The Police Raids
On 15 October 2007, squads of New Zealand Police swept through a number of locations throughout New Zealand, dressed in full riot gear with machine guns, handguns and knives strapped to their black garments. They smashed doors and furniture, arresting people, confiscating computers, cameras, files and papers. They were searching for evidence in order to charge 17 suspects with ‘terrorism’ offences under the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002.
Former Vietnam veteran, Tuhoe Lambert, was one of those arrested that morning. Lambert lives in south Auckland with his wife, son, and other members of his family. At 6am, the police arrived, ordering the whole family into the street at gun-point, including his 12 year old grand daughter, Patricia. Tuhoe Lambert’s house was then ransacked.
These dawn raids against kiwi activists occurred for the most part under cover of darkness. The police presence was unannounced. No major city or suburb was locked down; no civil servant or teacher was impeded on his or her way to work; cars were not interfered with, buses of commuters were not boarded, curious bystanders were not photographed.
Raiding Tuhoe
For the people of Te Urewera, however, the situation was vastly different. The police arrived later that morning in force, fully dressed in black, armed to the teeth and bristling. The entire areas around Ruatoki and Taneatua were blocked off. People were prevented from leaving their homes for work. Cars were stopped; occupants were instructed at gun point to leave their vehicles; they were searched and photographed. According to witnesses, a school bus was boarded by police, terrorising young children on their way to Kohanga Reo.
Fortuitously, word got out that something heavy was coming down in Ruatoki. Photographers on assignment for a local Bay of Plenty newspaper, Whakatane Beacon, soon arrived to check out what was happening. The pictures they took went around the world.
According to Tuhoe kaumatua Tamati Kruger, a gross breach of civil rights occurred during the police raids at Ruatoki. These breaches included detaining people for hours without food or water, without formal charges being laid; subjecting women to intimate body searches; herding people into sheds while property searches were underway; and photographing Ruatoki residents at the roadblock to the valley entrance.
One young woman, Annie Rangihika, 17, was searched in full view of the public. When later approached by the New Zealand Herald, the Whakatane High School student declined to comment but said she would never forget what had happened.
‘The police seem to feel they can ignore our people’s civil rights by waving around the Suppression of Terrorism Act’, said Kruger, claiming further that the raids at Ruatoki were marked by deliberate police misinformation. As well as the 17 arrested around the country and charged with firearms charges, he said, more people had been arrested in Ruatoki and had been taken to Rotorua for questioning before being released. Police at Te Ngae station had denied the people legal representation, and had moved them around police stations, confusing family and friends.
According to Annette Sykes, legal counsel for those arrested in Ruatoki, other Māori leaders were now being targeted by police. Prominent Māori leaders had had their homes searched and their computers taken; but they had not been arrested. Sykes said that this amounted to a systematic abuse by a police force that had lost its credibility with Māori.
Those arrested later appeared in Court, charged under a range of arms charges with terrorism charges pending; cases were delayed whilst the police conducted further investigations.
Māori Politicians
Māori politicians who urged people to wait ‘until all the information came out’ were roundly condemned by Māori. According to Tamati Kruger, while the police had all the time to fish for evidence ‘to back their alarmist allegations’, Labour Māori MPs had abandoned their Tuhoe constituents. ‘It’s really an inadequate response from Māori politicians to say let’s wait,’ he said, ‘because while we’re all waiting, there continues to be injustice, there continues to be breaches of civil rights. It’s not a good Māori response for one Māori to say to another, “when something extraordinary happens here, an event, let’s wait.” ’
There was one safeguard for those arrested; the Solicitor General. No charges could be laid by the police, under the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002, without the concurrence of the Solicitor General, Dr David Collins. After considering all of the evidence gathered by police using ‘terrorism suppression’ warrants, Dr Collins announced that charges under the terrorism Act could not proceed, since that Act was seriously flawed.
The Past As Present
The police raids on Ruatoki brought to mind a long history of Crown coercive policing towards Māori. Tuhoe have suffered many times before, ultimately being deprived of their autonomy in 1896. Police insensitivity towards these historical issues, plus their decision not to consult or involve their own Māori iwi liaison police officers, exacerbated tensions and, as Dr Pita Sharples said, threatened to ‘put our race-relations back by a hundred years.’ It is the hope of all Māori that the police, and the government, would have learned something from this experience; but this does seem unlikely.
Watch our for the forthcoming book (due September) – ‘Terror in our Midst? Searching for Terror in Aotearoa New Zealand’, edited by Danny Keenan, published by HUIA Publishing. Book contains essays on the police raids written mainly by Māori academic staff at Victoria University.
Dr Danny Keenan ‘Searching For Terror’ 3 July 2008