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Editorials
Friday, February 23, 2001Hawaii should elect
the attorney generalThe issue: The House has rejected a bill to elect the attorney general.
THE House has defeated a Republican attempt to elect the attorney general, but this is a proposal that will not die easily. An elected attorney general would have the independence needed to prosecute officials of the state government for wrongdoing.
Governor Cayetano has endorsed the proposal but has had little success in persuading members of his own party to support it. Only one Democrat -- Helene Hale of the Big Island -- joined 15 Republicans in favor of the measure.
The long-dominant Democrats evidently don't want to take any action that would curb the power of the state administration. Currently the governor appoints and the Senate confirms the attorney general.
In one of the most outrageous acts in recent Hawaii political history, the Senate two years ago rejected the nomination of Margery Bronster for a second term as Cayetano's attorney general after she had led the state investigation of the Bishop Estate trustees.
An elected attorney general would require no confirmation by the Senate. There would be no more ditching of an attorney general who had stepped on too many political toes.
Such a change would require a constitutional amendment, but the first step would be action by the Legislature to put the question on the ballot.
Minority Leader Galen Fox pointed out that only five states still have the governor appoint the attorney general. Minority Floor Leader David Pendleton said an elected attorney general "would be more accountable to the public and less beholden to any politician or set of politicians. He or she would truly be the people's attorney."
Judiciary Chairman Eric Hamakawa countered that elected attorneys general often use the office as a stepping stone to higher office -- as if this is something to be avoided. In fact, many able leaders have come from the ranks of elected AGs.
The difference is that an appointed attorney general is essentially the governor's and the Legislature's lawyer; an elected attorney general has no obligation to anyone except the voters, and can act accordingly to keep state government honest.
This is particularly important in Hawaii, which has been dominated for decades by the Democratic Party. The GOP has been too weak to provide effective opposition.
Fortunately, the Republicans scored enough gains in the last elections to enable them to pull bills out of committee and thereby have a bigger say in the legislative process. But an elected attorney general could force the state administration to toe the ethical line.
Sexual assault given
status as war crime
RAPES committed by Japanese troops during World War II were not prosecuted as war crimes and only recently have drawn an apology from Japan. That omission has not been repeated by the war crimes tribunal meeting in the Hague. The tribunal has convicted three Bosnian Serbs in the first wartime sexual enslavement case to come before an international court. Sexual exploitation finally has been recognized rightly as a war crime.
The experiences of Muslim women who were sexually brutalized by Serbs in the former Yugoslavia are not appreciably different from those of Chinese, Taiwanese, Filipino, Indonesian and Korean "comfort women" who were subjected to multiple rapes by Japanese soldiers more than a half century ago. Governments have been late in regarding those crimes as wartime atrocities.
After the Bosnian town of Foca was overrun by Serbs in April 1992, Muslims were herded into separate prison camps for men and women. The camps for women came to be regarded as rape camps, integral fixtures of the "ethnic cleansing" for which the Bosnian war became infamous.
The Hague tribunal convicted two of the Bosnian Serb defendants of sexually assaulting and torturing Muslim women at the rape camps and imposed prison terms of 28 and 20 years. A third defendant was convicted of raping and torturing a 15-year-old girl -- about the same age as his daughter -- and sentenced to 12 years behind bars.
Presiding Judge Florence Mumba said the three defendants were not "political or military masterminds behind the conflicts and atrocities. However, they thrived in the dark atmosphere of the dehumanization of those believed to be enemies."
The masterminds have yet to be brought to trial. Biljana Plavsic, the former president of the Bosnian Serb republic, and Momcilo Krajisnik, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic's top wartime aide, are awaiting trial on atrocity charges.
However, Karadzic and former Yugoslav dictator Slobodan Milosevic have yet to be brought before the tribunal. The Bosnian war's final chapter will not be written until justice is brought to those at the highest level.
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited PartnershipRupert E. Phillips, CEO
Frank Bridgewater, Acting Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
