Harewood Protester Convicted by Murray Horton
Peace Researcher 28 –
December 2003
Despite the sheer scale of the anti-Iraq War protests throughout New Zealand in early 2003, there were very few arrests. One protester who was determined to be arrested, to force an issue, was Christchurch political activist, Daniel Rae. The US Air Force base at Christchurch Airport (commonly called Harewood) became a focal point of several anti-war protests. The 2003 Iraq War brought the Harewood base into the spotlight for the first time in years. The protests were peaceful and the Police response was restrained (if you want a contrast with 30 years ago, read the obituary of former Minister of Police, Mick Connelly, elsewhere in this issue, for an account of a very different State response to a 1973 Harewood protest).
Dan was the only person arrested at any
of those Harewood demos (he was the first person arrested at a Harewood protest
for nearly a decade). At a protest on the afternoon of Sunday March 23 (just
after the US invaded Iraq), he climbed the fence into the US Air Force base and
poured red paint onto the tarmac, to symbolise the blood of innocent Iraqis
killed in that invasion (the killing hasn’t stopped since, in fact it has
escalated). He didn’t go near any US military buildings, and basically he had
to wait around to be picked up by airport security and handed over to the cops.
Dan appeared in court on October 17,
2003 to face a charge of wilful trespass. There was a well attended picket
outside the District Court and the public gallery in the courtroom was full of
his supporters. He represented himself. “…Rae told the court that he chose the
area of tarmac used by aircraft for the United States Antarctic Programme
because it was also used to transit military aircraft servicing Pine Gap in the
Australian Outback, an Intelligence base which helped target sites in the
Middle East. He described the war in Iraq, which had begun just a few days
before, as an international crime. ‘When international law has been breached,
domestic citizens have the right to break national laws to prevent that crime
from occurring’. Judge Noble replied: ‘Even if you’re right about that, how
does climbing over a security fence and spreading paint on the tarmac prevent
that crime from occurring?’ Rae answered: ‘I was attempting to highlight that
New Zealand was complicit in breaking that international law by housing the
United States military base at Harewood’ “ (Press,
18/10/03, “Paint protester prepared for jail”, John Henzell).
Unsurprisingly, the judge rejected
Dan’s case that he was acting to prevent terrorism. “Judge Noble described Rae
as articulate and intelligent in putting his case, which espoused a view on the
war in Iraq shared by thousands of New Zealanders” (ibid). The judge convicted
Dan and sentenced him to 100 hours community work. Dan replied that he refused to
accept the court’s jurisdiction, would refuse to perform the community work (or
pay a fine) and was prepared to go to prison. Judge Noble described this as
“arrant nonsense…I’m disappointed in you. I’d described you as an intelligent
and articulate young man. If you want to present yourself as a martyr, you’re
entitled to do that” (ibid).
Dan reports: “I only managed to present about one sixth
of the statement but did get to say other stuff about Harewood and Pine Gap more
generally” (e-mail to ABC, 17/12/03).
“Judge, over 50 years ago the US
representative at the Nuremberg trials *, Robert Jackson stated, “To initiate a
war of aggression …is not only an international war crime, it is the supreme
international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains
within itself the accumulated evil of the whole”. *The trials of leaders of Nazi Germany after the Allied victory in World
War 2. Ed.
“In March of this year (2003), shortly after the invasion of Iraq, I decided I couldn’t sit idly by while war crimes were committed by the world’s sole superpower, the world’s largest terrorist state, the United States of America.
“A famous Czech dissident once said. “The struggle of people against power is the struggle of remembering against forgetting”.
“Judge, on that day I refused to forget that the State is the single largest source of terrorism in the world today. I refused to forget that the regime in Iraq was installed and supported by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and successive American governments. I also refused to forget the devastation and suffering that the first Gulf War (in 1991) had caused. And finally I refused to forget that the United States foreign policy has always been driven by the essential need of the capitalist system to mobilise State violence to seize resources, plunder nations and exploit people for private profit.
“In light of that remembering I went out to the US Air Force base that we have here in Christchurch, at Harewood, to challenge and resist the latest colonial military crusade which we call war.
“For once, my own moral convictions were in line with that of the law. I refer here, Judge, to international law. Under international law it is a crime to engage in a war of aggression such as what was conducted against Iraq. Any use of force by a State must be regarded as unlawful if it is not subject to armed attack. This was clearly not the case in this situation. Iraq had made no threats against its neighbours, and certainly not the United States. It had no weapons of mass destruction and no connections with international terrorism.
“Since the 1950s the New Zealand government has hosted a US Air Force base at Harewood and by doing so is complicit in all Western wars of aggression and war crimes under International law. Through Harewood, Galaxy and Starlifter planes travel en route to Pine Gap in Outback Australia, near Alice Springs. Pine Gap is a vital US military installation that plays an integral part in all Western wars in the Middle East and provides targeting information for the aerial bombardment of Iraqi cities and communities. Harewood, along with other New Zealand logistical support for the war, makes us by extension guilty of war crimes and engaged in mass murder - blood for oil.
“The invasion failed to meet any criteria of self-defence, under international law, and was an illegal act of State terrorism against the ordinary men, women and children of Iraq. For this act Bush, Blair, Howard and all the other Western leaders complicit in this illegal war, including Helen Clark, should be indicted for war crimes. They should be the ones standing here before you now if this really was a place of justice.
“So, Judge, on the day currently in question, when I decided to climb the fence and enter the US Air Force base at Harewood, I was attempting to highlight the legal system’s inability to uphold international law and its failure to arrest those responsible for the real crime – the invasion of Iraq.
“Judge, I would also like to highlight the fact that this invasion was not an isolated criminal act, but rather part of systematic and repeated offences by the Western powers. From Nicaragua, to Bolivia, to Vietnam, Indonesia, Palestine, Panama, Colombia, Cambodia and so on, the leaders of the Western nations have repeatedly disregarded international law to engaged in wars of aggression for corporate profit that have brought untold suffering and misery to millions of people around the globe. The methods and weapons used to inflict this suffering and misery are also in clear breach of international law. The systematic and deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure, the willful genocide that is the starvation of a country’s basic needs by sanctions and the use of indiscriminate weapons such as fuel-air explosives, cluster bombs and depleted uranium are all by their very nature inhumane and against the Geneva Convention.
“Rather that accepting this situation I
choose to take action to challenge my own Government and to refuse to be part
of state sanctioned terror. By entering the US Air Force base at Harewood and
pouring red paint on the runway I was attempting to highlight how the New
Zealand government is complicit in these acts of international terrorism
against international law. To not take that action and remain silent would to
be an apologist for State slaughter.
“Representing Big Business and its dream of a free trade deal with America, the New Zealand government is unwilling to end its complicity in war crimes such as the invasion of Iraq, therefore it is up to ordinary citizens such as myself to act. Judge, by doing so I was attempting to prevent an act of terrorism as defined by our own domestic law, in the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002. Section Five of that Act defines terrorism as the use or threat of an act that is, in full or in part- (i) to intimidate a population of any country; or (ii) to compel a lawful government or an international organisation, in any country, to do or abstain from doing any act - for the purpose of advancing an ideological, political or religious cause- in other words the illegal invasion of Iraq. Hence I was trying to prevent a terrorist act and New Zealand’s role in that deed.
“Judge, the Act that I’m charged under, states that what I did was an act of trespass only if I didn’t have a reasonable excuse to be on the runway. Since the war on Iraq was immoral, and illegal under international law as well as New Zealand’s own Terrorism Suppression Act, then I had every excuse to enter the US Air Force base at Harewood and attempt to highlight and prevent New Zealand’s involvement in this gross criminal act.
“Once again International law absolves my actions. The Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal stated in 1950 that “individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience, therefore individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring”.
“By doing that very thing I was actively refusing to cooperate or recognise an economic and military system that consigns millions of lives to poverty while the elite of the West get richer. A system whose definition of freedom is freedom for corporates to exploit people and plunder resources. When we live in societies as fundamentally unjust and undemocratic such as ours we have, I think, no choice but to take action to prevent slaughters caused by the system such as the war on the people of Iraq.
“Rather than accepting the State’s, and
corporate media’s, attempts of fraud, lies and propraganda to dehumanise and
demonise the people of Iraq, I choose instead to recognise our common humanity,
a common humanity that was expressed in the unity of grassroots action that saw
the unprecented mobilisation of people in opposition to this act of Western
State terrorism. If this opposition brings us before courts and we are charged
as guilty then these courts are themselves criminal and fundamentally unjust
and have no legitimate moral or political authority to pass judgement on my
actions”.
-----------------------------------
|
|
|
|