December 02, 2012
Ngāpuhi elders cling to independence
Ngāpuhi is now waiting for the first instalment of the Waitangi Tribunal’s report into their claim – so they can see whether it matches their own report.
Ngāpuhi elders commissioned historian to write in independent report based on the evidence given to the tribal during hearings on 2010 and 2011.
Patu Hohepa, one of the report’s reviewers, says the writers have grasped the connection between the 1835 Declaration of Independence signed by northern chiefs and the Treaty of Waitangi five years later.
“We declared our sovereignty as a nation first of all and the treaty never ever gave away our independence to rule ourselves, to make our own laws and to allow a governor to come in and sort out its unruly people as well of those British people who have come to settle on our lands which we sold to the queen,” Dr Hohepa says.
Copyright © 2013, Uma Broadcasting Ltd