Source: MIL-OSI Submissions
Source: Murray Horton, Secretary/Organiser Anti-Bases Campaign
Murray Horton writes: “WHOLE BASE NEEDS TO BE DISMANTLED, NOT JUST TWO SATELLITE DISHES & DOMES.
“The speakers at the base gate will be:
“Green MP, Teanau Tuinono;
“Sonya Smith from Rocket Lab Monitor, Mahia (to talk about the campaign against NZ’s newest US military base) and;
“May Bass, a leading figure in the very earliest Waihopai spy base protests in the late 80s, specifically the women’s camp.
“Following that, there will be an afternoon-long meeting in Blenheim (Nativity Church, 76 Alfred St).
“The Government has announced that Waihopai’s two most distinctive features – two satellite dishes and the huge white domes which cover them – are obsolete and will be dismantled in 2022.
“So, no more eyesores which stick out like dogs’ balls.
“But the base will carry on its Five Eyes’ spying operations by other means. For years there has been another, less conspicuous satellite dish (the torus dish). Plus, most electronic spying these days concentrates on tapping fibre optic cables and the Internet. Satellite communications are far less important (as is evident right now in Tonga).
“New Zealanders are told that Waihopai/the GCSB/Five Eyes are vital to protect our national security. But they have done absolutely nothing to protect us against biggest threat to NZ’s national security since WW2, namely the virus. The hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars wasted on Waihopai and the GCSB in any given year would be much better spent on public health.
“New Zealanders are told that Waihopai defends NZ from terrorists. No, it doesn’t. The Royal Commission report into the March 15th, 2019 Christchurch mosques’ massacre was damning in its conclusions about NZ’s intelligence agencies The GCSB electronic spy agency totally missed the worst act of terrorism on NZ soil, one committed by a foreign terrorist with an extensive electronic presence. That is because Waihopai and the GCSB define “terrorists” as per the instructions of their Five Eyes Big Brother, the US National Security Agency (NSA). They turned a blind eye to the real terrorists already here.
“Helen Clark was the Prime Minister who ordered the NZ military into Afghanistan. Her reaction to the Taliban victory in 2021 was to call it “a catastrophic failure of intelligence in Western foreign policy”.
“Which begs the question – if this spy base can’t even protect us from viruses and terrorists, what useful purpose does it serve? Certainly nothing for the NZ people.
“If Five Eyes is provably useless in something as major as the Afghanistan fiasco, why is New Zealand still in it? The spies are not even any good at spying.
“For more than 30 years Waihopai has been NZ’s most significant contribution to Washington’s global effort to manipulate world business and diplomacy. And for more than 30 years the Anti-Bases Campaign has protested at Waihopai, calling for its closure.
“Waihopai does not operate in the national interest of New Zealand. In all but name it is an American spy base on NZ soil, paid for with hundreds of millions of our tax dollars; it spies on Kiwis and foreigners; it is NZ’s key contribution to America’s global spying & war machine. It does not protect us from threats to our national security, such as viruses and terrorists. Waihopai must be closed. And NZ needs to get out of Five Eyes and have a genuinely independent defence and foreign policy.”
Murray Horton,
Secretary/Organiser
Anti-Bases Campaign
