Just like 1916?
I've just seen a report of the massive police raids on several small Tuhoe settlements in the Bay of Plenty. Back in 2001 and 2002 I spent a bit of time opposing the passage of the Terrorism Suppression Act, along with other folks in the Anti-Imperialist Coalition and the wider anti-war movement. Modelled on Bush's Patriot Act, it's a pernicious piece of legislation cooked up under Anglo-American pressure in the aftermath of 9/11.
Now the Act is being used for the first time, and there is the real possibility that Tame Iti and the other people arrested today could experience the same injustices as the earlier generation of Tuhoe whose peaceful community in the Ureweras was raided by Crown forces in 1916. At least Rua Kenana, the leader of the community at Maungapohatu, was given a more or less open trial before being jailed under an unjust law. Under the Terrorism Suppression Act, Tame and the others arrested today could be held indefinitely, in an undisclosed location, without even being tried.
As luck would have it, Skyler and I are heading to the Bay of Plenty this week. I was going to apologise in advance for not blogging for a few days, because the place we're staying is remote, but I think that idea will have to go out the window.
Update: a social centre in Auckland run by anarchists has been raided. The left has to mobilise to oppose what looks like a very worrying situation. Keep an eye on indymedia.
Now the Act is being used for the first time, and there is the real possibility that Tame Iti and the other people arrested today could experience the same injustices as the earlier generation of Tuhoe whose peaceful community in the Ureweras was raided by Crown forces in 1916. At least Rua Kenana, the leader of the community at Maungapohatu, was given a more or less open trial before being jailed under an unjust law. Under the Terrorism Suppression Act, Tame and the others arrested today could be held indefinitely, in an undisclosed location, without even being tried.
As luck would have it, Skyler and I are heading to the Bay of Plenty this week. I was going to apologise in advance for not blogging for a few days, because the place we're staying is remote, but I think that idea will have to go out the window.
Update: a social centre in Auckland run by anarchists has been raided. The left has to mobilise to oppose what looks like a very worrying situation. Keep an eye on indymedia.
posted by maps at 10/15/2007 02:54:00 pm
2 Comments:
Here's an article putting forward a communist perspective on the Suppression of Terrorism Bill when it was introduced back in 2001.
http://communistworker.blogspot.com/2007/09/stop-imperialist-state-terror.html
This is a serious development. It is good the Greens have the courage to oppose it and some others. More oppose the Police than support them
New Zealand could slide toward total fascism.
I applaud Tamaiti and other Maori activists - in their general approach and passion - perhaps not everything they do - and those who support the culture of the Tuhoe and of Maori in general.
Great wrongs have been and still are being done to the Maori people - as also the Australian Aboriginees, the American Indians and many other indigenous people.*
This is also a political move by Labour who are not looking good and also they want to follow the Nazi-Bush-US terrorist policies. The War of Terror was initiated when the US destroyed the World Trade Towers and that gave them an excuse to institute greater control of people - this has extended to Australia and NZ and other countries.
But "terrorism" is nothing new -
the British used it in India for example even well before the 2nd WW
- they began by being the first to build concentration camps in SA...
Much else. The Nazis used it.
* And Holocaust IS the right word - taken overall the racism and terrorism that killed the Jews is what we are seeing and have seen applied to Maori and many other indigenous peoples.
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