Bravo, domebusters

What a delight it was to hear the jury's not-guilty verdict in the trial of the three gutsy domebusters in Wellington District Court yesterday.

Catholic priest Father Peter Murnane, teacher Adrian Leason and Hokianga farmer Sam Land were charged with using slashers to deflate the rubber dome covering one of the satellite dishes at the Waihopai spy base near Blenheim two years ago. The three are part of the Ploughshares Catholic activist movement whose members have undertaken similar anti-war actions in other countries.

The three freely admitted they did the damage claimed but their defence was an elegant and courageous expression of otherwise illegal action taken to prevent much greater crimes against people. The three told the court they acted to save the lives of those who are endangered by United States intelligence gathered from the base.

The spy base is nominally run by the GCSB (Government Communications Security Bureau) but is - in all but name - a United States spy base operating on New Zealand soil. It is clear from research here and overseas that it is operated in the US national interest - both militarily and commercially. Other similar bases are operated around the world with Waihopai being part of this secret global surveillance network set up after WWII under the UKUSA treaty, which involves the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

The base was built during the term of the fourth Labour government when Dave Lange was prime minister as well as minister in charge of security and intelligence. Despite this Lange says in the foreword to Nicky Hager's 1996 book Secret Power "...it was not until I read this book that I had any idea that we had been committed to an international integrated electronic network".

This is a startling admission. Our own prime minister was deliberately misled about the base by New Zealand security officials who saw their first responsibility being to their United States handlers rather than New Zealand's national interests.

The satellite tracking dishes at Waihopai focus on communications satellites in geostationary orbit above the equator and take in the signals from every email, phone call, fax or other communication which passes through the satellite. These messages are searched using code words and phrases, the majority of which are provided by the US, which includes commercially sensitive material on trade and investment as well as diplomatic communications between governments. Also picked up are international communications involving New Zealanders. (Each state in the network denies spying on its own citizens but are known to request others in the network to spy for them.)

In the late 1990s European Parliamentarians held a parliamentary inquiry into the "commercial espionage" conducted by the UKUSA network. In particular it was alleged the European companies Airbus Industries and Thomson-CSF were monitored through the network to favour US companies gaining commercial contracts.

The military links are also clear. It's well documented the network was used to spy on UN Security Council member countries to try to get support for a UN resolution to back the invasion on Iraq. In January 2003, shortly before the Iraq invasion, a leaked memo from Frank Koza, head of the Regional Targets section at the US National Security Agency, requested a "surge" of surveillance about the diplomatic communications of UN Security Council members. Countries to be targeted particularly were Angola, Cameroon and Guinea. Also requested was information on domestic communications of non-UN Security Council members containing anything relating to the Security Council. Koza said the NSA wanted information on the countries' "negotiating positions, alliances and dependencies". The US was looking for pressure points to target countries and undermine opposition to American war plans.

At Waihopai New Zealanders would have done Frank Koza's bidding and the NSA request would have been met in full. Our prime minister at the time, Helen Clark, would have been unaware of this request or that New Zealand security officials were an active part of the US strategy for war against Iraq while our government officially opposed the invasion.

The defence that the domebusters presented to the jury was well founded. Waihopai is our greatest contribution to US global strategies and ties us into the US war machine. Its activity threatens lives around the world. How many innocent people have been killed through the US invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan which Waihopai assisted?

The Kiwi trio on trial this week deserve applause for their courage in stripping this base to its bare essentials and exposing its undemocratic and immoral purposes. The slashers they used should be on permanent display at Te Papa.

The UK had the dambusters - New Zealand has the domebusters.

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