Spy base ‘does not stop terrorism’
Protesters at an annual demonstration against the Waihopai Spy Base, in Marlborough, say the base does nothing to prevent terrorism in New Zealand.
More than 30 people gathered outside the station, about 20 kilometres outside Blenheim, on Saturday morning. Police also attended the event.
Anti-bases campaign spokesman and protest organiser Murray Horton said the demonstration was particularly relevant this year, given the recent activity in Iran and the terrorist attack in Christchurch last year.
He said the events of March 15, in which a foreign gunman allegedly murdered 51 people at their place of worship, showed that the Waihopai Spy Base was not keeping New Zealanders safe.
‘‘The spies were conspicuous by their absence. They played absolutely no role in detecting, preventing or stopping that mass murder,’’ he said.
‘‘That particular guy . . . operating on New Zealand soil with a long foreign electronically engineered footprint, was eventually brought down by two country cops, not by any spies.’’
Horton had been attending the protests since they began in 1988, shortly after the Government Communications Security Bureau surveillance base became operational.
Since that time, he said, the base had continued to spy on ‘‘New Zealanders and foreigners alike’’ as directed by the US National Security agency.
Scheduled guest speaker Greens MP, Golriz Ghahraman, was unable to attend because of sickness but had supplied a speech that was read by Green Party member Dot Lovell-Smith.
As an Iranian New Zealander and a refugee, Ghahraman had reflected on living through the Iranian regime of the 1980s, and urged the base’s closure in the interests of peace and New Zealand independence.
‘‘It is a key contribution on our behalf to America’s global spying and war industry,’’ she wrote.
Lesley Hill, who had also attended the protests for decades, said the spy base was not in New Zealand’s interests. ‘‘Is it really working for us? I think it’s working for America, it’s working for the NSA and the other Five Eyes partners. It’s tying us into military alliances, and the insanity, the drone killings, the whole lot.’’
The argument for an independent foreign policy was also raised in connection to recent news events, including the assassination of Iranian MajorGeneral Qassem Soleimani by the US military earlier this month.
‘‘Waihopai represents the most important contribution New Zealand makes to the American military alliance,’’ Horton said. ‘‘It makes us complicit in the actions of the mad king [US President Donald Trump], and it means we have blood on our hands.’’