WAIHOPAI 2000

(see page 11)

Murray Horton. Anti-Bases Campaigner. and Uncle Sam. Host and Chief Spokesman for the Undemocratic Republic of UKUSA.
debate the fine points of satellite spying at the formidable front gate of the Waihopai spy station. Uncle Sam (and the Police)
allowed protesters to gather at the gate for speeches and protest during the January demonstrations. (Photo: Mar/borough
Express)

In this issue:

David defeats Goliath 2

Call for InqUiry into political spyll1g 10
"Whatever Happened to the Serpent" - a poem by Margaret Bremner 10
Waihopai 2000 - Seriously peaceful 11
F ootenote - How to buy the book "The Power of People" 12
Echelon - US and Britain use it to spy on their allies 13
Intelligence and Security Committee - New members: same old story 15
How to complain about spying 16
US Air Force continues to violate Aotearoa/NZ sovereignty 17
US military back in Philippll1es 19
Junk VFA - Kiwi joins protest 20
Obituary - Margaret Hales 21
Robert Rodvlk- Unsung Hero 22
Mercenaries might get back into Sierra Leone 23
Australian spies in sheep's clothing in Kosovo 24
Cops fingm US Secret Service as Chch banner' thieves 26
 to result from 1996 SIS break-in!
In July 1996, two agents of the NZ Security Intelligence
Service (8IS) were caught In the act of breaking into the
' wanted. In preference to the District Court) you have to
Christchurch home of GATT Watchdog activist Aziz
Choudry. dunng activities opposing the Asia Pacific Eco­
nomic Cooperation (APEC) Trade Ministers' Meeting.
AZlz sued the Government for $300,000 damages. In
1999, after a lengthy legal and political saga, the Na­
tional government settled the case out of court for an
undisclosed a m ount, plus costs, and begrudgingly
apologised to AzIZ (after having changed the law to le­
galise, Including retrospectively. all SIS break-ins). But I
digress
The man who caught one of the agents and took their
vehicle's registration number, which identified them as
SIS, was Dr David Small, a U nIversity of Canterbury lec­
turer and one of the speakers at the Trading With Our
lives conference, which was being held to counter the
APEC Ministers' Meeting. At the time of catching the
spook, David was wearing his conference name tag,
whIch identified him as "David Small, Corso" (one of the
agencies Involved in Trading With Our Lives).
A week after catching the agents, David's home was
raided by pOlice looking for "bomb making materi­
als" (Aziz's home had already been raided by the cops
He was away, accompanying a Mexican speaker from
Trading With Our Lives, on a national speaking tour).
These raids arose from a still unexplained. very realistic
fake bomb left at the C hristchurch City Council building
(the City Council had ordered GATT Watchdog to re­
move a previously approved anti-APEC window display
from the Council building). Incredibly, the "bomb" was in
a cardboard box labeled, in handwriting, "APEC Bomb"l
Even stranger, the "bomb" was planted after the APEC
Ministers' Meeting was over, when the Ministers, bu­
reaucrats, journalists and security men had gone home.
Needless to say, nothing was ever found in the raids
and nobody was ever charged with anything.
David Small also sued the Government, specifically the
Police. He did not take court actIon frivo­
lously. but only after he had exhausted the
proper channels. Firstly, he complained to
the Inspector General of Intelligence and
Security. As with Aziz's complaint to the
same source, no wrongdoing was detected.
Unlike Aziz, he also complained to the Po­
lice Complaints Authority. Same result In October 1999,
he filed his claim with the Christchurch High Court. sUing
the Crown for $300,000 damages, allegrng trespass and
a breach of his rights under the Bill of Rights. The media
lGATT :;;: Genera! Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; now the World Trade
Orgamsation, headed by New Zealand's very own Mike Maore And they
can have him
Peace Researcher 21
Murray Morton
later asked him why he sued for that much - one reason
IS that to get it heard in the HIgh Court ( which he
sue for at least $200,000
The case came to trial i n April 2000. The heanng, before
Justice Willie Young, took three full days (it had been set
down for two) I was able to attend all but the final after­
noon session
"We Think Aziz Has Been A Very Naughty Boy"
These were the immortal first words uttered by the cop
leading the late night raid on Aziz Choudry's home, to
the bemusement of his flatmate.
This and a whole lot more were amongst the gems re­
vealed in the evidence in David's case I was one of
those who seriously doubted the wisdom of hIS repre­
senting himself (Aziz was represented by leading Auck­
land Queen's Counsel, Rodney Harrison). I needn't have
worried - David did an a b solutely brillian t Job, and in­
deed, his representing himself seemed to work in his fa­
vour as far as the judge was concerned. He was allowed
to take the case' into areas that frankly surprised me
(and him). not to mention absolutely horrifying the spies
of both the Police and the SIS. David played the game -
he wore a nice suit and tie; he said "Your Honour" the
right number of times to keep the judge sweet; he wasn't
a smart arse; he didn't lose his temper when cross ex­
amining cops who absolutely bristled with antagonism
towards him (or who suddenly developed mass amne­
sia); and most importantly, he stuck doggedly to the
point, backed up by wads of both POlice and SIS docu­
ments secured during the discovery process. He per­
formed superbly, in front of a very i nterested public gal­
lery that included his parents throughout, plus several
siblings and··their children. His tying the Police up i n
knots reduced the gallery t o loud laughter more than
once, something which displeased the Judge
This was the sort of case that the Anti­
Bases Campaign (ABC) has always
dreamed of mounting against the Govern­
ment Communications Security Bureau
(GCSB - which runs the Waihopai spy­
base), but has never been able to do so.
There was a crucial difference from the
numerous Waihopai court cases - David was the plain­
tiff, not the defendant. He had the State on the back foot
(as Aziz had done in his landmark case against the SIS)
'
This wasn't a heanng where people defending minor
criminal charges (invariably trespass) tried to turn it into
a broader trial of tne wrongs being perpetrated at Wai­
hopai (an approach that has always been rejected by
- May 2000 - Page 2
t h e Blenhelm judge. who has i nsisted on keeping the
hearings to the very n a rrow matters In front of h i m .
rather t h a n looking at the bigger crime being committed
by the spybase). This was that rare occasion wllere an
i n d ividual had every legal right to closely examine the
workings of the secret State, and s ubject It to very Criti­
cal scrutiny
Several factors worked in David's favour If AZlz's case
had not already created a major legal a n d political mile­
stone, then t h i s s u bsequent case would not have got off
the ground So m u c h of it would have been mere conJec­
ture and speculatIOn. But It is now a matter of i n disput­
able fact that i t was the SIS whom David caught In the
act of breaking into AZlz' s house (altllough several of the
Police witnesses In Davld s case persisted I n referring to
"another agency" and "the so-called S I S'. On several of
the times that Davld referred to the burglary at AZlz s
these cops objected that there was no burglary for them
to Investigate. as the S I S were acting lawfully under one
of their own warrants The Police preferred to call It 'the
events' Of course. as Azizs case established, the S I S
agents were not acting lawful l y , because t h e i r warrants
gave them no legal right to break and enter) Therefore
the judge was h appy for David to probe relentlessly Into
m a n y aspects of the PollcelSIS relationship
Not only that but Davld, the legal tyro won a couple of
very Important l e g a l pOints fight at the outset of the hear­
Ing The law relating to material produced In the d lsco'J­
ery process u s u a l l y prohibits It belrlg used In a n y other
case. Davld successfully applied to be allowed to make
use of S I S documents u n covered In AZlz's case. These
he used. With telling effect against Police witnesses
Their line was t h a t that they d l d n t know the Identity of
the person who caught t h e S I S agents, that nobody anci
certai n ly not t h e SIS. had told them It was Davld, and
that their subsequent raids of h i S a n d AZlzs hornes were
u n related to that But Davld was able to produce an SIS
report detailing how the unidentified agent CA) had
been caught by someone weanng a conference name
tag clearly Identifying him as ' Davld Small, Corso"
The other legal pOint he won was
the fight to cross exarnlne "hiS
Police witnesses He only diSCOV­
ered days before the hearing that
the hapless Crown lawyer did not
Intend calling specific cops that
Davld considered Vital to his case
He u n successfully applied for a n
adjournment t h e n had t o have t h e
relevant cops s u bpoenaed (In one
case, haVing to be at the C hnst­
church Central Police Station be­
fore 7 a m . on t h e Saturday before
the case started . to personally
serve a subpoena on a very sur­
prised cop) The rules of evidence
usually prevent a lawyer cross ex­
a m i n i n g hiS own witnesses. I n thiS
case, t h e judge a llowed It. citing
hiS own exte n s i v e experience of
dealing With hostile witnesses
(and some of these cops were dls-
Peace Researcher 21
tlnctly hostile to Davld under cross examination) The
judge then sat back and let Davld gnll these fellows for
hours at a stretch � It was faSCinating to observe their
body language o n the witness stand Repeatedly they
looked towards the judge before answering a q u estion
presumably waiting for a ruling from hlln that they d l d nt
have to answer It The judge ignored them, leaVing them
to reluctantly a n swer the endless probing questions The
judge only stopped Davld o n a couple of occasions (and
denied hiS request to present additional eVidence on hiS
own behalf) He was notlceallly tougher o n t h e Crown
lawyer Interrupting him several tllnes to ask questions
and query the direction of hiS argument Not only that
but the judge ordered tile Crown to produce an addi­
tional Police witness for cross examination: fle ordered a
Police surveillance photograph of David mentioned by a
Police witness to be produced a n d , when the allocated
two days had finished rescheduled things so that a tlmd
full day was available to fllllsh the case
One thing needs to be clanfied - Davld made n o attempt
to find out what the SIS was u p to at Azizs place that
fateful night Accordingly, we are none the wiser All
sorts of speculative scenarios have been suggested
(see prevrous PRs Ed.). It IS Illegal to identify any mem­
ber of the SIS, except the D i rector, so the agents caught
by Davld have never been Identified ! n any way I t ""ould
have been very d i fficult to have had anyone from the
SIS produced In court as a witness. and if Daw) had
tned t h e C l a rk government would Ilave fought i t through
every court available. The SIS had found Its one day 111
the Chnstchurch H i g h Court (1998 ,i\ziz's case) suffi­
Ciently traumatic to warrant a full-scale constitutional
battle by the Shlpley government to prevent any further
legal scrutiny of Its activIties. The prospect of its spies
being cross examined a n d their operations scrutinised
would have Induced cardiac arrest Davld Wisely deCided
tilat he didn't need that figh t and confined IllS !egal ac­
tion to the Police. But the SIS was a ghostly presence
throughout When Davld's brother naively took photos I n
tile court he was hauled u p before t h e Bench The
judge's q u estion to the Crown lawyer was telling. "Are
Aziz & David in f"iagfey Park
" May 2000 " Page 3
you concerned about anyone in court having his phOto
taken?" The answer was "no", and the ernng brother
was let off With a warning.
"That David Small Is A Fucking Arsehole"
These were the i mmortal words uttered by one Police
witness, having just been grilled at great length, to an­
other one waiting to give evidence (presumably think­
Ing that he was out of public earshot). That gives you a
reasonably vivid snapshot of Police reaction to haVing
their dirty little secrets publicly exposed over three long
days Presumably, they decided to fight the claim
( rather than settling out of court, as happened with
AZlz) because they must have thought that they had an
arguable case, and because they are used to their op­
erations, procedures and intelligence gathering meth­
ods being scrutinised in open court. If so.
they badly miscalculated.
David had one trump card in his hand - the
stack of Police reports, Job sheets, and all
manner of other documentation that he had
secured under the pre-trial d iscovery proc­
ess. He asked every cop on the stand
whether they could remember attending van­
ous specific Police meetings and briefings to
discuss matters connected with this whole chain of
events. Invariably, they all said that it was four years
ago, they couldn't remember, etc, etc. The prize goes
to the cop who testified that he'd lost his notebook in
the Avon River d u ring a subsequent incident After
each cop had proclaimed amneSia, David would pro­
duce the relevant Police documents to prove that the
witness had indeed attended those meetings. One cop
was adamant that his colleague who had recorded him
as present was mistaken and that h e could definitely
remember not attending any such meeting. The judge
was Intrigued, asking him that if he couldn't remember
all manner of other things that he was supposed to
have done, how come he could so clearly remember
something that h e hadn't done?
David's patient but extremely insistent cross examina­
tion of these Police witnesses extracted admissions
that they'd discussed the evidence d uring the course of
this case (a legal no no); h e queried, at length, cover
sheets on relevant files that appeared to have been
tampered with, to remove mention of the S I S . The
judge asked t h e Crown lawyer to provide an explana­
tion - he couldn't
The Police evidence, elicited under his cross examina­
tion, was absolutely fascinating, and raised more than
a few eyebrows in the court itself, and throughout the
country. The rank and file uniformed plod who was
sent out to investigate David's original burglary
complaint testified that "acting on a hunch", he
decided to check nearby motels for the burglars
(David had provided the getaway car's registra­
tion n umber; it had out of town registration
plates, which t h e media later famously traced to
an SIS front company in Wellington) The cop
duly located it in a nearby motel. There was
never any direct contact between the Police and
Peace Researcher 21
the SIS agents. The cop asked for back u p and addi­
tional cars were sent At thiS pOint he got a radiO mes­
sage to ring Control. Interestingly, he left his car and
made the call from a public phone In a shop
(presumably so that the likes of reporters. uSing scan­
ners tuned to Police radio channels, wouldn't hear
about the SIS involvement). HIS supenors told him to
drop the whole matter, which h e d u ly did
The commander of the Cnmlnal I ntelligence Service
(CIS) of the Christch u rch Police testified that he got a
call at home that nigh! from Control, asking if any of his
undercover agents were up to any "funny tncks" He
replied "no". Based on what he was told, he deCided
that the offenders did not fit the stereotype of burglars.
David asked him how he knew. "Cop intuition" was the
answer (court transcript). "I mean b u rglars are bur­
glars and these guys didn't look like bur­
glars" (ibid). H e was pressed for more par­
ticulars. He replied that the "burglars" were
driving a late model vehicle (note to S I S
training officers; make sure your spies look
like tattooed Maoris, and that they dnve old
rustbuckets. Then they will get away With
the cops assuming that they are common or
garden burglars). He duly rang the Christ­
church head of the S18, his regular contact.
on the latter's cellphone and asked if the people m the
motel were his agents He was told "yes". He further
asked Mr X if those agents were acting in accordance
with an SIS warrant Once again, he was told "yes"
David asked if any Police officer asked to see the war­
rant, or did they simply take the word of the SIS? The
latter, which appears to be standard Police procedure
in dealings with the S I S . The CIS commander then in­
structed the cops to abandon the operation to appre­
hend the "burglars". Light was also shed on the rela­
tionship between the C I S and grassroots cops. Several
days after the incident, cops from the Hornby Police
Station (the closest to Aziz's house) contacted Corso
to try and arrange access to the house (Aziz was in the
North Island) to fingerprint it, as part of a routme bur­
glary inquiry (Corso told them not to worry, as they had
a fair idea of who was responsible). When questioned
about this, the CIS commander confimned that it keeps
a large amount of its work secret from other cops Le. it
had not officially stated that it knew that the "burglars"
were S I S agents. Indeed one cop told David, in the
days after the incident that he'd been told to "keep
your bloody nose out of it" by CIS ( h e denied saying
that when cross examined).
Another CI8 detective testified that, on that same
night. h e received a call from hiS SIS contact (so that's
two separate calls acknowledged. to and from the S I S ,
that night). T h e spook asked for help i n calling off the
cops who were about to pounce on the motel
housing his agents. That message was d uly
passed on up the chain of command and carried
out He hinted at the mood by describing the
81S man as "far from comfortable" d u ring their
conversation and "uncomfortable" about report­
ing their predicament to the cops. The Judge
asked this detective; " H uman nature being what
it IS, I suppose that you and (two other detec-
- May 2000 - Page 4
tives) would have had a few laughs about the predica­
ment the Security Intelligence Service got into?" An­
swer "Yes, that IS correct" (court transcript). I think we
can take it as read that the cops would have been roil­
Ing about the floor screaming with laughter, and that It
would soon have become the hot gossip in the cop­
shop "Hear about the S ISsies? They can't even pull off
a break-In without getting caught and having our guys
sent after them". You bet they would have had a "few
laughs" They probably still are.
Watching The Detectives
Aziz's case had not involved the Police
a n d . accordingly, their role in the whole
"risk" They testified that they knew the people Involved
In "CAFCNAFIA" (Campaign Against Foreign Control
of Aotearoa/Action For an Independent Aotearoa), a
m u rky conglomerate protest group which they believed
to be the mastermind behind all manner of protests.
and to be located In the Corso building (a q uite wrong
assumption on their behalf, I might add. CAFCA and
AFIA were entirely separate organisations, with very
d ifferent Interests and goals. CAFCA has never been
based in the Corso building). David's witnesses named
the organisers of Trading With Our Lives as the then
GATT Watchdog committee of Lelgh Cookson, AZlz.
Nell Wright, and myself David never has been on the
committee, or even a GATT Watchdog member I nter­
estingly, apart from Aziz, none of the other three organ­

affair had never been examined up until
now. Davld's case opened a very wriggly
can of worms. His argument was that
there was no reason, other than his having
caught the S I S agents, for him to have
come to Police attention. He had no con­
fill
isers was ever even contacted by the Police, let alone
raided. in connection with the hoax bomb or anything
else. I put out the initial GATT Watchdog press release
(the only one that's ever gone out in m y
name) fingering t h e SIS a s being responsi-
ble for the break-in at Aziz's place, and say- '
• ' i
. ..
..
.

'
victions. no criminal record. Cop after cop ing that the Police raids were a dirty triCkS "
.. . '" . ..
.

testified that yes, they had no reason to be concerned
about h i m In their jargon, he was a " person of no sig­
nificance" The officer in charge of security at the 1996
APEC Ministers' Meeting accepted that Davld had been
granted media accreditation to the conference, some­
thing which would have involved him passing a security
vetting (and something which was withdrawn, on secu­
rity grounds, from Corso's Joe Davies, during the 1999
APEC M i nisters' Meeting, in Christchurch). The cops
testified that before an event such as the APEC Minis­
ters' Meeting, several specific Christchurch houses and
premises would be placed under routine surveillance
They confirmed that Aziz's house was such a "target",
and that they were not surprised to learn that It was
also an SIS target They testified that they knew all the
people who came and went from the Chrlstchurch
Corso building (from which a l l sorts of protests have
been organised).
They testified that he was not regarded as any sort of
campaign to smear us as terrorists. I never . . .
.
saw or heard a dicky bird from the State.
The Police issued four search warrants after the hoax
bomb - in court they testified that Aziz was the prime
suspect and David was N u m be r Two. The other two
were not named in court, but it is a matter of fact that
neither of them was in any way involved with GATT
Watchdog or organ'lsing Trading With O u r Lives
(indeed, I'd never heard of one of them)
Nor was there any suggestion that David had acted in
any other than a proper way In attempting to apprehend
burglars and reporting them to the Police. Don't take
my word for it - try this, from a letter that David re­
ceived from the Director of the SIS. "I note your con­
cern as to the perception that the Service may have of
you. For what it is worth, my personal perception is that
your actions as described above were entirely appropri­
ate and what I would expect of any responsible citizen
While the Service was not pleased about what hap­
pened, its displeasure
has been directed at it­
self, not you" ( 1/12/99;
quoted i n court tran­
script)

So how did David Small

suddenly become the
back up prime suspect i n
this hoax bomb affair?
According to the Police
Witnesses, because of his
association with Aziz. The
cops. who routinely mis­
pronounced Aziz's sur­
name as "Chowdry"" de­
scribed him as "surly". 'an
habitual complainer about
the police", and a
"person" who lived In a n
"ove rg rown prem­
Ises" ( people don't live i n
houses, according to po-

Peace Researcher 21 " May 2000 " Page 5

Iicespeak; persons occupy premises). It was simply
stated as a given, by Police witnesses, that association
with Aziz was s ufficient cause for suspicion that David
was involved in a crime. Even more so then if he was
Aziz's flatmate. This was the thrust of Police evidence -
that they mistakenly believed that David lived at Aziz's
place, based on the fact that it was he who
caught the SIS agents there. There was ex­
tremely comical testimony given of their attempts
to find him once the initial raid on AzIZ'S house
established that David did not live there - they
scoured electrical supply records (an mteresting
revelation of Police modus operandi); once they'd es­
tablished that he lived in Riccarton Road, they consid­
ered a door knock of that road (the mmd boggles).
David asked a glaringly obvious question - "did you
look me up in the phone book? Because I was in it".
Apparently they didn't Even stranger, why did they
search Aziz's looking for David when his complgint to
the Police about the burglars the previous weekend
listed his Rlccarton Road address?
The most bizarre testimony about why they thought that
David lived at Aziz's (he has never spent so much as
one night there) was that of the grassroots plod who
was instructed b y CIS to drive up and down Aziz's
street, once only, on a week day before the APEC Min­
Isterial, to observe any "persons or vehicles upon the
premises". By wonderful coincidence, a "male Cauca­
sian on a bicycle" came pedaling out at that exact mo­
ment, and that i nformation, relayed to CIS, was cited
(With a straight face) as possible evidence of David's
living there. When pressed for a more convincing iden­
tification, the cop further stated that the bicycle had
"two wheels". In his closing address, David assailed
this string of Police evidence that casually asserted that
mere association with Aziz by this otherwise blameless
citizen was enough to convert David into a major sus­
pect The cops made it abundantly clear that they have
had it in for Aziz for a long time but David made the tell­
ing point that they had no reason to be interested in
Aziz either He is not a criminal. Any Police interest is
purely political surveillance, the criminalisation of dis­
sent
One cop's evidence was in stark contrast to this "we
had no previous interest in you" line. He was the CIS
detective who had been rung on the night of the bun­
gled SIS break-in by his SIS contact He was upfront
and unrepentant about his attitude to David, stating that
he had been aware of him for 1 0- 1 5 years, dating back
to articles that David had written in Corso's Overview in
the mid 1 980s These articles were nothing to do with
free trade.. but were about the Kanak independence
struggle, in New Caledonia (Kanaky). David's then wife,
Susanna Ounei, is a Kanak, and had a high profile in
both her homeland and New Zealand as an advocate of
independence. Both David and Susanna were public
figures in New Zealand in the 1 980s because of this
issue (e.g., David staged a three
week hunger strike outside the
French Embassy, in Wellington,
when refused permission to visit
Kanaky, and his wife). The Police
had refused David a firearms licence
Peace Researcher 21
because they were apparently afraid of Susanna get­
ting access to weapons (David won the case on ap­
peal; so he's beaten the Police in court before. He also
beat a couple of charges arising from protests during
the 1 98 1 Springbok Tour). Susanna has been living
back in Kanaky for a number of years. This same cop
testified that he had a photo of David on file, dat­
ing from a 1 989 Waitangi Day protest at Okains
Bay ( Banks Peninsula) - this was the photo that
the Judge ordered produced in court. Further, that
David's file included entries such as the fact that
he was noted attending a 1 995 Information on
Ireland quiz night in a Christchurch pub. This evidence
of systematic surveillance spanning more than a dec­
ade, including monitoring articles and social nights out
raised eyebrows and was put on the front page by the
Press. The judge asked the detective why the Police
hold a file on David, given that he has no criminal re­
cord. "I don't know", was the reply, accompanied by
waffle about how people with no criminal record some­
times have driving offences that lead to them being on
Police files. Crap. This is incontrovertible proof of politi­
cal surveillance by the intelligence wing of the Police
(which in other countries functions as a full blown Spe­
cial Branch).
David asked this detective if he believed that he owed
Davld an apology. The cop replied that h e had been
wrong in believing David to live with Aziz "but I still be­
lieve you to be a person who may have had knowledge
of the placing of that device (the hoax bomb. Ed) be­
cause of your associations with Mr Choudry and vari­
ous protest organisations. Because we didn't find any­
thing doesn't necessarily mean to me on a personal ba­
sis that you had nothing to do with it" (court transcript).
David: "So you are saying your belief of me is that I am
the sort of person you would suspect of cnminal activity
and that the only reason I have no criminal convictions
IS that I have been clever enough not to have been
caught yet?". Detective: "Not necessarily. I believe you
to be a person who had knowledge of the placing of the
device. I didn't say you made it or placed
f
it" (ibid) To sum u p - to this day, that
particular cop considers David a suspect 6.'':'
in the hoax bomb affair.
Who Planted The "Bomb"?
This is one of the two major unanswered questions
arising from this whole strange chain of events. The
other one is, of course, what were the SIS agents up to
at Aziz's the night David caught them? No explanation
has ever been forthcoming on that one, and we're still
none the wiser.
So, who did plant the hoax bomb at the C h ristchurch
City Council building? As already detailed, at least one
CIS detective was happy to testify that he still thought
that David had something to do with it All the cops who
gave evidence made much of the fact that Aziz had
been described as "angry" when GATT Watchdog was
told by the Council to remove its previously approved
anti-APEC display from the front window of the Council
building (the Council has learned its lesson, leaving a
Similar window display well alone during the 1 999
- May 2000 - Page /)
APEC Mimsters' Meeting, in C histchu rch) So this ap­
parently was enough to make AzIZ the prime suspect
and David the Number Two by dint of his "association"
with AzIZ. It's worth noting that by the time of the Police
raid on Oavid's house, the "offence" being investigated
was effeclively no longer anything to do with bombs,
hoax or otherwise, but the much lesser one of wasting
Police time (by making them investigate and detonate a
hoax bomb in case it was a real one).
AZIZ and David were regarded as pnme suspects be­
cause of their alleged involvement in GATT Watchdog.
So GATT Watchdog was a suspect per se. As a GATT
Watchdog committee member, in 1 996 and now, you
can take it from me that we had nothing to do with it.
Even If you don't believe me, stop and think: what
would we hope to gain by carrying out such an action?
Would it be to our advantage or disadvantage? The an­
swer IS obvious. Even the cops didn't press that one -
apart from Aziz, no other member of the GATT Watch­
dog committee was even approached by the Police.
Could it have been extremists from our side of the
fence? Presumably that was the reasoning behind the
cops Issuing two other search warrants for people who
had nothing to do with GATT Watchdog. All our own
Inquiries around the political scene have come u p with
nothing. I think we need to look over the other side of
the fence
David has no doubt who planted it -
the S I S . The judge highlighted this
conclusion when reading David's
brief of evidence; David confirmed it
but said that it was not central to his
case, because he had no way of
proving it one way or another. It was certainly a suspi­
Ciously well-made hoax bomb. Police witnesses de­
scribed it as "sophisticated", and it was good enough to
fool the explosives expert called to the scene to exam­
Ine it. He ordered it detonated, and only after that did
he pronounce it a hoax. The conclusion was that it was
made by somebody who knew what slhe was doing,
and who had the ability to make a real bomb. Most ex­
traordinarily, t h e cardboard box containing it had the
words 'APEC Bomb" handwritten on it ( handwriting
samples were among the items sought by Police in
their searches of Aziz and David's houses). Of all the
things that GATT Watchdog might theoretically have
written on a hoax bomb, "APEC Bomb" does not rank
highly
Davld had pursued the matter. H e wrote to the Com­
missioner of Police and the Minister of Police, among
others, asking what inquiries had the Police made to
establish the whereabouts of the SIS agents (the ones
he'd caught) when the hoax bomb was planted. Funnily
enough, they didn't make any, and seemed puzzled at
the s uggestion.
GATT Watchdog has no such qualms. In its press re­
lease after t h e judgement, it said: "From day one,
GATT Watchdog correctly identified the burglars at M r
Choudry's house a s S I S agents. W e have consistently
been proved correct and legally vindicated in courts of
Peace Researcher 21
law over the past four years, in spite of being officially
stonewalled all the way 10 pursuit of the truth. Who
knows what would have happened had we not nipped
in the bud what was obviously a politically-motivated,
secret State dirty tricks operation? The hoax bomb ep'­
sode alone has all the hallmarks of classic agents pm·
vocateur tactics" (press release, "'We Were Right -
Again": GATT Watchdog on APEC S I S/Police Deba­
cle''', 8/5/00). It was drawlOg a long bow to expect a
Judge to accept this argument and, sur­
prise, surprise, he didn't But it didn't
matter in the context of the case. The
hoax bomb episode remains unsolved -
we have our own very strong suspicions
about who is responsible
Cock Up Or Conspiracy?
The Judge Rules It Was The Former
The gist of David's claim was that he was the innocent
victim of a conspiracy between the S I S and the Police.
that he was punished by a trumped up Police raid be­
cause he had inadvertently caught the S I S agents In
flagrante delicto, and that the SIS had got their mates
in the cops to get h i m because he'd embarrassed the
spies This was always going to be a difficult case to
prove, because he didn't have any "smoking gun" eVI­
dence and was never likely to get any.
Interestingly, in many respects, the court case was a no
contest, because the Crown lawyer admitted Police li­
ability from the outset, accepting that the search was
illegal because of a lack of grounds. Several times he
stated that the evidence was not in q uestion, and that
the only thing to be decided was how much compensa­
tion should be paid to David (he offered $ 1 0,000, in h i S
closing address). He apologised, o n behalf of the
Crown. The judge took all this on board and a couple of
times stopped Oavid, saying that as his version of
events was accepted by both sides, there was no need
to cross examine Police witnesses about the details of
the search of his house (for example). But the Crown
ascribed all the events to cock up, rejecting utterly any
malice aforethought towards David, and definitely re­
jecting any suggestion of a conspiracy. Police actions
were described by the Crown lawyer as "simply quite
bad negligence" (Press, 20/4/00), "speculation and er­
ror" (ibid), and, in summary, "an honest mistake". H e
urged the judge not t o award exemplary damages and
said that it is an unpalatable fact that some protest
groups have to be kept under surveillance. He sug­
gested that, otherwise, C h ristchurch could find itself
facing the same level of serious civil disorder that has
become known as the Battle of Seattle (the mass pro­
tests that shut down the December 1 999 World Trade
Organisation's ill-fated Millennium Round meeting).
The judge reserved h i s decision. He didn't take long to
make up his mind, just over a fortnight (in Aziz's vari­
ous cases, reserved decisions took a month) The 26
page judgement was delivered In May 2000. He re­
jected conspiracy (sunprise, surprise) and accepted
cock up. In virtually every area where there were two
different explanations, he gave the Police the benefit of
the doubt
" May 2000 - Page 7

The judgement IS worth quoting.
there is no evidence that Dr Small IS
a n ything other than a law abiding Citi­
zen but such Involvement as he had
(with GA TT Watchdog. Ed.) was at a
level which could not fairly suggest Involvement i n the
hoax bomb Incident. . . The procedure e mployed to ob­
tain the second search warrant (to search David's
house. Ed) was Indefensible" The judge found that it
wrongly described David as Aziz's flatmate, which had
never been true, and that it proVided no factual basis
for any eVidence that Davld had a nything to do with the
hoax bomb. "The obtaining of the search warrant was
slap dash to say the least". H e found that the relevant
officer did not act out of malice: "The only sensible ex­
planatton for his behaviour in relation to the obtaining of
a search warrant I S that he was acting on automatic P'­
lot" But havlf1g found that, he ruled that David could
not seek damages for trespass, because the 1950
Crown Proceedings Act exempts C rown Judicial officers
from liability I n these sorts of circumstances. On legal
grounds. he also declined to make a ruling as to
whether the warrant was invalid.
The judge ruled that although David's catching the SIS
agents and the Police raid on his house were causally
linked . he could find no evidence to support David's
claim that the raid was "payback" for catching the spies
H e described the unexplained altering of Police file
cover sheets as "all very unsatisfactory", but not sinis­
ter He accepted that the Police were duty bound to
take a n Interest I n those who might be opposed to the
APEC Ministers' Meeting, but I n contrast, the hoax
bomb Incident o n l y involved an offence of wasting Po­
lice lime "1 rather think that this is why the identification
of suspects was carried out in such an unsophisticated
way"
In assessing the amount of compensation, the judge
ruled that David had courted pUblicity about the whole
thing. "It provided Dr Small and his friends with an op­
portunity to tweak the tails of both Institutions (the SIS
and the Police. Ed.). Indeed, the unresponsiveness of
those Institutions to complaints and inquiries by M r
Choudry and D r Small and the opaqueness of such an­
swers as were given served to provide further opportu­
nities for tail tweaking . . . But thiS case IS not just to be
swept under the carpet" The judge ruled that David
was 'entitled to resent" the search: that he saw it as
" u njustified harassment of him as an activist who, by
accident. had become caught up In an SIS covert op­
eration All of this was exacerbated b y the stonewall­
ing responses he received to his Inquiries . It was un­
derstandable that he took the view that he was being
s'&,;-�®)... lied to. "
:-�"'r;" ,J _ ) abiding cItizens solely because they hold views con­
n <\l�� Finally h e ruled that the search was I n breach
of section 21 of the NZ Bill of Rights Act as being un­
reasonable, and awarded David $20,000 compensation
(With costs still to be resolved). The key paragraph i n
h i s Judgement I S worth quoting in full "It i s . I suppose
human nature for some Police officers to view an activ­
ist such as Dr Small with suspicion - as someone who
IS on the other Side. Of course. some Police officers are
Peace Researcher 21 - May 2000· Page 8
more prone to this m i ndset than others. Given Police
responsibilities for secunty " Police officers are perfectly
entitled to maintain intelligence files on those who are.
or conceivably could be, security threats. Such people
may well include political activists. But there IS a differ­
ence between the Police maintaining an Interest I n
political activists (which I accept I S legitimate) a n d the
Police equating political activism with either the com­
miSSion of criminal offences or With a suffiCient propen­
sity to commit criminal offences to Justify the obtaining
of search warrants when a n offence has been commit­
ted. In his closing submiSSion Dr Small took the view
that hiS freedoms of thought, expression and associa­
tion and not merely hiS freedom from u n reasonable
search had been Infringed. Although there was an ele­
ment of hyperbole in all of thiS, there IS also a sense In
which his claims as to this are fight To say that Dr
Small's property was searched because he is a n activ­
ist m what he regards as SOCial Justice causes Involves
some telescoping of the thought processes of the Po­
l ice But it IS nonetheless true. From the point of view of
the Police. I think that this IS the worst aspect of thiS
case" The judge clearly recognised that Police prac­
tices revealed in thiS case amounted to the crlmmalisa­
tion of political dissent That i s a n ominous reality
The "Proper Channels" Don't Work
There was high media interest i n thiS case; 0\
the hearing itself attracted national cover- ..,�"_,,,,
age, and when David called a press confer-
ence at the U niversity of Canterbury Staff Club to re­
lease the Judgement, and comment on the case" there
was a major turnout from all branches of the media
(there were six separate TV crews there alone). David
had this to say
'''Just,ce Young's Judgement is a total vindication of
what I have been saying about thiS series of events for
the last four years. I said two things that the Police had
absolutely no grounds to suspect m e of being Involved
in the hoax bomb: and that m y responsible and public­
spirited actions i n apprehending the SIS agents led di­
rectly to my house bemg searched.
"The court hearing also revealed disturbing facts that
had not previously come to light, notably the inability or
refusal of the intelligence-gathering section of the Po­
lice (the Criminal Intelligence Service or CIS) to d istm­
guish between political dissent and criminal activity
Dunng the hearing, the CIS officer who specialised i n
political intelligence was frank a n d thoroughly unapolo­
getic about hiS conflation of political and criminal mat­
ters In thiS case and as part of normal CIS practice
"Th,s amounts to blatant police harassment of law­
trary to the dominant political doctrines of the day. The
matter at issue in this case had previously been the
subject of investigations by the Police Complaints Au­
thority (PCA) and the Inspector-General of Intelligence
and Security. Both i ncorrectly found nothing i m p roper i n
the Police search of m y house
""Only one of the eight police officers who gave eVI-
 dence In the hearing of this case confirmed
that he had been I nterviewed during the
PCA investigation. And this was the officer
whose eVidence in the hearing led the
judge to conclude, in effect, that the search
was unjustifiable political harassment
"The PCA concluded that it was not unrea­
sonable for the Police to suspect me of involvement in
the hoax bomb because In an Interview I 'confirmed a
loose association with (Gatt Watchdog), . . empathised
with its principles and engaged in some activities in­
cluding speaking to meetings and taking part In a dem­
onstration conducted on the week of the APEC sum­
mit In coming to the conclusion it did, the PCA itself
seems to approve of the kind of political harassment
that Justice Young considered the worst aspect of this
case The I nspector-General of Intelligence and Secu­
rity was asked only about the actions of the SIS and not
the Police, but he nevertheless volunteered the view
that 'It was not unreasonable for the Police to Include
Or Small in the application for search warrant
"Both these 'investigations' were based on question­
able assumptions and flawed processes and, not sur­
priSingly. therefore, reached wrong conclusions. As a
result of my e xperience. I have no confidence at all in
either of these complaints procedures
"1 took legal action against the Crown only as a last re­
sort after exhausting every other channel available to
me. U ntil very recently, I would have been satisfied with
an honest explanation and a simple apology. The
Crown's persistently d eceitfu l and stubborn refusal to
concede any wrongdoing at a l l has ended u p wasting
an extraordinary amount of my time and energy and an
Irresponsibly large amount of public money. Even
when. at the last minute, the Crown finally acknowl­
edged legal liability, they still tried to claim that it was all
Just a n honest mistake and would not properly engage
In settlement negotiations
"Quite apart from the violation of my right to be free
from unreasonable search, it is disgraceful that I should
have had to endure the emotional anguish and financial
risk of private litigation against the Crown to obtain JUs­
tice In thiS matter
"To date, the Government has only apologised
for what It h a s been claiming was an honest
mistake. However, as Justice Young's judge­
ment makes clear, there was much worse than
an honest mistake involved in the Police deci­
sion to search my house. T herefore. I do not
accept the Government's apology. I call on the
Government to acknowledge the judge's ruling
and apologise to m e for the political harassment that
resulted in t h e violation of my rights to freedom of
thought expression and association and to my right to
be free from u n reasonable search. Further, I draw the
Government's attention to the brazenly u n repentant at­
titude exhibited by senior members of the Criminal In­
telligence Service of the Police in relation to the surveil­
lance of political diSSidents and I call on the Govern­
ment to ensure that all Police officers are made aware
Peace Researcher 21
of the difference between political and cnmlflal activity
"I also call on the Government to review and overhaul
the terms of reference and procedural methods
adopted by the PCA and the Inspector-General of Intel­
ligence and Security" (David Small, press release,
"Court declares Police searched academic's house be­
cause he is a social justice activist", 8/5/00)
It's worth reiterating that Aziz Choudry also complained
to the I n spector-General of Intelligence and Security
about the SIS breaking Into his house Without ever
once confirming any SIS involvement, the Inspector­
General ruled that "nothing unlawful" had taken place
(code language for the spies had a warrant, so it's
OK) Aziz went to court, and got the histonc ruling that
the SIS had never had the legal right to break into any­
one's place. The Inspector-General then admitted that
his finding, based on his mistaken interpretation of the
law, was wrong Both Az,Z and Davld went to tt18
"proper channels' - both were mucked around and
those authOrities proven wrong I n the subsequent court
cases. Why should anyone else have faith In those
"proper channels"?
David was asked by the media how he felt about suing
for $300,000 and being awarded $20,000. He replied
that the case had never been about money. It was
about vindication, clearing his name of being a suspect
in the murky hoax bomb affair, and getting the truth
about a very disturbing chain of events.
Are We Still "Enemies Of The State"?
GATT Watchdog's Leigh Cookson
also released a statement at
David's press conference. Pre­
dictably, the media ignored that
It's worth quoting:
"This chain of events . . . took place in the context of
GATT Watchdog organising actlvllies opposed to the
Government's slavish a d herence to extreme poliCies of
u nrestricted free trade and foreign investment just prior
to 1 996's APEC Trade Ministers Meeting.
"Presumably the National government regarded GATT
Watchdog and associates as enemies of the State. We
demand to know if the present Government still holds
to that View, and if so on what grounds
"Now that the international pendulum i s swinging so
firmly towards GATT Watchdog's point of view on glob­
alisation why are organisations such as ourselves stili
being treated as enemies of the State?" (press re·
lease. "'We Were Right - Again"; GATT Watchdog on
APEC SIS/Pol,ce Debacle"', 8/5/00).
Apart from one reporter at David's press conference
asking if it Isn't fair enough for the State to monitor po­
litical activists ("because nobody had heard of the Okla­
homa bomber beforehand either"), media coverage
was very good and will run for a good while yet This is
one story that has been gOing strong for four years and
is nowhere near finished yet Bruce Ansley wrote a
hard h lttmg Listener editorial ("SOS Secunty". 6/5/00 -
- May 2000 - Page 9
 before the Judgement was released)
'As Small and the Police slugged it out In court, SWIt­
zerland's International I n stitute for Management Devel­
opment produced new world competitiveness ratings.
New Zealand rated number one for lack of protection­
ism. lack of price controls and access to
foreign finance We rated near bottom for
the brain drain, export growth, current ac­
count balance and domestic savings De­
spite a decade of the world's most ad­
vanced economiC reform, we remain
among the world's most economically chal­
lenged. You might conclude that the na­
tion s leading economic subversives are
nowhere near the courtrooms with Choudry
and Small. Our best advice to those masterminds IS to
listen for clicks on the line, keep those ministerial
houses locked at all times, and always take a hard hat
to Washington". Trat puts the whole thing very suc­
Cinctly into context, and into perspective. The enemies
of the New Zealand people are definitely not those In
the Christchurch Corso building; they are to
be found i n much more salubrious surround­
ings, although some of their more cack­
handed henchmen can sometimes be
caught floundering about In bushes. I nadver­
tently, David made a very big catch For
someone fighting Goliath, Davld Small has
got a cinematically appropriate name. In this
case, Small has won a very big ViCtOry.

One immediate result of David Small's court victory was a broad-based call for a Parliamentary Select Committee
InquirY Into political spying by the Police's Criminal I ntelligence Service (CIS). The appeal was headed by Auckland
University's Professor Jane Kelsey, a prominent writer, and Joined by a raft of groups and individuals - trade union
groupings, churches, academics, students, etc, etc ( Murray Horton endorsed it, o n behalf of both CAFCA and ABC)
The appeal noted that the Small case revealed that the CIS equates legitimate extra-parliamentary political opposi­
tion With Criminal activity; and that the CIS operates as a quasi-Intelligence agency without even the minimal offiCial
oversight afforded the S I S or GCSB

The appeal was directed to Tim Barnett MP (Labour, Chrlstchurch Central) in his capacity as chair of the Justice and
Electoral Select Committee. That committee is already inquiring into Police actions against Free Tibet protests dur­
ing the 1 999 State visit of Chinese President, Jiang Zemin and the role of the Government, specifically the then
Prime Minister. Jenny Shipley, in directing those Police actions .

�"�._""" ..-:J,,,,,,�,,,,,,,,,,,,�.�,,�, ,,,,,,,,,,,,�,, �

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE SERPENT?

.-:l, '��'

:
�
�
i
They meet in a sunlit paddock The other �
One urbane in a dark suit Without benefit of suit i
Wrapped in authority Shivers �
Out of place Clothing his nakedness
I n charge. I n a protest flag.
He srniles behind dark glasses Thus clad he
Welcomes the other F aces the future
Provisionally Cast oul, but
To view but not to touch Sustained by the knowledge
What flourishes in his domain, Of good and evil.
Guarded by fiery gates
And steel fences- Knowing who the real trespasser is
The alien fruits He shivers
Of the Tree of Knowledge-is-Power. But stands firm.

A cold wind blows. Margaret Bremner

Surreal globes Waihopai.
Sit ill in this green valley. th
November 14 , 1998.

Peace Researcher 2 1 · May 2000 - Page 10

 WA I H O P A I .2 00 -
S E R I O U S LV P EAC E F U L
After countless demonstrations at Waihopal
Since 1 988 our intrepid band of fomenters
needs simply to whisper "demo" and the po­
lice are on to us. Our first action of the 2 1 "
Century was held i n the usual place i n the
usual month (January). I n other words we were ex­
pected. Police interception began via cell phone (we
are now a fully modern expeditionary force) as the two
ABC police liaison persons drove northward toward
Kaikoura. Reception was bad as it always IS u nless
you are camped under one of the towers. But we man­
aged to understand the message from the officer in
Blenhelm - he wanted to know what we were up to So
we told him set u p camp near the base on Fnday eve­
ning, hold huge actions in Blenheim and at Waihopai
on Saturday, debrief each other endlessly in camp on
Sunday mornmg, and disperse. We made no guaran­
tees about arrestable actions. He seemed disap­
pointed about that
We camped In a new and very convenient location just
down the road from the base thiS year, courtesy of lo­
cal landowners. They even laid on extremely high­
pressure water for us. It was a n adventure just filling a
cup but was much appreciated. OrganiSing the camp
and all its detail was in the capable hands of LeeAnne
Boyd of Riverside and her mates. She did such a won­
derful Job of it that she earned the dubious honour of
being asked to d o it all over again next year
This year was a little different in another respect - ABC
Christchurch arrived at camp with some detailed plans
for fun times on Saturday. Not that we wanted to domi­
nate the action, but we had given it some thought An
early morning breakfast and briefing for the assembled
throng at camp was followed by a refreshing walk down
to the base to look at the dew on the domes. The walk
was leisurely with h alf-awake campers wending their
way down the Eucalyptus-lined Waihopai Valley road
while the M P-activists among us showed their skills at
talking on cell phones and walking simultaneously.
OutSide the farm fence festooned with menacing signs
("You climba da fence you getta busted) Nicky Hager
patiently gave h i s technical speech on the base (short
version) and a n swered questions. Fully bnefed and
awake by now, we returned to camp to prepare for the
day
Midday activities were In Blenhelm Several
campers departed camp HO early decked out i n
their finest s p y gear t o distribute specially pre­
pared pamphlets on Waihopai to Intensely cun­
ous shoppers in the City Mall The intent here
and at lunchtime was to involve the people of
Blenhelm in the nasty issues of spying but in a
lighthearted m a n ner. Seymour Square opposite
Peace Researcher 21 · May 2000
Bob Leonard
the familiar district courthouse was the venue
for our sausage sizzle (Including vegetanan
options) and Best-Dressed Spy Contest To
keep us ever so slightly on edge, Mother Na­
ture continually threatened to wash u s out
since the only cover was a few trees and the tiny space
at the base of the war memorial clock tower
Passersby were curious about the colourful spy cos­
tumes, placards and banners and many stopped for a
sausage and a chat about spies. Uncle Sam was there
to represent the U S National Security Agency (US­
NSA) and to try to snare a few promising spies for use
out at the base. The local media too loved the atmos­
phere and had some good photo ops with spies hiding
i n trees and behind benches.
When It came time at one o'clock sharp to start the
Best-Dressed Spy Contest the bell in the tower chimed
loudly and down came the rarn, as if on cue But the
compere of the contest proceeded anyway and the rain
stopped. A parade of spooks of all ages emerged. one
at a time, from beneath the clock tower to be Viewed
and judged by the crowd (and U ncle Sam). The final
decision on the winner was left to Uncle Sam, who had
arrived j u st that morning at Christchurch Airport on a
U S Air Force Starlifter. H e chose a masterfully dis­
guised Blenheim local, dressed in classic trenchcoat,
rakishly tilted brimmed hat and sinister dark glasses, to
receive the top prize, a manual on spying techniques
written by J enny S h i pley, M i nister in charge of Waiho­
pal. (The winner was i m mediately ushered into a dark
limo and whisked away.) Several younger spooks tied
for the Junior prizes which turned out be high-altitude
surveillance kites. And so ended what may have bee n
ABC's most unusual protest activity In Blenhelm. But
more was to come . . .
To the base ...
No day i n Marlborough would be complete without a
visit to the Defence Satellite Communications Station,
Blenheim - Waihopai for short. In anticipation of this
Visit, ABC members had distributed Passports for the
Undemocratic Republic of UKUSA during the sausage
sizzle. Those who would visit Waihopai would need a
passport to gain entry to US-NSA territory It was all
very carefully planned, with Uncle Sam playrng a PiV­
otal role as commander in chief of the whole ball of
wax At the base, Uncle Sam got off on a U S
gummrnt power trip supervising the stamping
of passports and controlling access to the nor­
mally heavily guarded road leadrng to the
even more heavily fortified Inner sanctum of
the spy base behind 4-metre-high chain link
fencing topped with razor Wire, and an inner
electnc fence Remotely controlled Video
- Page 1 1
cameras spaced strategicdiiy aiong th8 iJC; iI nett,; National Se­
fence completed the security ensemble. (To Illustrate c u r i t y
the effectiveness of Waihopal's expensive and IntimI­ A g e n c y
dating security. Nlcky Hager and TV3 reporter John ThiS meeting
Campbell managed to penetrate It one night In 1996 was one of
while carrying a tall ladder and a TV camera in order the very few
to film the Interior of the computer control room opportunities
through a window. They departed totally undetected for the NZ
Extensive coverage of their adventure a ppeared on public to see
national TV s h o rtly thereafter ) thiS impor-
tant docu-
Uncle Sam w o u l d not allow us inside the fences and m e n t a r y
he was backed u p by an assortment of N Z police and since It IS
GCSB security staff on the Inside The staff included h I 9 h I Y
Walhopai's Officer In Charge We had to be content unlikely ever
to conduct o u r speeches outside the gate Uncle to be aired
Sarn reluctantly welcomed the Visitors to the front on NZ na­
gate and suggested qUite clearly that protest activI­ tional TV
ties were detrimental to the smooth functioning of
Walhopal T h i s despite the fact that we had actually A B C - H O
brought a third dome to contribute to the base U n ­ (Planning
fortunately it h a d been s u l l i e d by a n u m b e r o f antl­ DIVISion)
base comments written all over Its surface Uncle were gener-
Sam. In the spirit of listening to the vOice of the NZ ally pleased Peter Meihana holding one of the
infamous UKUSA passports
people. agreed to put the dome and ItS messages on with the
the first Starllfter back to N S A headquarters In Mary­ day's activI-
land (We've had no feedback on this one ) ties After all we got some of the best media cover­
age ever, including the lead story on TVOne news
To the assembled mass of over 50 members of the that evening The story even managed to convey
publiC media and protesters, Green MP Kelth Locke conSiderable substance about the serious Issues of
announced he would take steps to Initiate a select Walhopal and the G C S B ThiS was largely due to
committee InquirY into the operations of the base an d Kelth Locke s select committee proposal . a proposal
the GCSB. T h i s was well received by a l l but Uncle to be taken seriously Since Kelth Sits on the relevant
Sam After a few more short sharp highly Critical select comm ittee - Foreign AffairS, Defence and
speeches from the likes of Green MP Rod Donald Trade Not to be underrated were the colour, the
and Nlcky H a g e r , Sam lost hiS patience With us and good humour and the non-threatening fun In Blen­
told us to bugger off NSA territory. We took the hint helm and at the base
and left. peacefully, for camp to plan for the evening
back In Blen h e l m The lack of confrontation and arrestable action was
cause for some critiCism ABCers took note of those
Video Evening i n Blenheim comments and we did make It clear to all protesters
that our plans were never II1tended to exclude others
To finish a successful day and after a deliCIOUS dOing their own thing But we did negotiate some
home-cooked meal at camp we returned to the Com­ temporary conditions With the police for access to the
mUnity Trust C entre 111 town at 8 . 00pm for some base gate that we did not want to breach
Video footage a n d diSCUSSion The main feature was
a 1 999 Australian TV documentary entitled ' Big Anyway most agreed they had a good time and pel
Brother IS listening" played to a packed house ot haps we should do It all over again next year On the
members of the public, and ABC supporters ane �ther han d . we might do something completely d , fte<
members The Video Included some excellent cover­ ent In fact the place might not even eXist next year
age of Wal hopal (Including the famous Hageri People are beginning to listen to what we have been
Campbell invaSion) and gave a broad picture of the saying about Walhopal s,nce 1 988 And they don t
global network of satellite spy-bases run by the U S like It

FOOTENOTE
(AN APOLOGY TO WILL FOOTE)

Here's how to buy a copy of Will Foote's latest book - 'The Power of P e o p l e ' ,
In our last edition of PR, we failed to let our readers know how t o obt a i n Cl copy 01 \NIII r O()tt� s book
The Power of People' Copies can be obtained through

Page and Blaclrmore Booksellers, 264 Trafalgar St, Nelson. It costs $9.95

Peace Researcher 21 - May 2000 - Page 12


ABC's January 2000 protest action
at the Waihopai spybase (see else­
where in this issue for details. Ed )
cOincided with another upsurge of
international revelations about the
Echelon project. of which Waihopai
is but a small part. Very briefly,
Echelon involves the satellite i nter­
ception spy bases In the UKUSA Agreement countries
( US UK Canada. Australia and NZ) automatically
searching billions of messages simultaneously and
continuously for key words. In the case of the bit play­
ers. such as the NZ Government Communications Se­
cUrity Bureau (GCSB), this raw material is collected in a
fully automated process at Waihopal and sent undi­
gested to Big Brother. namely the US National Security
Agency (NSA). the world's biggest intelligence agency
Echelon's existence was first revealed in Nicky Hager's
seminal 1 996 book "Secret Power", and that started the
ball roiling I n a very big way. The shockwaves reverber­
ated around the world. Further revelations came with
the 1 998 publication of the European Parliament's Sci­
entific and Technological Options Assessment Group
report entitled "An Appraisal of Technologies of Political
Contror Echelon featured prominently In that The
principal researcher and author was the longstanding
world expert o n such subjects, British Journalist Dun­
can Campbell (who visited New Zealand i n 1 996/97) I n
1 999 the same Group a pproved another report from
Campbell entitled " I nterception Capabilities 2000" This
came before the European Parliament's Committee on
Citizens' Freedoms and Rights. in February 2000. At
the same time. Echelon's existence was officially con­
firmed for the first time ever in declassified US Defense
Department documents published on the I nternet (the
NSA itself continues to refuse to confirm or deny Eche­
lon)
This was all too much for the French, who have re­
sisted at every turn American attempts to dominate
Europe. be it politically, militarily. or culturally
(McDonalds' burger bars tend to get regularly trashed
by a ngry French farmers) Echelon is seen as yet an­
other Anglo-Saxon covert operation to spy on and take
advantage of America and Britain's nominal European
allies' Paris lawyers announced a class action suit
against the American and British governments, for
breach of France's very strict privacy laws. Simply at­
tempting to I ntercept communications is an offence in
France (in the i nterests of balance, It should be stated
that France is one among several European countries
with their own satellite interception spying networks.
Dutch Intelligence has Just gone into the bUSiness
Courtesy of its worldWide network of colonies, including
several In the Pacific. France has a global network) .
Peace Researcher 21
Murray Horton
Judicial and Parliamentary i n vestigations have been
launched in Italy. German parliamentarians have de­
manded an Inquiry. I n the US itself. a Congressional
investigation into Echelon's implications for privacy
rights begins later thiS year. The Belgian Foreign Minis­
ter said "In effect. democratic states and a member of
the European Union (Britain) could have organised
large scale espionage operations In order to reinforce
their economic interests to the detriment of Belgium
and other European countries" ( Washington Post
24/2/00; " Europeans decry U S electronic Intercepts··)
It's OK - Spies Tell Helen Clark They Don't Do It
The Europeans are espeCially aggneved by Echelon's
use for commercial espionage, to their disadvantage
French MPs claim to have evidence that the E uropean
Airbus consortiu m lost an $ NZ 1 0+ billion Saudi Arabian
contract to Boeing of the US as a result of Echelon
Thomson CSF of France missed out on an SNZ2+ bil­
lion Brazilian contract. to Raytheon of the US These
allegations came all the way back to the New Zealand
Parliament. where Green MP, Keith Locke. asked the
Prime M imster. Helen Clark, if she was concerned
about them. Previous PMs have refused a l l comment
on matters of "national security", but Clark (the Minister
nominally in charge of the GCSB - there is no such
portfolio) was slightly more forthcoming. She replied
that she was concerned. but that she had received as­
surances that Waihopai isn't used for commercial es­
pionage, either by New Zealand or by the other UKUSA
partners "We are not authorised to, and we do not
provide intelligence outside government channels. We
provide intelligence i nformation only to the United
States government for the purpose of aSSisting in for­
mulating policy. fighting terrorism, and protecting
United States forces. Specifically. we do not provide
Intelligence information to U nited States companies for
commercial or competitive advantage" (Press. 24/2/00 .
"Concern over spying inquiry"). She cited the NSA a s
the source of the assurances (via t h e GCSB) "We ob­
viously would not expect the NSA to lie to us, so we
have to accept the assurance in the absence of any
evidence to the contrary" (Ibld), So there you have It
from the horse's mouth - spies don't lie or deceive their
political masters, Even the conservative mainstream
NZ media weren't happy about all this - the Waikato
Times editorialised ( 25/2/00; "Spotlight goes on spy
base") that Helen Clark should get Waihopal out of
Echelon (a tricky one) and concluded; "If New Zealand
comes out of this with a minimum of mud on ItS face. It
will be very lucky. Espionage is a d irty game - espe­
cially when you get caught out'
The mainstream American media were onto the story
now, and In February 2000, CBSTVs flagship 60 Mm-
- May 2000 - Page 1 3
ules broadcast a once over lightly examina­
tion of Echelon (it was broadcast soon after,
on the TVNZ edillOn of 60 Minutes), For any­
one who h a s seen the much better and
twice as long 1999 documentary from
(Australian) Channel Nine's Sunday pro­
gramme there's nothing new in it - indeed,
the Australian programme broke new ground
( getting the first official admission from a participating
spy agency that the U KUSA Agreement actually ex­
ists It also had extensive New Zealand content,
whereas 60 Minutes had nothing about Australasia),
But tabloid T V IS where the great majority of Ameri­
cans get their news from (see the fascinating Holly­
wood movie 'The Insider" for a gripping, and true, ac­
count of the 1990s internal politics of 60 Minutes vis a
vis Big Busmess) and it undoubtedly had a major Im­
pact Even the NSA was compelled to respond to this
unprecedented publJc exposure, sending a letter
(24/2/00) to Congressmen reassuring them of ade­
quate overSight of its operations, Former spooks re­
vealed that E c helon's targets have included the late
P rincess Dlana (because of her high profile campaign
against land mines); the late Mother Teresa: the
Pope, Amnesty International, Christian Aid and
Greenpeace (a real line up of international terrorists
there)
Former CIA Director Says:
W �J""'<
�
. ;::;;
"Yes, We Do Spy On Our Allies. So
What?"
George Tenet, Director of the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) and D irector of Central Intelligence
(overall head of all US intelligence agencies), denied
that the US spies on European firms for the commer­
Cial advantage of US transnational corporations. But
he was flatly contradicted by his predecessor, former
CIA Director, James Woolsey, in an extraordinary ar­
ticle In the Wall Street Journal ( 1 7/3/00; "Why we spy
on our allies"), It's worth quoting in full
"What is the recent fiap regarding Echelon and US
spying on European industries all about? We'll begin
with some candor from the American side, Yes, my
continental European friends, we have spied on you.
And it's true that we use computers to sort through
data by using keywords The European Parliament's
recent report on Echelon, written by British journalist
Duncan Campbell, has sparked angry accusations
from continental Europe that U S intelligence is steal­
In9 advanced technology from European companies
so that we can -- get this -- give it to American com­
panies and help them compete. My European friends,
get real. True, In a handful of areas European tech­
nology surpasses American, but, to say this as gently
as I can, the number of such areas is very. very, very
small. Most European technology Just isn't worth our
stealing
' Why, then, have we spied on you? The answer i s
quite apparent from the Campbell report - i n the diS­
cusSion of the only two cases in which European
companies have allegedly been targets of American
secret Intelligence collection Of Thomson-CSF, the
Peace Researcher 21
report says: 'The company was alleged to
have bribed members of the Brazilian gov­
ernment selection panel, Of Airbus, it says
that we found that 'Airbus agents were offer­
ing bribes to a Saudi offiCial' These facts
are Inevitably left out of European press re­
ports. That's right, my continental fnends, we
have spied on you because you bribe. Your
companies' products are often more costly, less tech­
nically advanced or both, than your Amencan com­
petitors' As a result you bribe a lot So complicit are
your governments that In several European countries
bribes still are tax-deductible,
"When we have caught you at it, you might be inter­
ested, we haven't said a word to the US companies in
the competition. Instead we go to the government
you're bribing and tell its officials that we don't take
kindly to such corruption, This upsets you, and some­
times creates recriminations between your bribers
and the other country's bribees, and this occasionally
becomes a public scandal. We love It. Why do you
bribe? It's not because your companies are inherently
more corrupt Nor is it because you are m herently
less talented at technology, It IS because your eco­
nomic patron saint is still Jean Baptiste Colbert ( 1 7'"
Century French Finance Minister and a "statiS!" Ed, ),
whereas ours is Adam Smith (the philosophical father
of modern market capitalism. Ed. ). I n spite of a few
recent reforms, your governments largely still domi­
nate your economies, so you have much greater diffi­
culty than we in innovating , encouraging labor mobil­
ity, reducing costs, attracting capital to fast-moving
young businesses and adapting quickly to changing
economic circumstances, You'd rather not go through
the hassle of moving toward less dirlgisme (a French
term. roughly meamng dominance of the State Ed, ),
It's s o much easier to keep paying bribes,
"The Central Intelligence Agency collects other eco­
nomic intelligence, but the vast majority of it is not
stolen secrets, The Aspin-Brown Commission four
years ago found that about 95% of US economic in­
telligence comes from open sources. What are the
economic secrets. in addition to bribery atternpts, that
we have conducted espionage to obtain? One exam­
ple is some companies' efforts to conceal the transfer
of dual-use technology, We follow sales of supercom­
puters and certain chemicals closely, because they
can be used not only for commercial purposes but for
the production of weapons of mass destruction. An­
other is economic activity In countnes subject to
sanctions -- Serbian banking, Iraqi oil smuggling.
"But do we collect or even sort secret intelligence for
the benefit of specific American companies? Even
Mr, Campbell admits that we don't. although he can't
bring himself to say so except with a double negatrve
'In general thiS IS not incorrect'. The
A s p in-B rown CommiSSion was
more explicit 'US Intelligence Agencies
are not tasked to engage in ' industnal
espionage' -- i.e. obtaining trade secrets
for the benefit of a US company or com­
panies'. The French government is form-
- May 2000 - Page 14
 .
lng a commission to look into all this. I hope the i regulate international telecommunications es­
.
.

��
·�•
.

pionage.
. .
commiSSioners come to Washington. We

.
should organize two seminars for them. One
� . .
would cover our Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Beyond Echelon
and how we use it, qUite effecllvely, to discour­ - ,

age US companies from bribing foreign govern­
ments A second would cover why Adam Smith
IS a better gUide than Colbert for 21 st-century econo­
mies Get serious, E u ropeans. Stop blaming us and re­
form your own stallst economic policies. Then your
companies can become more efficient and innovative.
and they won't need to resort to bribery to compete
And then we won't need to spy on you".
So there we have it - E c helon is used to spy on allies,
to detect and prevent the crime of corruption , and to
provide a level plaYing field for the hard done by Ameri­
can transnatlonals It's pretty flimsy. As Duncan Camp­
bell countered " I f you find evidence of wrongdoing.
bnbery your duty is to go through the legal process,
not use it for the benefit of US companies. There are
mechanisms for legal cooperation between coun­
tnes" ( NBCTV News Website, 1 4/4/00). Nor was there
any comment from Helen Clark about the former CIA
Director flatly and proudly contradicting what she had
been told by the NSA (via the GCSB).
None of this placated angry E u ropean Parliament MPs,
qUite the opposite In March, 1 7 1 of them (out of 626)
signed a petition calling for an inquiry into British in­
volvement in sPYing on E u ropean Union allies. This
was enough to get it debated; Britain tried to kill the de­
bate, because of womes that it would force a choice
between loyalty to the U S and European partners, and
because intelligence and security matters are normally
strictly off limits within the E u ropean Union. But the
European Parliament wants the debate to proceed,
plus there are moves to amend international law to
. Echelon, of course, represents the present
and also the past for the spy agencies. They
are always looking to "improve" their craft. In August
1 999 the NSA patented a new technology for automatic
topic spotting and labelling of data. ThiS is a vital step
towards automatically analysing human speech, includ­
ing vOice recognition (Echelon works on keywords, not
vOices or speech as such). Britain, the only UKUSA
member still to have an OffiCial Secrets Act instead of
an OffiCial Information Act, takes a brazen a pproach to
electronically spying on its citizens and the rest of the
world. MI5 (the British internal security and intelligence
agency) is building an $NZ75 million e-mail surveillance
centre, in London, that will have the power to monitor
all e-mails and Internet traffic sent and received In Brit­
ain. A new law will compel all Internet service providers
operating In Blltaln to route thell traffic through the
splendidly named Government Technical Assistance
Centre, and hand over the keys to decode encrypted
messages, so that everything will be monitored . The bill
also creates a new offence - that of not prOViding thiS
Information to the Government
Mind you, sometimes we get the last laugh The Sun­
day Telegraph reported (1 1 /4/00) that more than 1 00
staff at the Government Communications Headquarters
(GCHQ - the other major UKUSAlEchelon agency) had
been compensated by the British government for hear­
Ing loss caused by too much eavesdropping on "enemy
transmissions", whilst wearing faulty headphones. Per­
haps M I 5 better get in a truck load of glasses for use In
reading everybody's mail.

The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) is, most deliberately, not a Parliamentary Select Committee. It is
a committee of Government, having nominal oversight of the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) and Govern­
ment Communications Security B u reau (GCSB). Created by the 1 996 SIS Amendment Act. it is always chalfed
by the Pllme Minister, who IS also always the Minister in Charge of the S I S (and the GCSB, although there IS no
such portfolio). T h e PM picks two members; the Leader of the Opposition sits on it, and also picks one member

The 1 999 election changed the Government. after nine years of National, New Zealand F i rst. and various ragbag
' Independents" The Labour/Alliance coalition contains MPs and Ministers who have preViously strongly op­
posed the S I S and the whole demi-monde of spy agencies So it was with interest that we awaited the new ap­
pOintments to t h e ISC. Clark picked her righthand (and Rlghtwing) man, Michael Cullen, the Minister of Finance,
Alliance leader, Jim Anderton, is on by dint of being Deputy P M . Jenny S h ipley picked ACT leader, Richard
Prebble. So four parties are on the Committee (Labour, Alliance. National, ACT), but funnily enough no room
was found for the Greens, an Opposition party broadly supporting the Government, and the party most commit­
ted to clOSing Waihopa l , abolishing the GCSB. and putting the boot Into the SIS Not to mention getting lid of the
ISC Itself

The Alliance and Anderton found themselves in a cleft stick They had voted against the two 1 990s SIS Amend­
ment Acts and against the creation of the ISC. They had been trenchant critics of the SIS (and, to a lesser ex­
(Continued on page 16)

Peace Researcher 21 - May 2000 - Page 1 5

(Continued from page15)
tent. of the GCSB and Waihopal). Yet here was Jim going onto the ISC and. even more IrOniC, being Acting Mmister
In Charge of the SIS in Clark's absences. He publicly reconciled this by saying that he still opposed the SIS but
would serve on the Committee because he couldn't ignore the reality of being Deputy Leader in a Government com­
mitted to the S I S and the ISC, and because he would be officially responsible for the S I S on a regular basis. Rod
Donald. Green co-leader (and a former Alliance MP) missed no opportunity to skewer Jim over this

To his credit. Anderton did try to do something about it. In February 2000. he proclaimed himself In favour of a full
Parliamentary Select Committee, made up of MPs from all parties, to oversee the SIS. complete With public hear­
ings This got short shrift from Helen Clark (Labour had unanimously voted with National in favour of those two
1 990s SIS Amendment Acts) She. and Labour, are fully committed to the ISC and its "oversight" New Zealand First
leader. Winston Peters (himself a former Acting SIS Minister from his 1 990s glory days), backed Clark "You can't
have any old person on the committee" (Press, 2 1 /2/00, "Call for more access to S I S information")

But Its an Issue With the potentia l to divide the Coalition (the Coalition Agreement does allow them to publicly dis­
agree). In March , an obscure Bill governing radlocommunications caused Labour and the Alliance to vote against
each other for the first time. The Bill gave the SIS power to intercept foreign cellphone and radiO communications -
the Alliance and Greens voted against it; Labour turned to National. ACT and New Zealand First to get it through
The debate turned nasty, with Jenny Shipley declaring: "He (Anderton) is an unfit person to ever sit on the ( I SC) He
IS an unfit person to ever hold the warrant as Acting Minister for the SIS" (Press, 30/3/00: "Govt split over SIS Inter­
ception powers")

Green MP Keith Locke has put up a Private Member's Bill the Intelligence and Security Committee Act Repeal Bill
2000 - and had it survive the ballot process (for Private Members' Bills) and proceed to debate. The Bill would have
scrubbed the I S C and have its f unctions taken over by a proper Select Committee. Labour, of course IS dead set
against it. The Bill was killed, in May 2000. by 1 03 votes to 1 6 . To Its credit, the Alliance Joined the Greens in voting
for the Bill

New Government, business as usual as far as "our" spy agencies are concerned

Bob Leonard

Have you ever wondered how to
complain about Waihopai or the Gov­
ernment Communications Security
Bureau (GCSB)? You've probably
heard that the h i-tech listening equipment at Waihopai
IS capable of Intercepting all of your international elec­
trOniC communications - emails, phone calls. telexes,
faxes, the lot. It's done by snooping on stray signals
from the Intelsat satellites that hover over the Pacific.
So you may well wonder, as I do, how you would ever
know that you were being spied upon. The fact is, you
can't know unless the spooks tell you so And that's
not too likely. Nevertheless you can complain about it if
you suspect it's going on
The Office of Inspector-General of Intelligence and Se­
curity was created by a special law passed in 1 996 by
the National Government. It was part of a rather pa­
thetic attempt to improve oversight of our so-called
'intelligence' agencies Section 1 1 ( 1 )(b) of the I-G Act
states that ' t h e functions of the Inspector-General
shall be - to inqUire into any complaint by a New
Zealand person that that person has or may have
been adversely affected by any act, omission, practice,
poliCY. or procedure of an intelligence and security
agency". Sounds reasonable until you think about what
the substance of your complaint might be. Secret
agencies are pretty good at hiding what they do, and if
caught in the act. denying it. The very high profile
cases of Aziz Choudry and David Small come to mind
immediately. Both of these gentlemen have won court
victories against government agencies after David
caught two Security Intelligence Service spies in the act
of breaking into Aziz's home in 1 996. The details have
been published widely and will be familiar to you The
pOint is, how likely are we ever to catch a spy In the
act? Not very
And you are never going to catch the GCSB in the act
of intercepting your electronic communications. There­
fore, you wouldn't expect many complaints from the
public about Waihopai and the GCSB. But the I-G. M r
Laurie Greig, made the following amazing statement on
the first page of his 1 99 9 annual report 'The fact there
are very few complaints and little need for any inquiry
into the activities of the NZ S I S or the GCSB indicates,
I believe, that the performance of their activities does
not impinge adversely on New Zealand citizens"
So I wrote a letter to the I-G saying " 1 am at a loss to
understand how you can draw such a conclUSion about
secretive organisations whose activities. by their very
nature, are almost entirely hidden from public knowl­
edge and scrutiny . . . . Presumably, specific evidence of
adverse effects on me from GCSB spying would be re­
quired to form the basis for a viable complaint to your

Peace Researcher 21 - May 2000 • Page 1 6

office Please tell m e how I would obtain such evi­
dence If there is some other basIs for a complaint
about the activities of the GCSB which affect me per­
sonally I would appreciate your advice as to what that
basIs might be "
I n his response M r Grelg did not tell me how to gather
physical evidence of Waihopai's interception of my per­
sonal communications Frankly, I doubt the GCSB
would divulge such i nformation to Greig himself, but he
claims It would H e did say - " I n the first instance a
complainant would need to have a rational belief of
such an adverse affect or its likelihood in the past or
future' [EmphasIs added] Further on, he said "The de­
gree of factual and other circumstantial support to the
claim the more easily I can base an inquiry" [sic], The
last sentence doesn't read very well, but I get the gist of
It
So there you have it If you hold a "rational belief' you
are being spied upon you can complain to the I-G, It
would be an interesting exercise for some individuals to
ask the I-G If i n fact the GCSB holds Information i n any
form on them and from what sources, Years ago, sev­
eral people asked for thell SIS files and a few even
succeeded in getting the liS until a "change of policy"
dried up the source,
If you wish to file a complaint against the GCSB and
you can convince the I-G ( a former High Court Judge)
that your complaint i s not "trivial, frivolous, vexatious or
not made in good faith", we suggest you give it a go,
Those with the best chance of some success might be
those with a record (police?) of protest at the Walhopal
base or who have otherwise made known their OppOSI­
tion to it. If you send voice or digital communications
overseas (via satellite) In which you use vanous terms
or phrases of Interest to the spooks (there are hun­
dreds if not thousands of such "trigger" terms in the
Dictionary of the Waihopai system), you are likely to
have been spied upon, Whether or not you are of suffi­
cient interest to the GCSB for them to keep a file o n
you is another question,
Make your complaint i n writing addressed to the I n­
spector-General of Intelligence and Security through
the Registrar of the High Court, Wellington, And If you
get a response, please let ABC know about It Laune
Greig's very limited record of dealing with complaints I S
appalling H e concluded that the break-in of AZlz
Choudry's home was legal, The Appeal Court said It
was illegal (so the Shlpley govt promptly changed the
law), Greig also concluded that the police search of
David Small's home a week later, looking for bomb­
making eqUipment, was legal, The H i g h Court I n
Chrrstchurch has Just awarded David $20,000 I n dam­
ages for the illegal police search,
In summary, the government would like the people of
New Zealand to think we have some avenue of appeal
and complaint against the excesses of the spies, If we
don't actually complain, then we haven't fully tested the
system. Please give it a go, and keep us informed
about the results,

U S A I R FO RC E CONTI N U ES TO VI O LATE
SOVE RE I G N TY O F AOTEA ROA/ N EW Z EA LA N D
Bob Leonard
ThiS article updates flight data on U S m i litary and Ant­ tic support after 42 years i n Christchurch. NYANG, a
arctic logistics use of C hnstchurch I n ternational Airport, branch of the U S Air Force, now flies all ski-Hercules I n
It continues the compilation of flight data for the 1 990s, Antarctic service,
Peace Researchers No, 5 (June 1 995) and No, 1 4
(December 1 997) provided data for the period June In PR No, 1 5 we gave two main reasons why we think
1 990 through May 1 997. ABC monitors the flights us­ the Air Force, instead of the Navy, now runs the show -
ing monthly flight summaries proVided by the Ministry of 1 ) I n addition to its logistics flights for Antarctic re­
Foreign Affairs and Trade ( M FAT) under provisions of search, the Air Force also conducts Channel flights o n
the Official Information Act militaryiintelligence business t o Australia; 2 ) the Navy
had but a single role - logistiCS for Operation Deep
Since May 1 99 5 , MFAT has provided ABC with com­ Freeze. Thus the Navy was expendable (supposedly
plete flight data for Ski-Hercules (LC-130) aircraft flown to save money) and the Air Force could continue its
by U S Navy crews and in recent years by the New York Channel flights u n q u estioned by the NZ government
Air National G uard Military business as
(NYANG). ( P rior to that usual,
time, we only received data
on US Air Force Starlifters The table shown here
71 97 1 68
and Galaxys. ) Trial reveals the proportions
NYANG flights actually be­ 38 85 1 0_J' 69, I of US Air Force Star-
gan in 1 988 ( PR No. 1 7, 1" 47 63 1 10 57.3 lifter and Galaxy busl-
series. Feb 1 98 8 , p. 9) and 58 91 63.7 ness throughout the
were sporadiC I n most Ant­ 28 79 1 07 73.8 decade. These large
arctic seasons for some cargo planes have vis-
31 78 1 09 7l 6
.

years thereafter. But by ited C h ristchurch on

37 66 1 03 64,\
early 1 998 t h e Navy was m i l i t a ry i i n t e l l i g e n c e
formally gone from Antarc- 63 37 1 00 37,0 business a n average

Peace Researcher 21 · May 2000 · Page 1 7

of 63% of the time Flights In
dedicated service to the Ant­ us Air Force and Navy Flights
arctic program have been in a
at Christchurch Airport
decided minority ( 37%) Of
45
possible significance is the
sharp drop I n percentage of 40
military flights In 1 998-99 .t!l
.J: 35
Thirty seven percent IS by far Cl

the lowest proportion In 1 0 � 30

years A preliminary look at ·Vi
t: 25
flight data since M a y 1 999 (not [';
-
shown here) Indicates that the '0 20
low trend IS contin u i ng into the �

year 2000 The most recent � 15

flight-year data ( 1 999-2000) E
10
z
:l
will be published later thiS year
in PR 5

The decrease In C h a n nel

Flight activity m a y reflect the
winding down of activity at the 1997 1998 1999
huge US Air Force satelllte­
monitoring base at Nurrungar
In South Australia (see PR No 1 9/20. p . 2 0 . for Infor­ The S kl-Hercules flights (combined Navy a n d NY ANG
mation on the fate of Nurrungar) I n past years ap­ LC-1 30s) are shown as a line on the graph
proximately half the C h a n nel flights served Nurrungar
on a regular weekly schedule In which the flights went Our sovereignty IS being violated at C hnstchurch Air­
first to Nurrungar from the U S (via Pago Pago) and port by the US Air Force We are nuclear free In name
then passed through C h ristchurch Airport on their re­ only Our nuclear free law IS not enforced at our air­
turn to the U S . A closer analysis of the timing of Indi­ port Mllitarylintelligence business has been conducted
vidual flights may shed some light on this question under the cover of Antarctic research by the U S gov­
ernment since the 1 9505. Starlifters and Galaxys tran­
The monthly flight patterns. shown on the bar graph. sit our airport several times per month with n o controls
are similar to those of previous years Black bars show on their contents They are capable of carrying car­
the regular year-round viSits of militarY/Intelligence goes of nuclear weapons through our country but New
Starllfter and Galaxy aircraft Note the sharp drop In Zealanders a n d their government wouldn't have a
military flights beg i n n in g in December 1 998. The Ant­ chance of knOWing about It Although thiS is u n l i kely to
arctic category (white bars) Includes a l l Skl-Hercules happen given the present U S nuclear posture In this
Starlifter and Galaxy flights strictly dedicated to Antarc­ part of the world. it is a contingency that the US military
tic logistics. as far as we can determine. In October obviously wants to keep ope n . These are some of the
a n d November t h e Antarctic flights are prlmanly con­ reasons ABC demands the immediate a n d permanent
d ucted with the larger-capacity Air Force wheeled removal of all U S military presence at C hnstchurch Air­
cargo planes which can land in s p n n g on the ice run­ port
way at WIII,ams Field near McMurdo

ABC Committee Members Bob Leonard, Murray Horton, and Yani Johanson take Labour MP, Tim Barnett, on a tour of Harewood.

Peace Researcher 21 • May 2000 . Page 18

us MILITARY BA(K IN PHILIPPINES
F or several years PR has followed
the progress of. and the militant
mass opposition to the Visiting
Forces Agreement (VFA) between
the U S and the Philippines which
was finally ratified by the Philippines
Senate. in 1 999 One of the world's
most successful anti-bases cam­
paigns forced out the century old US bases (Sublc
Clark and co) in 1 99 1 /92. But the VFA a llows the Pen­
tagon In the back door, without any need to maintain
permanent US bases In the PhilipPines. Essentially the
VFA opens up all of the Philippines to the US military -
the next best thing to actual bases - with speCial rights
at 22 ports and other facilities. And it gives effect to the
1 951 US-PhilipPines Mutual Defense Treaty which had
been frozen since the 1 9 9 1 Senate vote to not renew
the bases treaty.
It allows In thousands of US troops at a time for Joint
exercises. whilst essentially exempting them from local
law The first such large scale Joint exercise under the
auspices of the VFA, was "Balikatan 2000". held from
January until M a rch 2000 (the small scale " Balance
Piston exercise was held. In October 1 999).
Balikatan" (which means " shoulder to shoulder") in­
volved 2 . 500 U S troops and 2 , 300 Filipino troops. Its
scope exceeded that of any previous Joint exerCise,
with US forces exerciSing In the provinces of Nueva
ECiJa. Tarlac, Pampanga, Zambales, Bataan, Cavite
and Palawan. Both governments denied that the US
presence had a n ything to do with the SinolPhilippines
row over the disputed Spratly Islands, but the US mili­
tary's first stop was in Palawan, the Philippine province
closest to the Spratlys. It started with "hearts and
minds" medical and dental clinics but the bUSiness end
of the exercise was several weeks of Simulated jungle
warfare. aerial combat and amphibious naval landings,
culminating in a simulated naval assault on a beach
south of Manila
Unsurprisingly, the exerCise centred on the former US
bases at Sublc ( n aval) and Clark (air force), Their host
cities Olongapo and Angeles - used to be infamous
for their extensive sex industry to cater for the G l s.
Brothel keepers rubbed their hands with glee again, in
2000, thinking that the good old days were back. Three
Angeles hotels were reserved for the troops' ' ' rest and
recreation" U n convincingly. m ilitary commanders from
both nations said that the troops would be under strict
curfew Philippine Defense M i nister, Orly Mercado,
said "We have agreed that they will be provided with
alternative actiVities, mostly sports activities, in the
camps to keep their testosterone levels down" (BBC
News, 31/110 0 ) . Cold showers perhaps? Protesters in
Manila weren't convinced - i n a demo outSide the US
Embassy, they waved u nderwear on which they had
written problems assOCiated with the return of Uncle
Sam - AIDS, prostitution abortion. and tOXIC waste
Peace Researcher 21
The US and the Philippines set up
Murray Horton
a special group to counter adverse publiCity and to
manage pro-VFA propaganda (this arose out of bad
publiCity dUring a late 1 99 9 US warship viSit to Cebu
City) A total of eight USIPhllippines war games have
been scheduled for 2000 alone
The Pentagon IS delighted to get back Into the Philip­
pines. Its goals are spelled out i n the US Defense De­
partment's 1 995 East Asian Strategy Report a US
troop level of 1 00,000 must be maintained there must
be forward deployment of US forces In the region there
must be access and basing rights for US forces m the
region, the US must maintain its ability to affect the
course of events in Asia
The first legal test for the VFA will come with the case
of three US sailors who were arrested I n Cebu City
d u ring a port call after " Balikatan 2000" They were ar­
rested and charged with assaulting a taxI driver by the
Philippine authorities (because they were off duty, at
the time. US authorities have Junsdictlon for crimes
committed on duty). They face a maximum of 1 3
months prison if conVicted. The judge let them sail with
their warship, after their commanding officer pledged
that they will return for all court sessions The U S Navy
apologised for the incident
The Philippines is still grappling with the toxic legacy of
a century of hosting major US bases ApprOXimately 80
residents have died from the effects of toxic wastes
around the , former Clark Air Base. I n February 2000, SIX
year old Crizel Jane Valencia, d ubbed the "child tOXIC
warrior", died from acute leukaemia. She and her fam­
ily drank the water from the area surrounding Clark
Other children are seriously ill. Liberal Party Represen­
tative. Wigberto Tanada, has urged the Philippines gov­
ernment to sue the US at the World Court, to compel
the US to clean up the mess Senator Loren Legarda
has Cited a figure of $ U S 1 billion as bemg the possible
cost of the clean up. The US is denying any responsi­
bility for cleaning up what an international lawyer has
correctly labelled "time bombs" (Philippine Daily In­
quirer, 2/3/00). The potential for future harm IS Im­
mense, not only to those who are already victims or are
in the process of becoming Victims of the former U S
bases. Olongapo a n d Angeles are slated to become
the sites of major economic zones, with huge US trans­
nationals such as Federal Express and America O n
Line touted a s likely to set u p shop there. T h e interna­
tional lawyer advised them to stay away: "The risk is
Immense to such corporations and their workforce. And
If their insurers are aware of the situation, there will be
no cover, especially if the corporation IS from the U n ited
States" (ibld). Already toxins are seeping Into the base­
ments of buildings being erected in a Taiwanese I ndus­
trial Park right on top of S u bic's former 'andfi" , which I S
a cocktail of dumped toxic wastes, The bases might
have gone - their poisons linger on
- May 2000 · Page 19
 J U N K V FA
K I W I J O I N S P R O T E ST
Nick McBride

..... -- . . _ " ,.. . ,. -- "'+"

For the first trme rn nearly a decade. a New Zealander heard from one of the organisers was 2 , 00 0 ) while
has taken part in protest activities rn the Philippines to other newspapers carned no coverage. In any event, It
confront the US rl1llitary Nick McBride. of Wellrngton. a was a magnificent achievement to get several thousand
member of the Philippines Solidanty Network of people to attend 13 hours of protest at the beginnrng of
Aotearoa (PSNA) was 111 the Philippines 111 February the working week (no one seemed to leave despite the
2000, on holiday He took part In protests agamst the repetitive speechmaking) While the enthusiasm and
' Ballkatan 2000" exercise and the VFA The following is energy. overt anti-Americanism and the sympathetic
hiS account. With thanks to Kapatlran the newslelter of press were welcome and refreshing compared with po­
PSNA Ed litical activities In New Zealand. the huge amount of lit­
ter and graffiti left behind was less positive
On Monday, February 21, 2000, I JOined With Bayan a
dozen other peoples' movements and thousands of What was the protest about?
comrades (estimates ranged from 2,000-10,000) In a
mobilisation against the Visiting Forces Agreement The US military bases were closed by decision of the
(VFA), signed between the USA and the P h i lippines Senate In 1 9 9 1 The VFA, however, proVides for the
return of U S military forces for the purpose of 'war
Before setting out I received two warnings the first that games' US forces will have access to 22 ports as well
the police rnlght be waiting With water cannons. the as airstrips and landing facilities
second that I best be prepared to get pelted With stones
by locals hostile to the protest action Luckily. my re­ Legal JUrisdiction over the VISiting personnel will be
sultrng fears turned out to be unfounded - the few po­ ceded to the American authOrities - PhilipPine authOrity
lice kept a discreet d istance and I was lucky to notice does not even extend to requiring passports or dnving
them at a l l . Hostile locals were also not apparent I n permits of US troops The P h i lipprnes also has no right
fact, t h e o n l y threatening inCident was a confrontation to inspect Visiting U S faCilities. not even for quarantine
With a very drunken Amencan man who objected to my purposes, nor are U S personnel liable for any local
presence at the anticAmerlcan event " H ave you ever taxes or duties. The agreement effectively turns the
fought In a forei g n war. son?" he slurred at me, ' has Philippines into a military facility for the US and unlike
.
your daddy ever fought In a foreign war? I was In Viet-
'
the former bases. U S personnel have access to a Wide
nam . . range of ports and faCilities. In acknowledgement of this
onesldedness, the agreement allows similar pnvlleges
We started In Quezon City (Metro Manila) at 8 a . m . and for Philippine troops VISiting the US - a meaningless
94 vehicles formed a colourful convoy which made the concession
three hour drive to a point one kilometre away from the
former Clark Air Base (now the Clark free trade zone) The key reasons why FilipinOS oppose the VFA are
From 1 1 .30 a . m on It was SIX hours of speeches • it IS a surrender of PhilipPine sovereignty
songs and chants along the lines of 'death to the USA' • It makes the P h i l i ppines a party to U S Imperialism
The day concluded with an extremely long march and aggression
( maybe eight k i l ometres) to the town centre of Angeles • It opens the door to nuclear weapons, tOXIC wastes
and a couple of wrap up and other d a n ge r s
speeches e v e rything (remember t h e "neither
finally coming to a n end confirm nor deny'" poliCY)
after 9 p m (Although • It Will worsen SOCial
not for everyone some problems such as prosti­
who had carne u p from tution - the reasons for
Manila missed their thiS are self-evident
transport back a n d were
stranded In Angeles ) There IS no doubt vIsltrn9
American troops Will be
The next day I checked made to feel unwelcome
all the local p a pers for Hopefully the moblllsa
news of the event The tlons Will continue and
most sympathetic daily eventual l y put pressulf
estimated a turnout of on Filipino politiCians to
1 0. 000 and another said "junk' the vr i'"
4 000 (t118 estllnate I
Protesters at gate to Clark Ecozot1e (former US Airbase)

Peace Researcher 21 - May 2000 - Page 20

 O B I TUARY
MA RGA RET H A L E S
Margaret Hales died in New Plymouth, in November
1 999, aged 8 1 . Margaret was one of the true heroes of
the New Zealand peace movement, in all its broadest
context and although not an ABC member, was well
known to us and took part in ABC activities At 72, she
was the oldest person who came on the ten-day long
1 990 Touching ..the Bases Tour, which spanned both
Islands and included New Zealanders, Australians, Fili­
PinOS and Pacific Islanders. She was one of those who
climbed 1 , 500 metres, in snow and appalling weather,
up to the (now closed) US Naval Observatory on Black
Birch, In Marlborough (Margaret was the second mem­
ber of that tour to die In 1 999. See PR 1 9/20 for the
obituary of Diana Ingram, of Sydney). She took part In
some of our early protest activities at Waihopal
In 1 989, Margaret and I were amongst the New Zea­
landers (and a whole lot of Australians) on the montt,
long International Peace Brigade to the PhiliPPines
where we foreigners and thousands of Filipinos directly
confronted the massive US bases Margaret was in­
domitable - I have a VIVid memory of our bus being
stopped at one of the Inn umerable roadblocks put In
our path by the Philippine military to try and stop us
getting to Angeles City and the Americans' Clark Air
Force Base A FilipinO soldier came on board, weighed
down by hiS nfle, side arms, bayonet and grenades
Margaret proceeded to berate him about how he should
be ashamed of himself she thought this was supposed
to be a democracy, etc, etc, The Sight of a white halred
grandmother scolding him In publiC was too much for
the guy - he turned tall and fled. She retained an inter­
est In the Philippines ever since and was a member of
Peace Researcher 21
Murray Horton
the Philippines Solidarity Network of Aotearoa until her
death, I last saw Margaret in 1 994 when I addressed a
New Plymouth public meeting on behalf of the Cam­
paign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA).
She introduced me to her husband, Sam, with her
usual forthrightness "This is Sam, He's dying",
She was involved i n all a spects of the peace move­
ment, for decades, and was also involved in anti-bases
campaigns before the ABC was born, She and Sam
met in the English anti-war movement, and, once in
New Plymouth, they founded the North Taranaki Peace
Group, which organised many local activities for years,
particularly revolving around Hiroshima Day They or­
ganised a Tangimoana Peace Picnic in the early
1 980s, to protest at that spybase (one that is neglected
by the Christchurch-based ABC) I n t h e last weeks of
her life, she was organismg sympathy cards for Mor­
dechai Vanunu, the imprisoned Israeli nuclear whistle­
blower. Her fundamental beliefs were pacifism, world
justice and non-racism, She was a member of the Reli­
gious Society of Friends ( Q uakers) throughout her en­
tire life.
Margaret Hales led a fascinating and very full life S h e
was born Peggy Peet m Shanghai, i n 1 9 1 8 (her father
was a master mariner who took a shore Job In Shang­
hai) , Asia always intrigued her -she and Sam holidayed
many times in Indonesia; she was a committee mem­
ber of the NZ-China Friendship Society and travelled to
China with a group that was there at t.h e time of Chair­
man Mao Zecfo ng's 1 976 death (she was greatly
moved by the mass outpouring of grief that she wit­
nessed)
After spending two years IrI New Zealand as a child.
her family moved to England, where she went to a
Quaker school . She trained as a primary teacher, and
taught at alternative schOols. I n New Zealand, she was
amongst the first to graduate extra-murally from
Massey Umverslty, with a BA, and she went on to get a
BEd. She and Sam had seven children - once they
were grown she returned to teaching, working as a
teacher of E nglish and Japanese at New Plymouth
Girls High School. Her da ughter, Bryony, writes "Her
Interest In learning is evidenced by the papers of atten­
dance at numerous seminars, for example, on counsel­
ling, youth SUICide. and participation in local poetry
reading groups, English literature discussion, travel
overseas on craft tours and adventure tours (one of
which saw her narrowly missing bemg nuked by the
1 986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster, In the
Soviet Union - she was In Kiev at the time), She also
developed her arts and crafts Side, working as an ap­
prentice potter With a well known English stUdio potter
She learnt calligraphy, leaded stained glass, and de­
Signed the family Christmas cards every year from the
mid 1 940s onwards
- May 2000 - Page 21
 Sam and Margaret Hales m igrated to New Zealand I n
1 956 Initially, S a m worked a s a printer a t t h e Chnst­
church Press In the 1 960s, they spent some time at
the Riverside Community, in Motueka: but eventually,
Sam got work as a printer In New Plymouth, and that
was their home for the rest of their lives (Sam died a
few years before Margaret), She developed a commit­
ment to the women s movement and was a volunteer
worker at. and supporter of, the New Plymouth
Women s Centre from its Inception In the 1 970s She
was a volunteer for the Rape CriSIS Centre, and a trus­
tee on the board of the SAFER Centre, the Taranakl
organisation counselling and educating on sexual and
family abuse, In the 1 950s and 60s she and a m idwife
friend attended and encouraged home births, long be­
'fore thiS was a n acceptable social trend (indeed, home
births were seen as dangerously crackpot by the medi­
cal profession and society at large), Margaret devel­
oped skills as a lay midwife, and remained a long term
advocate of home births, She followed thiS to its logical
conclusion, and became an advocate of the home
death movement challenging the control of dying and
death by funeral d irectors "Leave your condolences at
the doorl", she told the funeral drrector whom she al­
lowed to carry o u t her wishes for Sam's funeral. For her
own funeral, the family saw to It that she was fare­
welled with a day long party - she lay In bed and was
covered with spring flowers by all who came to her
home
Margaret was also a practitioner of Think Globally - Ac;
Locally She was very Involved In local community is­
sues Over the years, she developed links and fnend­
ships with Maori from both north and south Taranakl,
and was a frequent viSitor to events at Owae Marae,
RO B E RT RO DVI I<
You don't have to be dead to get n ice
things said about you in Peace Re­
searcher From time to time, we need to
acknowledge those who help us greatly,
and who remain essentially anonymous,
Such as those that send uS information
Nobody sends us more than Robert Rod­
vik, of rural British Columbia, In Canada,
He's been sen d i n g us stuff for so long that
we can't remember how we fllst got i n
touch With each other. For the first ever so
many years, h e sent us hefty envelopes of clippings,
from Canadian and Amencan newspapers and maga­
zines, both mainstream and movement
Then he bought a computer and went onto the Internet
Nobody has had any sleep since For the past couple
of years h e has bombarded us (and a whole lot of other
people besides) with a deluge of material culled from
the electroniC newspapers, TV news sites and Xines of
the world. Every message comes complete With a per­
sonal (usually s p lenetiC) introduction from Robert -
they are collectors' items In themselves. He sends us
far more material than we can ever use or that IS of dl-
Peace Researcher 21
Waltara, In recent years she was very vocal In support
of Te Ihl Tu Trust (a rehabilitation centre for recently
released Maori pnsoners) being set up In the Barrett
Street Hospital site, in her community, despite stlOng
objections from the neighbourhood It went ahead and
IS now established, Her final project was to organise
and pay for the Installation of playground equipment In
the Wallace Place Reserve, a small neighbourhood
park, stimulated by the need for a playground for local
Maori preschoolers,
Our condolences go to her children - Cnspln, Batch,
Vallis, Anthony, Tlm, Bryony and Jasmln (political activ­
ism runs In the family, For example, B ryony became a
well known Wellington actiVist, and was i mmortalised
by Muldoon In his Infamous list of "communists and
subversives" whom h e and the SIS claimed were be­
hind the oPPosition to the 1 98 1 Springbok Tour)
Margaret Hales was a strikingly forceful woman, forth­
nght to the point of bluntness, courageous, energetic,
and a ceaseless worker for the rest of h u manity, be It I n
t h e same street o r across t h e world It is women like
her that made the New Zealand peace movement the
formidable force that It became
ThiS obituary would not have been possible Without the
generosity or and research by Maureen Leggetl, of
Eltham., and Margare t s children, Crispm of Chicago,
(but temporanly teaching at the UnrversJty of Canter­
bury for part of 2000) and Bryony of Welilngton My
thanks to them
- U N S U N G H E RO
reet relevance to us That's OK - that's
what the delete button IS for
He plays an Invaluable role See the arti­
cle elsewhere In this issue about the
worldwide upsurge of interest In Echelon
earlier thiS year. A great deal of that stuff
came courtesy of Robert - he sent us
matellal from Canada. the U S Britain,
Singapore India. you name It We are a
great deal better Informed about the
worldWide fightback against Echelon because of him
We've never met him. know nothing about him person­
ally, and have never spoken to him. So we deCided that
to illustrate thiS bllef piece about thiS International man
of mystery we wanted a photo of him H e went coy on
us. claiming to be The Invisible Man, and not to have
one. Eventually he agreed to send us thiS 20 year old
passport photo (rather like those old East German spy­
masters. of whom the only known photo was a grainy
Side on shot taken In the 1 9505) We're sure he hasn't
changed a bit Good on you Robert
- May 2000 - Page 22
 ARI ES M I G HT G ET BACK I NTO S I E R b l
l.1tR(£� EO
(HAS E SA NDLl N E BOS S O U T O F wns U
P' wE H E LP
SO"
Suddenly the benighted and impoverished
West Afncan state of Sierra Leone is in the
news It has some of the worst economic and quality of
life statistics anywhere In the world (average life expec­
tancy IS m the low 40s, for example) and it has been
wracked by a particularly vicious civil war for the past
decade The rebels specialise i n hacking the limbs off '
anybody who gets i n their way, including children, The
world has taken notice because the UN peacekeeping
force (the largest in the world), comprised of African
and Third World troops. has proved singularly inept.
and so the Great White Father has had to come to the
rescue, in the form of Britain, the former colonial mas­
ter The "peacekeeping" by the Bntish m i litary has very
rapidly turned Into Britain fighting the rebels on behalf
of the Sierra Leonean government. exactly the sort of
gunboat diplomacy that Britain practised i n Africa and
throughout the Empire, including New Zealand, during
th
the 1 9 Century. New Zealand has suddenly taken no­
tice of Sierra Leone because we have a couple
( l iterally) of soldiers tangled up in the UN operation
Previously, Sierra Leone was the personal playground
of the mercenary armies who revel in the title "The
Dogs of War" (the "Mongrels of M u rder" might be more
appropriate) These killer corporations, namely
Sand line and Executive Outcomes (EO), became
household names as a result of their disastrous 1 997
attempt to " l iberate" Bougainville and its forcibly closed
Panguna mine, on behalf of the Papua New Guinean
government. They were ignominiously rounded up by
the PNG m i l itary and chucked out of the country (there
was malor Civil u n rest and political upheaval in PNG as
a result). This was all fully detailed in PR 1 3. The Feb­
ruary 1 997 Harpers magazine describes how Executive
Outcomes (founded by apartheid era, former South Af­
rican military officers) operated in Sierra Leone. O n oc­
casion It was paid by misused funds from the Interna­
tional Monetary Fund or, more commonly, by the con­
cession of Important deposits of oil, diamonds, copper,
etc (the fabulous wealth of Bougainville's copper mine
was a definite Incentive for the mercenaries' ill-fated
adventure there), Harpers reports how, i n 1 995, t'{)lo
South African mercenary pilots approached a Sierra
Leone military commander about their difficulties telling
the rebels from the civilians in their air attacks around
Freetown, the capital. "Kill everyone I" was the answer,
and that's what they did. I n 1 995, it took a 300 man EO
force, backed by four helicopters, two months to sup­
press the rebels, at a cost to the Government of
SUS 1 . 7 million per month, plus some mining conces­
sions After that it required 90 EO mercenaries to con­
tain the rebels, at $US55,000 per day
The glory days (or should that be the gory days?)
ended for Executive Outcomes in 1 997, when the Si­
erra Leone government was forced by the World Bank
Peace Researcher 21
H
·'" LE O NE
N'VEftS,
Murray Horton rr
to dispense with its services, because of the
cost of the contract. The m ercenaries went off
to ply their deadly trade elsewhere i n Africa - especially
Angola - and came horribly unstuck in PNG But , ,n
2000, with the resumption of civil war in Sierra Leone,
the "experts" are calling for Executive Outcomes to be
allowed back I n . Writing in Busmess Day magazine
South African journalist Simon Barber asked "Would It
really have been so awful to let EO take ItS pay m mm­
ing concessions? That way, at least Sierra Leone's
mineral wealth might have been saved, as well as tens
of thousands, mostly women and children, from death,
amputation, rape, AIDS I nfection and sexual enslave­
ment" (quoted in New Zealand Herald, 1 5/5/00 Time
once more to whistle up the dogs of war?" Note that
"mineral wealth" ranks as the top priority) Sandllne's
boss, Colonel Tim Splcer (a former Bntish Army officer)
said that Western governments are too "politically cor­
rect" to use companies such as his (ibld). So once
again these old dogs are champing at the leash to get
back to one of their favourite killing fields
But if Splcer and co are having things their own way In
West Africa. not so In his homeland. In November
1 999, outraged students from the U niverSity of Wales.
In Aberystwyth. alerted the world that, in a few days
time, Tim Spicer was due to give a public lecture at the
International Politics Department. His topic was to be
"The Role of Privately Owned Armed Forces in a Glob­
alised World". They called for i nformalion on "thiS
gangster a'nd his racket" (e-mail, 1 2/ 1 1 /99). and for lo­
cals to protest his visit A h , the power of the Internet
Within days, the Aberystwyth students had been
flooded with international information (we e-mailed
them everything on the subject that we'd published in
PR), and the u niversity had a big rethink. It had fielded
media Inquines from as far afield as Afnca and Oce­
anla, It was worried about a militant demo on campus
(Aberystwyth students have chased the Queen away in
a previous demo) So, surprise, surprise, it cancelled
the inVitation to Spicer "due to u nforeseen circum­
stances" (e-mail, 1 7/ 1 1/99). I n short, we won. Perhaps
Splcer remembered the very rough time he had person­
ally experienced at the hands of the PNG soldiers who
detained him, then expelled h i m (haVing come very
close to killing him), and thought that Welsh students
might be even worse.
We are pleased to have played a small part in denying
thiS glorified hitman a respectable academic lectern
from which to expound upon the necessity for merce­
nary armies In the "global economy". First World private
armies killing for profit in some of the poorest and war
ravaged countries of the Third World - that is the reality
of The New World Order It needs to be opposed at
every turn
- May 2000 - Page 23
 L O
S
U ST RA L l AIII P I E S 1 111 S EE 'S ( T H I N ' I N kO SOYO
H P
A
Astute readers of PR will have noticed that ma­
jor wars come and go in countries such as Iraq
and the Former Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY -
a singularly apt acronym for a country burnt by
war after war) without any mention from us. The reason
IS simple - we are a very specialist peace movement
publication not an all p u rpose one. We do not attempt
to be a replacement for the late lamented Peacelink.
But now and again something from one of these catas­
trophic wars catches our specialist attention. One such
was the 1 999 arrest, trial and imprisonment of two Aus­
tralian humanitarian aid workers by Slobodan MII­
osevic s Serbia (what's left of YugoslaVia). The charge
was spYing (they were released after a few months In
pnson). Naturally, the mens' employer (the transna­
Ilonal aid agency, CARE), the Australian government
and NATO. which was bombing Kosovo and Serbia at
the time of their arrest, all indignantly denied it Just the
sort of thing you'd expect a ratbag like M ilosevlc to al­
lege
F u n nily enough, it turns out to
have been true. The two had
sensitive military material in their
possession at the time of their
arrest One of them made a tele­
vised confession on Serbian TV
(this was discounted at the time, although h e showed
no obvIous sign of torture or coercion), His own mother
told the Australian media that he'd had to leave his pre­
VIOUS assignment - in the very sensitive Kurdish north
of Iraq - In a great h urry because of similar allegations
by the Iraqi government All of this evidence was
brushed off, but further revelations came from the very
top
Former Australian Tory Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser,
IS the chairman of CARE Australia. In a February 2000
Australian TV i nterview h e admitted that CARE had a
contract with the government of Canada, a NATO
member, to recruit a team of Organisation for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) monitors to venfy
the ceaseflfe I n Kosovo (which was I n place before
NATO started its 1 999 bombing campaign). The pro­
gramme revealed that the monitors consisted largely of
ex-military people, sending information by satellite
phone to NATO, but not sharing It with Serbia. I ndeed,
one of the arrested Australians was a former major i n
the Australian Army, and a former election candidate
for Fraser's liberal Party. In fact, he'd got the Kosovo
Job at Fraser's express request He must be one very
well connected former Army officer to be hand picked
by an ex-Pnme M i nister. It's worth beanng in mind that
Australia, unlike NZ, does have an overseas intelli­
gence gathenng agency, namely the Australian Secret
Intelligence Service (ASIS), which operates very much
on military lines, and which has regularly worked i n
global hotspots for Western intelligence Fraser also
Peace Researcher 21
admitted that the two men
had in their possession, when
arrested , information on troop
movements, tank pOSitions
and minefields, all wntten in what Fra­
ser described as "military language"
These revelations so horrified Frasefs
CARE PR minders that one tried to
:;"&
�­
correct him on air. Fraser erupted " Do
not Interrupt when I am being interviewed and do not
ever i nterrupt again. Do you understand?" (SBSTV
Datelme, q uoted on World Socialist Web Site [ www
wsws.org), 9/2/00: "New information on the case of two
jailed Australian aid workers").
The Bloodstained Man From The CIA
The likelihood of these hapless Aussies being spies in­
creases dramatically when you dig Into the reality of the
OSCE mission. Consider the fact that ItS boss was the
American, William Walker, a Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) man with a long and bloody track record
through the Americans' charnel houses of central
America in the 1 980s. The following is from an elec­
tronic posting, entitled "Meet Mr Massacre From E l
Salvador To Kosovo: The U S Bloody Trail". Mark Ames
& Matt Tabibi; 30/4/99).
""According to various newspaper reports, Walker be­
gan his diplomatic career in 1 96 1 i n Peru. H e then re­
portedly spent most of his long career in the foreign
service in Central and South Amenca, including a
highly controversial posting as Deputy Chief of MiSSion
In Honduras in the early 1 980s, exactly the time and
place where the Contra rebel force was formed. The
Contra force was the cornerstone of then-CIA Dlfector
William Casey's hardline anti-Communist d i rective, and
Honduras was considered, along with El Salvador, the
front line in the war with the Soviet Union. From there,
Walker was promoted, in 1 985, to the post of Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State for Central America. ThiS
promotion made him a special assistant to ASSistant
Secretary of State E l liot Abrams, a figure whose name
would soon be making its way Into the headlines on a
dally basis In connection with a new scandal the press
was calling the ' Iran-Contra' affair.
"Walker would soon briefly jOin his boss under the pub­
lic microscope. According to i nformation contained In
Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh's lengthy I ndict­
ment of Abrams and Oliver North, Walker was respon­
sible for setting up a phony humanitarian operation at
an alrbase in 1I0pango, El Salvador. This shell organi­
zation was used to funnel guns. ammunition and sup­
plies to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua
''Despite having been named in Walsh's indictment
(although he was never charged himself) and outed In
the international press as a gunrunner, Walker's diplo-
" May 2000 " Page 24
matlc career did not as one might have expected, take
a turn for the worse, Oddly enough, It kept on advanc­
Ing, In 1 988 he was named ambassador to El Salva­
dor a state which at the time was still In the gnp of US­
sponsored State terror
Walker's record as Ambassador to E l Salvador is star­
tling upcn review today, In light of his recent re­
e mergence rnto the world spotlight as an outraged
documenter of racist hate-cnmes, His current posture
of moral disgust toward Serbian ethniC cleansing may
seem convincing today but it IS hard to square with the
almost comically callous indifference he consistently
exhibited toward exactly the same kinds of hate crimes
while serving In El Salvador
'In late 1 989, when Salvadoran soldiers executed SIX
Jesuit pnests their housekeeper. and her 1 5 year-old
daughter, blOWing their heads off with shotguns, Walker
scarcely batted an eyelid When asked at a press con­
ference about eVidence linking the killings to the Salva­
doran High Command, he went out of his way to apolo­
gize for chief of staff Rene Emillo Ponce. dismiSSing the
l1lurders as a sort of forgivable corporate glitch, like
running out of Xerox toner 'Management control prob­
lems can eXist rn these kinds of these kinds of situa­
tions he said
In discussing the wider problem of state violence and
repression --which In El Salvador then was at least no
less widespread than In the Serbia he monitored from
October 1 998 u ntil March 1 999 Walker was remarka­
--
bly circumspect 'I'm not condoning it. but in times like
this of great emotion and great anger, things like this
happen,' he said, apparently having not yet decided to
audition for the OSCE Job
Finally. ,n what may be the most amazing statement of
all, given hiS current occupation, Walker q uestioned the
ability of any person or organization to assign blame in
hate crime cases Shrugging off news of eyewitness
reports that the Jesuit murders had been
committed by men in Salvadoran army
uniforms, Walker told Massachusetts
Congressman Joe Moakley that 'anyone
can get uniforms, The fact that they were
dressed in military u niforms was not
proof that they were m ilitary'
"Later. Walker would recommend to Sec­
retary of State James Baker that the
United States not Jeopardize' its relation­
ship With El Salvador by Investigating
'past deaths, however heinous This IS
certainly an Ironic comment coming from
a man who would later recommend that the United
States go to war over" heinous deaths,
"One final Intnguing biographical note: Walker In 1 996
hosted a ceremony in Washington held in honor 'of
5 . 000 American soldiers who fought secretly In E l Sal­
vador. While Walker was Ambassador of E l Salvador
the US government's official story was that there were
only 50 military advisors in the country ( WasmgtolJ
Post, May 6, 1 996) " The Irony IS that Walker was
charged With monitoring Serbian human lights abuses
In Kosovo. and his ruling that the January 1 999 "Racak
Massacre" of Albanians became the J ustification of the
following war by NATO Since that time there has been
considerable evidence of operational links between the
CIA and other Western intelligence agencies with the
Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which was fighting Mil,
osevlc s Serbs, There have been Western media sto­
ries that the "Albanian peasants" massacred at Racak
were actually dead KLA ftghters dressed rn Civilian
clothes, for propaganda purposes,
OSCE had other links to the CIA The US verification
team was composed of employees of Dyncorp. At the
1 992 Senate hearing to appoint James Woolsey as CIA
Director (see the Echelon article elsewhere in thiS issue
for Woolsey's extraordinary admiSSion of US commer·
clal espionage against its "allies"), he commented that
he was a shareholder In It, and that it did have have
some CIA contracts (which was actually covert work In
Colombia and Peru).
It all adds up to a n ugly picture of spies and the military
using aid agencies as cooperative cover for running es­
pionage operations in war zones or other areas which
they themselves would have trouble accessing. Those
nice kind humanitarian NGOs who are always first on
the scene when trouble erupts may very well not be
what they seem

ABOUT PEA�E RESEAR�HER

Peace Researcher IS published three times a year by the Anti-Bases Campaign, C h ristchurch The editors are
Murray Horton and Bob Leonard Our layout artist IS Melanie Thomson. Our Journal covers a range of peace
issues with emphasis on foreign military bases and intelligence topics. Contributed articles will be conSidered
for publication based on subject matter and space requirements, We are particularly interested In reports of
anginal research on peace tOPICS in Aotearoa and the wider region of Australasia and the PaCific

Our address IS
Peace Researcher
P,O, Box 2258
C hristchurch
Aotearoa/New Zealand
a-mail: calca@chch.planetorg.nz

Peace Researcher 21 - May 2000 - Page 25

As detailed at great length elsewhere in this issue (see
the story on Davld Small's successful court case
against the Police), the cops are very protective of
other secunty agencies (the Security Intelligence Ser­
vice. In that case). But, ironically enough. they have
publicly named the US Secret Service as pnme sus­
pect In the u nsolved theft of a protest banner during
President Clinton's September 1 999 State visit to
Chnstchurch (see PR 1 9120 for coverage of ABC pro­
tests during his visit. Ed. ) .
The stolen banner belonged to the Student Chnstian
Movement of Aotearoa. It read: "Clinton armed Indo­
nesian killers" (this was at the height of the East Timor
crisis) and "their feet run to evil, they rush to shed in­
nocent blood" I t was i n the carpark
of Chnstchurch Central's Labour M P ,
T i m Barnett. whose office i s very
close to the Cathedral Square hotel
which was the base for Clinton and
his flying circus. A volunteer in his
office witnessed the theft, and de­
scribed the thief as a well dressed
man wearing a three piece black suit
In May 2000. the Police released
thell file on the matter to Barnett, and
in It the investigating officer con­
cluded (doubtless after having elimi­
nated other black suited suspects
such as Mormons, u ndertakers and
Treasury officials): "Having reviewed the file It would
appear to me the banner was removed by one of the
Secret Service staff attached to the Clrnton
visit" (Press, 1 8/5/00: " U S agent suspected of theft")
Barnett said that he will ask the US Embassy If an
American offiCial was Involved In stealing the banner
I n this case, we congratulate the Police i n lettmg the
chips fall where they may. And shame on the para­
noids who are responsible for the US President's se­
curity. Stooping to steal a protest banner in peaceful
little old New Zealand (which went embarrassingly
gaga over Clinton's visit) really IS ridiculous. We de­
mand an ID parade of all men in the White House
weanng three piece black suits. S u nglasses, ear­
pieces and bulging armpits are
other giveaway signs. We trust
that the Police Will follow thell
new found zeal for the Amen­
can police philosophy of 'zero
tolerance' for petty crime, and
chase this well dressed thief
with the full rigour of the law
Otherwise these guys will
graduate to walking around
with concealed weapons and
talking into their wristwatches,
whilst fixing everybody with a
1 ,000 yard stare Full blown
psychos, in short.

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Peace Researcher 21 - May 2000 • Page 26