- Bob Leonard
The Americans out at the US Antarctic Program (USAP) at Harewood
(Christchurch Airport) are nervous, post September 11. “Security has been
beefed up at Antarctic Base”, said a page-width headline in the Christchurch Press (16/10/01). You can’t even park
next to the base in Orchard Road any more, thanks to a by-law passed in secret
by the City Council in late September. Our Council cares deeply for the well
being of its American guests although it’s a little hard to figure just what
threat a parked car might be to a hangar. Protestors who marched along the
footpath around the base in early December were barred from walking along
Wairakei Road (see the accompanying article on the protest). They were clearly
deemed to be some sort of threat since they didn’t agree with the US bombing of
Afghanistan. Evidence of a terrorist threat is very compelling: “People with
placards that have been uncomplimentary to the United States, for example” and
have aroused police suspicions (Press
28/9/01).
Actually the District Police Commander, Superintendent
John Reilly, has admitted “…that there was no intelligence to suggest threats
to internal security in New Zealand” (ibid.).
But the next best thing to hard evidence is mere suspicion of nothing more than
legitimate dissent.
A perfect example of this is the unprecedented
situation that arose, in November 2001, when a Police officer visited the
Communist League’s Pathfinder Bookshop, in central Christchurch, to relay
“concern” from USAP about the shop’s “anti-American window display”. In the 20
or so years that the Anti-Bases Campaign (ABC) and our predecessor (Citizens
for the Demilitarisation of Harewood) have been campaigning on this base, this
is the first time we’ve ever heard of such a thing. It was such a blatant
interference in New Zealand affairs, such an obvious example of the US military
using the New Zealand cops to run its errands, that the media picked it up and
reported it. It then transpired that cops had visited anti-war organisers in
Auckland to question them about their “anti-American” activities. A national
pattern was emerging here. TV3 contacted ABC to pursue the story and was all
set to run something when they killed it. Why? Because neither the US military
nor the Police would comment, so there was no “balance”. That’s a very easy way
to kill something you don’t want aired. But, no, it doesn’t work the other way
around – favourable stories about Harewood or the Police aren’t killed by the
media because ABC refuses to comment on them. Funny, that.
The 51st State Of America: Paranoia
But I guess we shouldn’t complain. Things could be
much worse, much worse, as in the extremely paranoid state that is America
today. For example -
A 15 year-old school girl recently found herself
before the West Virginia Supreme Court defending her right to found an anarchy
club at her school and to wear a T-shirt emblazoned with “Against Bush, Against
Bin Laden” and “When I saw the dead and dying Afghani children on TV, I felt a
newly recovered sense of national security.
God bless America” (Guardian
18/12/01).
In the same article is this description: “A 19
year-old woman studying at Durham Tech, North Carolina, answered the door to
three security agents. They had been informed, they told her, that she was in
possession of ‘anti-American material’. Someone had seen poster on her wall,
campaigning against George Bush’s use of the death penalty. They also asked her whether she also
possessed pro-Taliban propaganda”
(emphasis added).
These are mind boggling examples of the irrational
mindset now gripping America, land of the brave, home of the free. We venture
to suggest that our own national terrorist paranoia would be barely perceptible
if Christchurch did not host an American military/intelligence installation
within its city limits, if Marlborough didn’t host the Waihopai satellite spy
station, and if Manawatu didn’t host the Tangimoana signals intelligence
(SIGINT) station. Perhaps you have not had occasion to notice, but the most
heavily fortified and guarded bits of New Zealand real estate are the three
bases mentioned above, together with Fort Thorndon, aka the American Embassy,
in Wellington. Even the former office
of the United States Information Service in Christchurch had a blast-proof
steel front door.
Tense security situations at our airport are not
unusual thanks to the American military. In times of emergency with US cargo
planes, the entire airport including the terminal building has been taken over
by American military authorities. At other times, global tension such as hot
war in the Middle East or in Afghanistan, brings the Harewood base under
heightened “defense readiness conditions” (DEFCONS). Official American military
documents contain interesting statements that such readiness is relevant to
“…safeguarding ships, facilities, equipment and material vital to readiness and
national defense…a task of growing concern. This responsibility is aggravated by
activities of political extremists and terrorist groups”. As we saw in the recent demonstration at the
airport, the “defense” of the base usually falls to the NZ Police. The City
Council, major shareholder in the Airport Company, denies being influenced directly
by the Americans in its security discussions with the Police (see accompanying
article on the demonstration). But if Harewood were demilitarised (i.e., no US
Air Force) there would be no military tensions, no DEFCONS, no aeroplanes
violating our nuclear free zone, and probably no need for police. There might not even be any protestors.
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