Peace Researcher 34 – July 2007
ABC’s
Waihopai spybase display has been up and down the country several times since
it first hit the road nearly two years ago. In 2007 it started off with a
fortnight in an Addington café/gallery in
That
however was but a storm in a cappuccino cup compared to its next destination.
Dion Martin, veteran Palmerston North organiser for the National Distribution
Union and a key local ABC contact, invited us to send it up to be displayed in
the trade union centre, and in the foyer of the venue of the annual May Day
concert which he organises and which attracts a crowd of many, many hundreds of
people. We were delighted to oblige. But both we and Dion were unprepared for
what happened next, ironically on May Day itself, after the display had been up
in the trade union centre for only one day. He came back to find that it had
been pulled down by a local organiser of the Public Service Association (PSA,
and it is significant that the building is called PSA House). When Dion asked
why he was told: “Don’t you realise that they are my members?”. By “they” she
meant the spies at the nearby Tangimoana spybase and the Government
Communications Security Bureau in general. When asked how many PSA members
there were in the GCSB, she replied: “Approximately 16 at Tangimoana, 20 at
Waihopai, and many more in Wellington, and if any of them happened to come into
this office to visit me they would be shocked to see PSA advocating for closure
of the base and their jobs”. Dion suggested that it was unlikely that any of
the notoriously shy spies would come into the trade union centre, but was told:
“They might and we can’t have it up in this office”. So that was that. Dion was
also told, by a local organiser for the Engineers’
Personally
I can’t say that I’m surprised by the PSA reaction. It’s a union with whom I’ve
crossed swords over the years on several other fundamental issues, in my
Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA) capacity. And the
Engineers’
Cities Near The Spybases Are The Touchy Ones
It’s the
not the first time that Dion has encountered controversy in getting the
Waihopai display shown in Palmerston North. In 2006 he arranged for it to be
prominently exhibited in the city’s Library. After it had been up a while, and
unbeknownst to the senior librarian who had approved it, other staff removed it
on the grounds that it was “unfair” to the spies who didn’t have a “right of
reply”. An internal argument resulted in it being put back out on public
display. Obviously the cities closes to the GCSB’s two spybases are the ones
most touchy about any criticism of the spies – in 2005 the Marlborough District
Council refused to accept the display for the District Library, on the same
grounds as those cited in Palmerston North (when the original version of the
display was exhibited in that Blenheim library, in the late 1990s, it was
removed after a complaint from Waihopai’s then commander).
From
inhospitable Palmerston North it travelled south to friendlier Nelson, where it
was exhibited at the Greens’ national conference at Queen’s Birthday Weekend
(as it was at their 06 annual conference, in Silverstream). It also spent some
time on display in the Greens’ office in Nelson before coming back home for a
well earned rest. Its next confirmed booking is for the
We’re
delighted that it generates controversy in some parts of the country and that
it gets up the noses of some local body bureaucrats, librarians and trade union
officials. The truth is always uncomfortable to confront. This display is
playing an invaluable role in getting that truth out through the miasma of
official silence and lies.
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