Hale Mohalu standoff
vets reuniteA party today recalls the raid
20 years ago on Hansen's patients
resisting their eviction
A bullhorn announced the pre-dawn arrival of 30 state law enforcement officers and several bulldozers to the 11-acre compound of dilapidated, green framed buildings and Quonset huts in Pearl City 20 years ago today.
In one of the buildings, Bernard Punikaia and Clarence Naia sat in a circle with about three dozen supporters, singing songs of Kalaupapa and the place they were defending: Hale Mohalu. Punikaia and Naia were the remaining holdouts in a five-year standoff at the condemned hospital for Hansen's disease patients.
Outside, the armed officers -- wearing jumpsuits and combat boots -- cut the chain off a locked gate and headed toward the buildings. Within minutes and after several warnings, the two men were carried outside by officers. They and 16 others were arrested. By day's end, the structures were flattened.
"We was at Hale Mohalu for a long, long time until they came," Naia recalled this past week during a telephone interview from Kalaupapa, the Hansen's disease settlement on Molokai. "They push us out and we gave them a hard time because we wanted to stay there, but they like the place so badly. So that's what they did to us -- we got lock up."
Today, Punikaia, Naia and those arrested with them will gather with nearly 300 others for an anniversary luau on the grounds of a 210-unit senior citizen housing development that also bears the name Hale Mohalu and which sits on the same site as the facility that was demolished by the state.
In 1978, the state Health Department announced that it was shutting down the Hansen's disease treatment facility at Hale Mohalu, or "house of comfort." Residents resisted.
Even after the state cut off electricity and water to the facility, the patients stood their ground, some dying along the way -- the real heroes, as Punikaia calls them.
"They died believing in something," he said.
Big Island peace activist Jim Albertini, who was also arrested that day, called the evictions a shameful day for the political establishment of the time.
"I think it's a struggle that gives hope to all kinds of people to stand up for rights, human rights," said Albertini. "Anybody -- a human being a child of God -- should be treated with dignity, and that's at the heart of nonviolence."
After a protracted legal fight, a federal appeals court upheld the state's eviction.
"This was the first time in our lives that we dared to attempt to impart our views on the issues concerning our future," Punikaia said via telephone from Leahi Hospital, where he now stays.
Wally Inglis, one of the organizers of the luau and a member of the board of the nonprofit the Coalition for Specialized Housing that sets policy for Hale Mohalu, said, "People had invested a lot in a place that they called home, even though technically they didn't own it. To me, it was just an instance of real injustice being done."
One of the memories that Punikaia and Naia recall with humor is the moment when they were carried away by police -- because, they say, they were a lot heavier back then.
Naia recalled one police officer looking him and then turning to another officer.
"They called for help for get me out because I was in my 200-something (pounds). But that was good fun day. They carry Bernard out; they carry me out. We had fun," Naia said.
All 18 went to court; all but one were acquitted of the charges.
Another reason for today's luau is to reunite the bonds made during the controversy.
"There was a beautiful sense of community developed over those five years," said Albertini, whose farm on the Big Island was named "Malu Aina" or place of peace by Punikaia.
Inglis said today would also be a chance for the Hale Mohalu band -- Punikaia on autoharp, Inglis on trumpet, Albertini on guitar and others -- to play a reunion concert.
"Lifelong bonds were built in that struggle," Albertini said.
