking you to drink salt water. It's just that having an image of abundance and you're saying 80% of food is imported. Just explain that, I'm afraid that's going to stop a lot of people. Sure, so prior to European involvement in the Pacific, prior to European colonization, Hawaii had a population of almost a million people of about a million people and that's almost about the same population we have today. And we were able to provide for everyone through sustainable agriculture, through major fishing resources and sustainable farming tactics. And yet when the US military and US imperialism came to Hawaii, we saw capitalism kind of take over and turn a lot of these fertile agricultural lands into cash crops such as sugarcane and pineapple. And then once that industry died out, we saw new industries come in of tourism and the US military. Like I said before, the US military occupies almost a third of all Hawaiian land. Much of it stolen directly from the Hawaiian people and was condemned during World War II to take some of the largest US military bases in the world are here in Hawaii, especially on Oahu, such as Kanewa Marine Corps base and Pearl Harbor Naval Station. And so basically these military bases occupy vital agricultural resources. The reason Pearl Harbor is called Pearl Harbor is because it used to be an abundant fishing ground. This huge, large inland harbor basically was renowned for its amount of pearl producing oysters which are extinct now due to US military pollution. You couldn't pay me to eat a fish from that harbor anymore. And it used to be one of the most major fishing grounds of our people. There are numerous fishing shrines and temples that dot that landscape. Numerous manmade lakes to close off areas to create fish farms that are now defunct and destroyed by US military pollution. And some of the other areas that are large fertile fields that the US military now occupies are used to train invasion tactics. Many of them were used to train troops for the invasion of Vietnam and the war in Vietnam because the environment was similar and they used Agent Orange on our land which has of course completely destroyed any agricultural value of these areas. And they continue to burn and do live fire trains in these areas so that we may never actually be able to eat from them again, which has caused us to need to import this massive amount of food when we were able to provide it for ourselves sustainably before. And it's just highlights the contradictions that are at play here in Hawaii because all of these resources were widely available to us and now the US has come in and said they are here to protect us while also creating a dependency on them just for basic survival necessities. Creating dependency is one thing but also as you said earlier making the land of Hawaii a plantation to grow you know pineapples and so on for canning. I remember reading a book by Gary Okihiro about the pineapple culture, a tremendous story of how land is converted from you know land for people to land for profit and so on. Powerful stuff, I mean what you're saying that strikes me and I know that you are an you know an adherent for independence for Hawaii and I think that's important to put on the table. On the other hand there are some political instruments, I mean there are senators from Hawaii, there are city councils you know there are all these instruments. Aren't these instruments able to exercise some sovereignty over the US military or is there a kind of military dictatorship over the islands of Hawaii? Absolutely most of the elected representatives and state officials here in Hawaii actually play into the military's hand. Essentially what the military has done is prompt up a lot of these elected officials for decades now starting back in World War at the end of World War II with Senator Daniel E. Noy, World War II veteran, the military industrial complex regularly donates massive amounts of money to Hawaii senators and representatives. So people like Meiji Hirono who sits on the office services committee, particularly the one of Seapower, Brian Schatz and other representatives for the state all take money directly from companies such as Raytheon such as Boeing such as any of those large military industrial complex contractors that the US military uses all pay directly into the pockets of our senators. And so really what you have is an oligarchy the same that overthrew the Hawaiian kingdom 129 years ago still remaining in power just with new faces. Many of them many of the grandchildren and descendants of those people who overthrew our government still hold positions of wealth and power in Hawaii today. So really the colonial nature of the US military occupation here and the imperialist nature of it really hasn't changed it's just become a little bit better at hiding its form. And so when it comes to whether or not these democratic institutions are able to uphold the people's rights but basically US military being always falter every time. For example, the US military like I said holds almost one third of all land in Hawaii. A large portion of that land over 40,000 acres of which the lease for it is expiring in 2029. The amount that US military pays in rent to the state of Hawaii is $1 per year. For land that basically could be used for many other things Hawaiians the native people of this land pay more in rent to landlords pay more in rent in order to own our own land or just lease our own land the new US military pays for a third of all Hawaiian land that it ends up destroying and sometimes damaging beyond repair. And so this is the history of US military occupation of Hawaii. If anyone expects US government officials to ever stand up for the people here or to do anything to inhibit the US military's actions and damage it would be completely misguided given the fact that often state senators are agents of the US military and aiding and abetting their taking of land their destruction of land and their exploitation of people. Well that's really this is powerful stuff you know you're coming at this story with a great deal of evidence of what's been happening. I mean I know that there's a report that is does the rounds that suggests that the US military globally is the world's largest institutional contributor to climate change and pollution. I think it's a pretty credible report from Durham University, Lancaster University and so on. Have you been able to personally engage with people from the military on some of these issues or do you get no chance to actually confront them face to face? It's funny because this is one of the first times a lot of the military families are seeing themselves put in our position. You know of this of course the treatment that's happening from Red Hill is how the US military is treating Hawaiians and the people it occupies around the world for its entire history. But now one of the first times the US military personnel and families are starting to see the effects their presence has on the people they occupy and seeing the lack of care their institution has for them despite them being split soldiers. So right now we're seeing actually a lot of US military families standing up for themselves and for their families especially because a lot of their children were the ones who were put into the hospital by the negligence of these commanding officers and US officials. And so it's been a long tenuous history. There's a lot of pain unfortunately and strife between the Hawaiian community and the military community that dates back decades because of the US military's role here of the racism and white supremacy that the US military brought particularly the US Navy. There was cases in the 1920s and 30s of US Navy sailors murdering young Hawaiian men and getting away with it. There's a famous case called the Massey case which saw a white woman falsely accuse a young Hawaiian man of a rape he could not have possibly committed and then her husband kidnapped this Hawaiian man murdered him was caught with the body in the trunk and the was sentenced to an hour of imprisonment in the governor's office and then allowed to leave for a permanent day with no further consequences. And so this is the kind of relationship that the US military has with the people in Hawaii and the and military personnel have with us. And so this is the first time we're actually seeing some sort of understanding between these two groups particularly because of the long-standing history of our our interests being contradictory Hawaiians wanting their land back and US military personnel financially benefiting from occupying our land. So interesting you know I mean it's a pleasure to talk with you. This is the first of a series as I said of people's dispatch deep look into the US military activities in the Pacific but also an education about the struggles of the people of that vast land which is also an ocean. So thank you so much for joining us at People's Dispatch. Thank you so much for having me.