Twenty years of protest at Waihopai Spybase

Anti-war activists descended on Marlborough last weekend (20th/21st January, 2007) to protest against New Zealand’s most significant contribution to America’s wars of terror, including wars currently being waged on Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Waihopai spy base, located in the Waihopai Valley near Blenheim, is a foreign spybase that works for, and provides raw intelligence directly to, the United States. The base intercepts and records our international phone calls and email. It is directly involved in US-led imperialist wars and the mass killings that have resulted from those invasions. In the twenty years since Waihopai was first announced, the New Zealand Government has poured around $500 million into the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), the agency that runs Waihopai.

Last weekend's protest activity began with a public meeting in Blenheim on Friday night. More than 100 people turned up to hear Nicky Hager speak about his most recently published book, “The Hollow Men”. Hager drew links to his 1996 publication, “Secret Power”, the book which exposed Waihopai and Tangimoana’s (the often forgotten spybase in the lower North Island) role in the global spying network and what goes on inside those bases.

Although it wouldn't come as a huge shock to most people, Hager argued that it’s often an inconvenience for the State and its institutions to tell the truth. In fact, it generally serves their interests not to, and instead the development of spin through the crafting of media lines, manipulation and framing is daily practice – hence the bank of spin doctors within parties and government departments. That people around the world may have been whisked away to the parasitic and torturous dungeon that is Guantanamo Bay, and Waihopai might have had a hand in it, is not the sort of information that the Labour Government and their GCSB are keen to disclose.

The protest activities on Saturday began with a march in Blenheim’s main centre, which included speeches by Murray Horton (Anti-Bases Campaign), John Minto (Global Peace and Justice Auckland) and Keith Locke (Green Party MP). In the afternoon a similar group demonstrated out at the base (marching to the inner gate), where there were a variety of chants, the stamping of UKUSA passports by Uncle Sam, further speeches and an open mic.

This year’s demonstration marked twenty years since the base was first announced, during the reign of the fourth Labour Government, and twenty years since protests organised by the Anti-Bases Campaign (ABC) first took place. The ABC’s strategy for the first ten years largely incorporated the use of direct action as a tactic at the base, which resulted in a large number of arrests. Twenty people were arrested at the January protest in 1997.

In the last ten years, however, there has been less focus on direct action at the base during the January protest activities, and more focus on building local opposition to the base in Blenheim – hence demonstrations, leafleting, postering, advertisements and speeches in town. In light of this, the Marlborough Express article of 22nd January quoted a local Green Party and anti-war activist, who was also the ABC’s local organiser, as saying, “I am frustrated by this level of action. I think it is good for raising awareness, but I would like to see something that chips at it and shows our frustration in a stronger form.”

What does Waihopai actually do?

According to the ABC literature, Waihopai is operated by the GCSB and works in the interests of the foreign powers grouped together in the super-secret UKUSA Agreement. Under this agreement, global electronic and signals intelligence is shared among the Intelligence agencies of the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Waihopai's two satellite interception dishes (shielded by giant domes) intercept a huge volume of satellite phone calls, including our international calls, plus telexes, faxes, email and computer data communications. Data is also gathered from New Zealand's Asia/Pacific neighbours and forwarded on to the major partners in the UKUSA Agreement, specifically the US National Security Agency.

The Bush Administration has pronounced Intelligence to be the key component of its wars throughout the world, with Waihopai's “Big Ears” covering a vast area of the Pacific. Although Iraq is on the other side of the world, the US military/intelligence network that is waging that war is global and depends on global facilities. In Afghanistan, the US military and its allies (including New Zealand) are completely dependent on electronic intelligence. The bombing to pieces of communities and environments leaves New Zealand with blood on its hands! While it is repulsive that New Zealand's contribution to the Wars of Terror has included the SAS, frigates, and engineers the Waihopai spybase is clearly the New Zealand State's largest contribution to Amercian led wars. Waihopai is a foreign spybase that directly involves New Zealand in imperialist wars and it must be closed!

For more information on the Anti-Bases Campaign, including details of how to join the organisation as well as links to their regular magazine, “Peace Researcher”, go to: www.converge.org.nz/abc

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