The Sunday Star Times continues to provide a forum for Nicky Hager, NZs best journalist. Today it came up with this must-read piece about the leaked police affidavit for the “terror raids”.
The full affidavit was leaked on the web last week. I haven’t seen it, but Hager describes it here, and in the process confirms some of my earlier suppositions.
Some relevant quotes:
A large part of the affidavit’s force comes from the omission of information that didn’t fit the terrorism story. For instance, nowhere in the affidavit is there mention of the fact the bush camps included training sessions on subjects as diverse as Maori herbal medicines, bush skills and Tuhoe history. But this context helps explain why a range of peaceful young Maori and environmental and peace campaigners were at supposed terrorist training camps. …The camps included people learning to use firearms, which is a lawful part of the Urewera way of life. But, judging from evidence in the affidavit, some people were mixing firearms and military-style training with their hothead political talk. This is not necessarily illegal, but it is foolish and dangerous. The people who joined in should have known better. Some at the camps openly expressed concern. The police did everybody concerned a favour by disrupting it.
There’s a distinct point in May when the affidavit starts talking about terrorism …there is what appears to be legal advice analysing the 2002 Terrorism Suppression Act and arguing it was relevant to the Urewera case. Thereafter it seems the police were set on uncovering terrorism, a mindset that led inexorably towards the 300 armed police raiding houses on October 15 and the subsequent terrorism charges.
Read it all. I went to a free concert on Saturday in which many musicians and activists expressed their unhappiness or fury over what has transpired. This whole affair seems, still, a de facto suppression of activism. I believe those in the police who drove this affair genuinely believed they were chasing a threat; their ignorance and fear, however, ruined their judgement. It just isn’t good enough. We must demand more from our law enforcement than this; we must demand a higher standard.
(I watched Upper Hutt Posse rather than the Klezmer Rebs. Didn’t even know the Rebs were on! But I’m sure they were stonkin’ good.)
Mate, you missed out. The rebs did a blistering set, and were still rolling when the UHP finished (they finished up as Little Bushman started). Got the crowd going, I’ll say that.
I have seen the leaked affidavit. Reading through it, it sounds to me like there were one or two nutjobs and big talkers, and a lot more people who liked the idea of running around the bush doing fun stuff that included molotov cocktails and firing guns off. I agree with Hagar’s contention that your average Mongrel Mob member would seem to bear more risk to NZ society than these guys. One of the named terrorism suspects is someone we know, who occasionally spends time around our kids; having read the affidavit, I have no problem with him. You’re always going to get a few loons, and it seems to me that the police seized on the assertions made by two specific people and based an entire terrorist conspiracy on that.
Further to that: if someone said to me “Hey man, come along to my mate’s place this weekend, he’s got this wicked bush block and you can arse around with molotov cocktails”, I’d probably go along if we could sort out babysitting. Going into the backblocks and shooting stuff/making bang is a part of the NZ psyche – am I right?