Peace Researcher 29 – June
2004
Bob Leonard, a founder of the Anti-Bases Campaign (ABC) and an editor of Peace Researcher for nearly two decades, was the victim of a nasty (indeed, potentially fatal) crime recently. Whilst he and his wife, Barbara, were inside watching TV on a Saturday night in February, a person or persons unknown crept up to where their van was parked on their driveway, forced the door, stole a power tool inside and used the fuel container for that tool to torch the van. Bob was alerted by their dog’s barking and had to run close to the flames to push their other car to safety (it incurred $500 worth of damage). The van was parked under a tree. If that had not been wet, the house could have caught fire. The van was destroyed, nobody has been caught, and Bob and Barbara’s sense of personal security has been badly damaged.
Mount John & Black Birch
That 1970s-vintage van had been the workhorse for the anti-bases movement (predating the actual ABC by several years) for all the 20+ years that Bob and Barbara have lived in Christchurch, since coming to New Zealand in the early 1980s, with their son Graham, as Reagan Refugees. For example, in 1983, it was used to transport Wellington’s Vanguard Films crew of Alister Barry, Russell Campbell and Rod Prosser to the top of Mount John, overlooking Tekapo, in the Mackenzie Country. They were making “Islands Of The Empire”, the definitive study of the US/NZ military relationship. Mount John had been the site of a US Air Force observatory (one of the most spectacular protests in New Zealand history had been held there in 1972) which had been turned over to a US civilian contractor. It was a memorable day – the US had announced that it was relocating Mount John’s functions to a facility in the US, so the Americans were actually packing up and leaving the day we up there filming. Ironically, we had to wait for a break in the work for it to be quiet enough for filming to take place. We then followed one truckload of equipment all the way to the US base at Christchurch Airport (Harewood), where the Vanguard boys did more filming.
The other former US military facility on a South Island mountaintop was the US Naval Observatory at Black Birch, in Marlborough. Bob’s van never drove up that one, which is considerably higher than Mount John. But, in 1986, it was the means of transport to the base of the hill when a group organised by the Campaign Against Foreign Control in New Zealand (CAFCINZ, now CAFCA), climbed the 1500 metres to the observatory and strung banners across it. Bob didn’t climb it that day and kept the solitary policeman who turned up to investigate engaged in amiable conversation for a good long while before the cop finally looked around at the various empty vehicles and asked: “Where are the people?”. Bob, who could not tell a lie, said that we were climbing the hill. The cop shot off to get reinforcements to chase us. They came up in cars but we still beat them to it. Bob still remembers the look on that cop’s face.
It was used for transport to many demos and aircraft scouting trips at Harewood over the years, some of the latter early in the morning to observe the departures of US Air Force C141 Starlifters to the Pine Gap spybase (near Alice Springs, Australia) in the days when such were predictable due to their regularity. Bob was frequently accompanied by Don Murray and Warren Thomson, who were stalwarts of Citizens for the Demilitarisation of Harewood (CDH, as we were then). The van was well known out at the airport and its prowling sometimes led to their being stopped by airport security for questioning. The van was useful as a vantage point for observations and photos on some occasions. Bob would park around the back of the US military area, near the fence, and climb on top of the van so the fence did not interfere with his view of the Channel flight Starlifters (those on the regular circuit from the US to the bases in Australia via Harewood).
In the late 1980s CDH morphed into ABC but the trusty old van kept on keeping on. It became the regular transport to and from our innumerable protests at the Waihopai spybase. I’ve lost count of the number of times I made that trip in Bob’s van. Bob remembers: “One ‘attack’ on the base was in the middle of the night with young Graham on board. He stayed in the van while we did our silly things with ladders and the like, running around the paddocks (diversionary tactics, from memory. Ed). Don was also one of the passengers and when time came to disembark and attack, he broke off the back door handle in his haste to get out”.
And the van was put to good use in Christchurch. It was fitted with a big sign on top by Don and Bob on one occasion and driven to Woolston Park to a Labour Party picnic. The sign said "Well done Labour - now kick the US Navy out of our Airport". That was just after the passage of the Nuclear Free law in 1987. On the way home from the park Bob found that he could not quite clear the railway overbridge along Clarendon Terrace beside the Heathcote River, because of the tall sign. Fortunately he had a saw in the van and was able to climb on top of the van and saw off just enough of the sign to clear the bridge and drive home. The other option would have been to let most of the air out of the tyres.
Vans were quite the thing in the ABC committee – both Don and Warren had them as well. But, first the vans went, then Don and Warren themselves moved on. There have always been vans amongst those regularly going to the Waihopai protests (such as that of Green Co-Leader, Rod Donald) but only Bob’s had that impressive two decades of continuing service in the anti-bases cause. It got old and tired and Bob preferred to use his car on recent Waihopai trips. But, as recently as November 2003, it was used to transport the ABC contingent into town to take part in the protest at the Labour Party conference. It was a prestigious gathering – there were three past or present PR editors in the front (Bob, Dennis Small and myself). It didn’t deserve such a fiery fate (the hazards of modern urban living, even in an upmarket hill suburb). The least we can do is record its passing with sadness and gratitude for many years of a job well done.
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