Editorials
Friday, December 18, 1998

Hawaiian sovereignty
convention candidates

PLANS for an election of delegates to a native Hawaiian convention on sovereignty have gotten a boost with the submission of nomination papers by more than 150 candidates. Among them are such prominent figures as former Bishop Estate trustee Myron Thompson, former Big Island Mayor Dante Carpenter, former OHA trustee and Hawaiian Homestead Associations administrator Kamaki Kanahele, sovereignty activist Dennis "Bumpy" Kanahele, sovereignty advocate and attorney H.K. Bruss Keppeler and Charles Rose, president of Ha Hawaii, the group organizing the convention.

The election, scheduled for Jan. 17, will choose 85 delegates to a convention approved in a 1996 plebiscite. Ha Hawaii, a nonprofit organization, says it has enough funds to hold the election but needs $2 million more to hold the convention next summer.

Kaipo Kincaid, executive director of Ha Hawaii, said the group was pleased with the number and quality of the candidates, including "people who would be regarded as conservative members of our community and people who would be regarded in a more active role."

The process has some formidable opponents who are urging a boycott of the election. They contend that the process is tainted because it originated with the state government's formation of the defunct Hawaiian Sovereignty Elections Council, which conducted the 1996 plebiscite. The opponents support instead a conference being scheduled for next spring -- but that would not involve a popular election of delegates.

Sen. Daniel Akaka recently urged native Hawaiians to put aside their differences and work together to achieve a workable version of sovereignty. Achievement of unity is still a long way off but the number of people who have agreed to run for delegate and the prominent names among them augur well for the projected convention.

ASEAN summit

THE leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' nine members have concluded their summit meeting in Hanoi vowing to take "bold measures" to put their region on the path to economic recovery. But when you ask where's the beef, there isn't much to see.

Discord over whether to embrace the global economy or retreat behind capital controls, accelerate trade liberalization or lower import barriers diluted the message on economic reform. Pledges to liberalize national economies were watered down to accommodate the views of governments such as Laos and Myanmar, formerly Burma, which cling to socialist economic controls.

Nor was there consensus on the admission of Cambodia, which had been expected to join ASEAN in mid-1997 along with Laos and Myanmar. Its entry was delayed after Premier Hun Sen ousted his then co-premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh. Last month Hun Sen agreed to a new coalition with Ranariddh.

The ASEAN leaders managed a face-saving decision to admit Cambodia but not during the summit as most members had wished. Singapore was most opposed, saying the new coalition government needed to implement certain agreements first.

An academic authority on ASEAN, Alison Broinowski, a visiting fellow at the Faculty of Asian Studies at the Australian National University, said the imminent inclusion of Cambodia and discord on how to combat economic woes showed ASEAN's cohesiveness was being "severely challenged."

Whatever chance ASEAN had of becoming an effective instrument for progress appears to have been lost in the process of extending membership to the poorer, more authoritarian countries of the region. Like its bigger cousin, APEC, ASEAN is in danger of becoming just another debating society such as the U.N. General Assembly.

State tax collections

STATE tax collections for the first five months of the fiscal year show an increase of nearly 5 percent over last year, an improvement cited by Governor Cayetano as evidence that the economy is recovering. But the Council on Revenues, comprised of independent economists, takes a less sanguine view. Its latest forecast is for an increase of only 1 percent in tax collections for the year -- indicating minimal economic growth.

The forecast works out to about $12 million more in tax collections, which will help, but only a little in an operating budget of almost $3 billion. The estimates are used by the state administration and the Legislature in preparing the state budget.

In his second inaugural address last week, Cayetano glossed over the state's economic woes, in contrast to his first address four years ago. But it's no secret that the state economy continues to struggle, regardless of the administration's attempts to project a rosy outlook during the election campaign and since.

Maybe the upturn in tax collections signals a stronger economy, but members of the revenue council say they don't know the cause of the increase and they aren't ready to reach that conclusion. Some speculate that the recession in Japan and other factors may slow collections later in the year.

For our money, the independent economists are a lot more credible than this or any other administration. Don't start celebrating economic recovery just yet.

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