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Members of a Native Hawaiian family who claim a section of a national park in Kona is their ancestral land have been told by park officials to leave now or be evicted.
The Pai Ohana was notified in writing by Stanley T. Albright, field director for the Department of the Interior, "immediately" to leave Aiopio, southernmost portion of Kaloko-Honokohau National Cultural Park where they now reside.
"If the Pai Ohana does not promptly an completely vacate federal land, the family will be evicted and their possessions will be removed," read a hand-delivered letter dated Jan.27.
Mahealani Pai, spokesman for the Pai Ohana, confirmed that the family had received the eviction notice on Wednesday. However, he said the family has reasserted its right to remain on land he says his ancestors have been caretakers of since the I7OOs. "Why should we?" Pai said. "What would you do?"
The eviction notice comes about six weeks after an agreement had seemingly been finalized by the Pai Ohana and state and federal government; officials. The pact had called for the family to he relocated on state land just outside the park boundaries and adjacent to the area they now occupy.
In December, U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye announced that Bruce Babbitt, secretary of the interior, had agreed to put off the eviction while final relocation details were worked out with the state.
But Albright said Wednesday that the eviction notice was issued to the family because the Pai Ohana had abandoned the negotiations.
Because of the recent actions of the Pai Ohana, Inouye said he could not, in good conscience, ask Babbitt for any more special consideration. "While I am disappointed with the decision of the Pai Ohana, I wish Mahealani and his family Godspeed."
Pai now says he has evidence that proves the United States is prevented from holding fee-simple title in the Hawaiian Islands by existing treaties. Pai said he would elaborate further this morning during a 10 a.m. press conference at Aiopio.
The Pai Ohana and the Interior Department have been at an impasse about the family's right to remain at Aloplo since 1993, when a federal use permit expired. The Pai family agreed to the permit in 1988, when Kaloko-Honokohau was purchased by the U.S. government from the Greenwell family.
Pai has consistently argued that the family does not need permission to live at Aloplo because it has an inextinguishable right to be on the five-acre plot.
But National Park officials counter that the family is seeking exclusive use of public lands.
The Pai Ohana has already lost two federal court battles in its efforts to remain on the land, which is just north of the mouth of Honokohau Small Boat Harbor.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave the Interior Department the authority to evict the Pai Ohana in May 1996. Park officials have called off seven eviction threats since the Pai Ohana's use permit expired.
According to Holly Bundock of the National Park Service's San Francisco regional office, negotiations between the Pai Ohana and government officials have broken down because the family will not keep its commitment to relocate peacefully.
"The Pai's have stated in a letter to (President Clinton) that they hold exclusive title to nearly 60 acres of federal land within the park and that any federal personnel who attempt to remove them 'will be held accountable,"' Bundock said.
Pai said his family remains stead-fast despite the National Park Service "banking on might makes right" to evict them. "The land of my ancestors continues to speak to me and give me and my family guidance through this long struggle with the National Park Service," Pai said.
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