HILO — Puna Councilwoman Jen Ruggles sent a letter to the CEO of The Queen’s Health Systems stating the state’s largest private employer “may have committed the international crime of genocide against aboriginal Hawaiians.”
The reference line of the Sept. 20 letter to Art Ushijima, sent by registered mail on Hawaii County Council letterhead, reads: “War crimes committed against aboriginal Hawaiians by Queen’s Health Systems.” The alleged war crime is not following the original 1859 charter of then-Queen’s Hospital which provided for free medical care for Native Hawaiians.
The 11-page letter by Ruggles refers to a Feb. 25 memorandum from Alfred M. deZayas, a United Nations independent expert, who called Hawaii “a nation-state that is under a strange form of occupation by the United States resulting from an illegal military occupation and a fraudulent annexation.”
“As such, international laws (the Hague and Geneva Conventions) require that governance and legal matters within the occupied territory of the Hawaiian islands must be administered by the application of the laws of the occupied state (in this case, the Hawaiian Kingdom), not the domestic laws of the occupier (the United States),” deZayas wrote.
According to Ruggles, since the Hague and Geneva conventions were ratified by Senate, they became U.S. law, “and Hawaiian subjects of aboriginal blood, both pure and part, are protected persons whose rights during the U.S. occupation are protected under the Geneva Convention.”
Ruggles also cited the Office of Hawaiian Affairs Native Hawaiian Fact Sheet 2017, which stated, “Today, Native Hawaiians are perhaps the single racial group with the highest health risk in the state of Hawaii. This risk stems from high economic and cultural stress, lifestyle and risk behaviors, and the late or lack of access to health care.”
Cedric Yamanaka, a spokesman for The Queen’s Health Systems, said the company has no comment.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.