How The Story Of The ‘Army’ That Illegally Took Over A Kunia Property Is Playing On Social Media 0 Arrested earlier this month, members of the group claim they own the land as heirs of Native Hawaiians who got land grants during the Great Mahele in 1848.
Several of those arrested early this month when police and sheriffs broke up a 10-month land takeover in a central Oahu agricultural subdivision have now taken to social media to tell their version of the confrontation and to justify their presence on the property.
In their telling, they were kidnapped by police from their private property, which they had rightfully and legally reclaimed as heirs of the original land grant recipient.
And that’s the hook that gives their pitch traction. Their 10 months in possession of the Kunia land represents a vision that land is there, free for the taking, by Hawaiians who have the resolve to act and can trace their families to a distant ancestor who received a mid-19th century award of land set aside for native tenants “in perpetuity” at the time of the Great Mahele.
For this group of Hawaiians, things haven’t turned out well. They were unceremoniously removed from the land, their claims of ancestral rights have failed in court, their personal belongings left on the property were lost — and they now face the likelihood of criminal prosecutions.
