Author Wira Gardiner. Published 2014 by Huia Publishers, Wellington with the assistance of the Maori Purposes Fund Board. ISBN 978-1-77550-162-6. Reviewed by Ross Himona
I almost reviewed this book as soon as it was released but given what I have to say I thought I’d wait a respectful period.
But first a declaration of interest. Wira Gardiner the author has been a friend for longer than we both care to remember; since 1963. He has also quoted me in the concluding chapter. Notwithstanding our long and close friendship we have no problem whatsoever about disagreeing with each other’s views, so I will not hold back on the criticism if I feel the need to do so.
I suppose the one comment that most describes Parekura Horomia is that made by Hekia Parata in her foreword, “He was a good man …”.
He was inarticulate in English and Maori but he communicated, he was way overweight and didn’t look after his health, he neglected his family in pursuit of whatever it was he was pursuing, he was a flawed man but he was a good man. I can agree with that despite the fact that I was often perplexed in my dealings with him.
But I too was one of the many thousands he addressed as “Chief” and was disarmed by it even though I knew he was blowing smoke, if you know what I mean.
This book describes all of that. But mostly it is a tribute to Parekura by the many whanaunga, friends and colleagues whose memories of him make up the bulk of the book. At the launch of “Kia Ora Chief’ at Parliament House in 2014 I spoke to Brian Morris, co-owner of Huia Publishers. He told me that they had to edit well over 100 pages from the first draft of the book because the recollections of Parekura were so repetitive. So many people remembered the same stories about Parekura.
Perhaps that was partly because Parekura himself told the same stories about himself over and over again. How many of us remember the story of the school bus for Pakeha kids that passed by the Maori kids walking to school. Perhaps it was also because he did the same things for so many people over and over again.
What comes out of the book is that Parekura compartmentalised his own life so that you only knew what he wanted you to know, and what he wanted you to know depended on what part of his life you inhabited. He was in effect constructing his own heavily edited story as he lived his life and that is the story he left in the memories of others. It is the story that Wira Gardiner has had to recover from those memories, for Parekura left no written record of his story. There is nothing to contradict the story he constructed; no letters, notebooks, diaries or papers. He was a paperless man. And a very private man despite his huge public profile.
And therein lies the mystery. What was it that Parekura Horomia didn’t leave to be told. What did he tell the trusted others that they are not telling. If there is a weakness in this book that is it. Although presented by the publishers as biography it is memoir rather than biography, albeit a well written memoir. There remains yet an untold story. The whole story and perhaps the real story. I shall explore that theme later.
There can be no doubting however the achievement of the uneducated and inarticulate country boy and family man from Mangatuna who became a successful senior public servant, Minister of the Crown, trusted confidante of a Prime Minister, and much loved champion of the ordinary people of Aotearoa New Zealand. The turnout to his tangihanga, described in the second chapter “Death of a Rangatira”, was testimony to that achievement. Close to 12,000 people came to Hauiti Marae to farewell him.
The book had its genesis in 2006 when Labour Party Parekura and his friend National Party Wira Gardiner discussed the idea of a book about his life that Wira would write in time for the 2008 elections. Parekura never got around to providing any material, written or recorded, and it didn’t get done. At his tangihanga Wira promised Parekura’s sons that he would write it and he kept his promise.
It chronicles all of the phases of Parekura’s life from his childhood and schooling at Mangatuna, through his early working days as a printers apprentice, fencer and shearer, to working with and then for the Department of Labour for twenty years, and then as a member of Parliament for over thirteen years. Gardiner describes those phases as his three whanau groups, the first being his whakapapa whanau in the broadest sense (family and tribal), the second the Department of Labour and the third the Labour Party.
Some parts of his life are shown in greater detail than others, probably reflecting the quantity and quality of interviews. There are chapters on his life at Dannevirke, on his love of rugby, and a whole chapter on his family’s close relationship with an immigrant Scottish family he met at Dannevirke. As might be expected about 60% of the book is about his time in the Department of Labour and as an MP, including chapters on the two controversies during his time as Minister of Maori Affairs; Maori broadcasting and the seabed and foreshore debate. Both were trying times for Parekura and are described in detail.
What was not covered was the other major event that happened on his watch, the 2007 Police paramilitary assault on Ruatoki and on the house of Parekura’s mate Taame Iti at Taneatua. Those so-called “raids” were sanctioned by Helen Clark and one would have thought that she might have sought the advice of her trusted principal Maori advisor Parekura Horomia. We are none the wiser about whether or not he had any part in that fateful decision and its aftermath.
The book would not be complete without the chapter “A Chronic Asthmatic with an Enlarged Heart” about his many health problems and his inability or unwillingness to address those problems.
The strength of the book lies in the hundreds of anecdotes told about Parekura, many of them quite delightful and often amusing, skilfully woven into a collective memoir. It seems that everyone who knew him had a story to tell about him, including myself (pp 431-2). The people recalled his generosity and his ability to reach out and communicate with ordinary people, as well as with those in positions of influence. They spoke of his loyalty and love for his people, and much more. He was by common consensus a good man.
But I go back to the mystery. Who was this man, really?
He left no personal paper trail but he did leave an enormous paper trail in the Department of Labour and in the departments he led as minister. In the Department of Labour he was responsible for tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and other payments to communities up and down New Zealand. He probably didn’t put pen to paper except to sign off his decisions but that paper trail will still be there; a complete record of his grant giving, and a complete analysis of that might be quite revealing. Interviews with the recipients of those grants might also be revealing. I know from personal experience that as a minister he often gave off-the-cuff koha to various causes leaving his departmental staff scrambling to find the money from somewhere. The record of that koha giving might be quite interesting.
Who was this man, really? This man who spent the whole of his public life criss-crossing the country getting to every hui and gathering he possibly could, hardly pausing for breath or so it seemed to many of us who ran into him almost everywhere we went, to be greeted by his “Kia ora Chief”.
What caused him to be generous with his own money to the point that his own family often came second? What drove him to run so hard that for decades his family saw far less of him than his staff, colleagues, constituents and the public at large? Politicians’ families are notoriously neglected but Parekura seemed to run harder than all of them. What drove him to run so hard, to totally neglect his health and to drive himself into an early grave? What was he running from?
We know that he was dedicated to serving the ordinary people but there was something else. He was chasing something. He was seeking something and it drove him. Was it the age old cultural pursuit of mana. Was it that simple, or something much deeper. From the outside looking on it seemed that the man was driven by something deep within. What was it?
In this book we didn’t learn much at all about the private Parekura Horomia. We know that he was a complex and complicated man but after reading the book we have still not delved into the depths of his character. He remains a mystery. There are no doubt those who knew him well and who are not telling; not many but some. They are probably not his family. They are probably the few very close and trusted people who worked with him over the years and remained totally loyal; people like Meka Whaitiri who served him faithfully for many years and after his death replaced him as the MP for Ikaroa Rawhiti.
There are others I know who have more to tell about their encounters with him, both personal and professional, who have decided to honour the man and to remain silent.
They will probably never share the real Parekura Horomia with us. This book then is all we shall know. It faithfully records the Parekura Horomia he and his loyal following wanted us to know. The rest has gone with him to the grave. The story he has left is nevertheless an inspiring story of how a Maori boy from the country overcame almost insurmountable odds to reach one of the highest offices in the land and how he came to be universally loved.
A blanket has been thrown over the process by which Cabinet authorised the anti-terrorism raids on 15th October 2007. This post and previous posts lift a corner of that blanket and the whole high level process doesn’t pass the smell test.
Although there is some visible evidence of the intelligence process at the working level (in affidavits, warrants, indictments and police evidence provided to the lawyers of the accused) there is no visibility or transparency above that. The intelligence process intimately involved the decision-makers from the analyst Detective Sergeant Pascoe’s immediate superior Detective Inspector Good, to Assistant Commissioner White, to Deputy Commissioner Pope, Commissioner Broad, to the Officials Committee for Domestic and External Security Coordination (ODESC), and to the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
We know that the SIS at least knew of the ongoing operation. We do not know if the SIS and GCSB were actively involved in Operation 8. It is reasonable to assume that the minister in charge of the SIS, Prime Minister Helen Clark, would have known in advance about the operation even if Annette King then Minister of Police, by her own testimony, did not know until the night before.
We know from public statements after the event that Commissioner Broad and the Prime Minister were both involved in the decision-making that launched the Operation 8 raids on 15th October 2007. What is not transparent is the advice presumably based on intelligence product that informed those decisions. What is also not transparent is the substance of those decisions.
Without that information there can be no full analysis of the professionalism and competence of the intelligence process. Operation 8 was not just a failure of intelligence at the working level but a failure of intelligence all the way up the chain of command and in the Cabinet itself. Intelligence failure at that high level level is not uncommon. Indeed in the world of Intelligence it is the most common level of failure.
This series has analysed in some detail the intelligence failure at the working level. The failures at the Police command level, at the senior officials and advisors level (ODESC) and at the political level remain hidden under the blanket; covered up.
The original intent of the investigators, presumably sanctioned and approved by the chain of command and Cabinet, was to prosecute under the Suppression of Terrorism Act. That was disallowed by the Solicitor General. Then the charges changed.
What was it that the legal advisors, the chain of command, ODESC and Cabinet believed at the time that convinced them to mount a full scale anti-terrorism operation?
Or was the use of the Suppression of Terrorism Act just an excuse to employ the wider surveillance powers allowed under that act?
And were they all just hoping that the seizure of computers around the country would provide sufficient evidence to allow them to proceed and use evidence secured under the Suppression of Terrorism Act?
If so, was the use of the Suppression of Terrorism Act to obtain the warrants and to mount a full scale anti-terrrorism operation totally unlawful like so much of the operation?
Given the lack of transparency of that higher level of decision-making it may only be discovered through a formal inquiry process by subpoena of witnesses, instructions and written orders, reports, assessments and minutes. And if that were to happen how might that evidence reflect on the outcome of the trial of the Urewera Four accused?
What was the chain of command and what were they telling each other?
Who did Detective Inspector Good and Detective Sergeant Pascoe report to? What did they report? Is there a written record of that report? Who reviewed and evaluated their analysis? Is there a written record of that review and evaluation?
What were Detective Inspector Good’s and Detective Sergeant Pascoe’s orders from their immediate superior? Were they written orders? Or were they just freewheeling on their own without formal intelligence management oversight? The scapegoat question I fear.
What was the complete chain of command from Detective Sergeant Pascoe to Commissioner Broad? What advice was given to Commissioner Broad and by whom? Is there a written record of that advice?
Was legal advice sought and given prior to the October 15th armed paramilitary anti-terrorist operation? Who gave the advice? Was it the Solicitor General? Was it prosecutor Ross Burns? Was it written advice?
Was Deputy Commissioner Pope involved in the decision to launch an anti-terrorism operation? What was his exact involvement?
What advice if any did Commissioner Broad give to the Officials Committee for Domestic and External Security Coordination (ODESC)? Who was present at that meeting? Were the professional security and intelligence agencies present? Did they offer their professional assistance? Is it true that Commissioner Broad declined such assistance? Are there minutes of that meeting?
What advice if any did ODESC give to Commissioner Broad? Is there a record of that advice? If not, why not?
What advice if any did ODESC give to the Prime Minister and Cabinet? Is there a record of that advice? If not, why not?
Did the NZ Police ever call upon the superior intelligence gathering and assessment skill and experience of the dedicated security and intelligence agencies? If not why not? Was SIS or GCSB involved?
When did Commissioner Broad meet with the Prime Minister and Cabinet? Who was present at that meeting? What advice did he give to Cabinet? Was it written or verbal or both? Are there minutes of that meeting, including authorisation to proceed with a full-scale anti-terrorism operation?
Is it true that Commissioner Broad was asked several times at that Cabinet meeting to confirm that there was a plot to overthrow government, and did he so confirm? We have this one public account only.
What orders were given to the operational units that carried out the Operation 8 paramilitary operation? Were they written or verbal orders or both?
What reports were submitted after the paramilitary operation? Are they written reports?
Was the Solicitor General formally asked to authorise prosecution under the Suppression of Terrorism Act by written request? Did he write a formal rejection of the request stating his full reasons for that decision? Apart from those he publicly stated?
Why were the contracts of Commissioner Broad and Deputy Commissioner Pope not renewed? Was it because new brooms were needed to bring in a new culture in the police, as was publicly stated? Or was it really because of incomptence and because they had misled Cabinet in seeking authorisation for the armed anti-terrorism paramilitary operation?
Is the real reason for the non-renewal of their contracts part of a cover up?
The final questions are raised in the wake of the GCSB scandal and cover up legislation, and the revelations about the extent of the 5-Eyes global population level electronic surveillance.
Was Operation 8 initiated as a result of GCSB eavesdropping on the nation’s communications?
If so, was the police evidential trail manufactured in the process known in law enforcement as “parallel construction” to disguise the actual trail of evidence leading from GCSB? This would be another instance of unlawful behaviour by the police.
Were GCSB and SIS involved in Operation 8 surveillance?
Were GCSB and SIS involved in the analysis of information including data mining, traffic analysis and social network analysis?
If GCSB was involved was it at the request of NZ Police and what was the lawful (or unlawful) basis of that request?
In a post on 23 October 2013 Jeremy Bioletti, the trial lawyer for Rangi Kemara, infers that these are very important questions:
“The issue of possible GCSB surveillance in operation 8 is important. Why? Because if there was illegality involved it may have tipped the balance in the Supreme Court and resulted in the exclusion of the evidence which allowed the Urewera Four to be put on trial and convicted for the firearms offences and subsequently imprisoned. I am certain that there was involvement because from memory there were personnel involved in the police operation which counsel were not allowed to ask questions about”.
The incompetence and ineptitude of the intelligence operation, and the evidential inconsistencies that would have been revealed by a much more thorough analysis of that process may also have tipped the balance in the Supreme Court and resulted in the exclusion of the evidence which allowed the Urewera Four to be put on trial and convicted and sentenced.
I am saying that none of the Operation 8 evidence should have survived beyond the Supreme Court hearing in May 2011, and the Supreme Court ruling a few months later in September, and that had justice been done the Urewera Four would not have gone to trial.
The only way to fully assess the Operation 8 intelligence management and analysis process is to discover all or most of the above information, through a formal inquiry. That formal inquiry is also required to discover which police officers breached their constables’ oath and broke the law in using unlawful means to acquire information, and which commissioned officers also breached the terms of their commissioning by the Queen of New Zealand. These are serious legal and ethical issues. The rule of law in a democratic society ought to apply equally to every citizen and the NZ Police must be seen to scrupuloulsy uphold the rule of law.
The only conclusion that can be drawn from the suppression of all that information and the refusal of both the Labour and National Parties to support an inquiry is that there is a cover up and that what is being covered up is political and bureaucratic incompetence and embarrassment, and a degree of illegality.
On 15th October 2007 seventeen were arrested, than another two, then another one. Twenty in all. First it was to be terrorism and arms charges, then just arms charges, then the arms charges plus a criminal group charge against some of them. Back and forth it went in the courts until on 2nd September 2011 the Supreme Court disallowed vital evidence against all but four. On 6th December 2011 the Police dropped all charges against everyone but those four. The “Urewera Four” went to trial in February 2012. It all happened mostly suppressed and out of the public eye. This is the story of those four years.
The trial of the Urewera Four will be covered in the next post.
That was just the beginning. A legal battle was fought in the District Courts, the High Court, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court for more than another four years before four of the original twenty accused finally went to trial in February 2012. Two of the four received prison sentences and two received home detention. The whole thing lasted for nearly six years not including the time the “Urewera Four” spent serving out their sentences.
In this post I detail and explain that battle through the courts. I followed it closely as it happened. The public was not able to do that because most of the court hearings and judgements were suppressed.
Throughout this time there were bail hearings and bail variation hearings concerning the twenty original accused, too numerous to follow, and I mention just a few of them. There were quite a few more court hearings than the ones I describe as well. These are the significant ones.
This is how it unfolded.
15th October 2007
The day of the “raids” and the day 17 people were arrested and detained.
20th October 2007 – Sunday Star Times
Just five days after the arrests and in the midst of much media speculation this article appeared in the Sunday News. In itself it was not part of the legal process, which is the subject of this post. However it shows how the Police were attempting to drive public perceptions and opinion, which is an abuse of justice and legal process.
The source for this sensationalised and completely false interpretation of the information collected by the Police could only have been someone closely connected to the operation. I am 98% sure that I know the identity of the source.
A highly-placed source said police launched last week’s anti-terror raids after recording secret video footage of splinter groups carrying out combined military-style training and talking of “wreaking havoc” throughout New Zealand in imminent attacks.
“If this got off the ground, it would have been a multi-pronged campaign launched simultaneously against a number of individuals and targets. It would have been crippling,?” the source revealed.
“But it is the information provided by Sunday News’ source within the operation which is most shocking.
“Each different splinter group was training under the one umbrella and they were going to carry out attacks on targets and infrastructure,” said our source.
“You would have had Tuhoe carrying out attacks on their selected targets, animal rights groups targeting their lot and the so-called `peace freaks’ carrying out their acts.
“There were a number of different groups at the table. They were going to wreak havoc according to their own agendas. They were going after a broad spectrum and broad range of targets.
“There were prominent Maori who they’d call Uncle Toms including heads of government departments and those who’d used the system to get ahead.”
The police source scoffed at claims the raids, by about 300 officers, were racially motivated.
“Half those arrested are Pakeha,” he said.
Our source said activist groups’ terror-attack plans were firmly in place.
“They were pretty well advanced in what they were planning to do,” he said.
“They were not of the sophistication of the IRA or Bader Meinhoff (German Red Army) but they were technologically more aware than the likes of the terrorists in Rhodesia Zebra and Zanu.”
Police footage of the groups training in the backblocks of the Bay of Plenty, going through military-style manoeuvring, showed their deadly intent.
“The training is the stuff soldiers spend weeks of build-up on before they use live rounds,” he said. “There is also footage of the group patrolling in military formation through the bush, wearing camouflage and balaclavas.
“There is no mistaking what they were doing.”
That was the extreme version of the Police terrorism narrative.
6th November 2007
Rangi Kemara and Tuhoe Lambert fail in their attempt in the Court of Appeal to have name suppression after earlier attempts in the District and High Courts.
8th November 2007
The Solicitor General declined to allow prosecutions to proceed under the Suppression of Terrorism Act 2002.
9th November 2007
Taame Iti released on bail. Other accused also bailed shortly after.
14th November 2007
The Police affidavit seeking warrants for the 15th October operation was leaked to the media. This could only have come from the Police or someone close to the Police.
“New Zealand Police have told post that they expect those charged to escape incarceration and likely to pay only a fine”.
The Police knew, even at that early stage and months before the defence lawyers began to challenge the legality of the operation and despite what they were saying in the media, that their case was built on shaky ground. They had needed to use the Suppression of Terrorism Act 2002 to legalise their otherwise illegal surveillance.
4th December 2007
The accused were remanded on bail until March 2008. The bail conditions were very restrictive and included non-association orders and orders to prevent travel to Ruatoki.
20th December 2007
Solicitor General advises a defence lawyer of his intent to bring charges of contempt against Fairfax Media for publishing leaked Police affidavit.
8th February 2008
An application made to the High Court for suppression of photos of two defendants. Not successful.
10th April 2008
Contempt charges laid against Fairfax Media. Not successful.
17th April 2008
Two more arrests in relation to attendance at wananga.
May 2008
Taame Iti granted permission by High Court to travel to Europe to perform in “Tempest” production, after he had been denied by District Court. This was an indication that the High Court perception of the seriousness of the charges was changing.
14th August 2008
Another arrest. Total now 20. Police still pursuing their original narrative despite knowing that it was unravelling.
22nd August 2008
High Court ordered Police to hand over to the defence all of the intercept warrants for the operation. Police fought very hard not to hand them over, for the warrants were later shown to be illegal.
4th September 2008
Depositions hearings for 18 of the accused in the High Court. Hearings lasted for over a month. All were charged with multiple offences under the Arms Act.
17th September 2008
Prosecution indicates new charges of participation in a criminal group likely.
3rd October 2008
Last submissions made in depositions hearing.
17th October 2008
After two weeks deliberation High Court delivers decisions from depositions hearing. 17 of the accused to face trial on arms charges. Some of the charges were disallowed but most allowed. Accused remanded until “callover” on 17th February 2009.
30th October 2008
Prosecution announces that 5 of the accused would be charged with participation in a criminal group (Taame Iti, Tuhoe Lambert, Rangi Kemara, Urs Signer & Emily Bailey). The depositions hearing had showed up defects in the prosecution case.
This charge was the beginning of the legal strategy to ensure that at least those five would eventually face trial. In September 2011 the Supreme Court declared much of the evidence inadmissible but allowed it to be produced in support of the criminal group charge against the remaining four accused, the “Urewera Four”. That was the express purpose of the criminal group charge; a legal manoeuvre.
The Police and prosecution had known that their case was not on solid ground since the terrorism charges were disallowed in November 2007. They indicated as much to the US Embassy in that month.
All 18 of the accused were still charged under the Arms Act.
15th May 2009
Another bail hearing at which restrictions were relaxed and the accused was required to report to Police just three times a year. This decision indicated that the courts no longer subscribed to the extreme claims of the Police narrative.
June 2009
Applications drawn up by defence lawyers to be filed at the High Court in August to have case thrown out.
June 2009
Rodney Harrison QC prepares case challenging the legality of the Operation 8 warrants.
9th September 2009
High Court declares a number of the warrants illegal and evidence obtained under those warrants inadmissible. Some warrants and evidence allowed to stand. This was a defining moment in the defence case.
During this hearing the Police admitted that they knew that the warrants were not lawful, yet proceeded anyway.
16th September 2009
Harrison QC makes new submission to High Court challenging remaining warrants and evidence.
19th October 2009
Applications made in High Court for a stay of proceedings. Not successful.
27th October 2009
Further stay applications to High Court, Not successful.
28th October 2009
Harrison QC indicates he will take his application to rule evidence inadmissible as far as Supreme Court if necessary.
29th and 30th October 2009
High Court hearings continue.
14th December 2009
Prosecution application to High Court to allow certain evidence.
15th December 2009
High Court ruling on additional challenge to warrants by Harrison QC. Not allowed.
18th December 2009
Another bail rollover hearing.
22nd December 2009
Prosecution’s application to High Court to readmit inadmissible evidence refused.
28th May 2010
Harrison QC submits application to Court of Appeal.
9th June 2010
Court of Appeal hearing re warrants and inadmissible evidence. Two day hearing. Decision reserved.
24th June 2010
Court of Appeal disallows Harrison QC’s application re admissibility of evidence.
7th January 2011
Application to Court of Appeal to overturn High Court ruling (after prosecution application) that trial to be by judge alone.
28th March 2011
An appeal to Supreme Court re admissibility of evidence allowed.
April 2011
Court of Appeal confirm trial by judge alone.
6th May 2011
Supreme Court hearing into admissibility of evidence. Three day hearing.
8th July 2011
Defendant Tuhoe Lambert dies.
22nd August 2011
A hearing by the Supreme Court re judge alone trial delayed until 14th September 2011.
2nd September 2011
Supreme Court rules on evidence. Evidence ruled inadmissable for all accused except the remaining four on the criminal group charge. This was the decision that the prosecution expected and had prepared for by bringing the criminal group charge, originally against five of the accused.
6th September 2011
Prosecution drops charges against all (13) except the four on criminal group charge.
12th and 13th September 2011
Prosecution application to High Court to have suppressed evidence, including the leaked affidavit, released to the media. Affidavit suppressed but video evidence released. Partial lifting of suppression orders.
15th September 2011
Amended indictment against “Urewera Four” presented in High Court.
September 2011
At about the same time as all of this activity the Police and prosecution dropped their efforts to have a trial by judge alone and agreed to trial by jury.
24th November 2011
Further applications by defence lawyers to High Court to stay proceedings denied.
February 2012
Trial of “Urewera Four” proceeds.
This is not a complete record of court hearings. I have noted several attempts by defence lawyers to have proceedings stayed and the cases thrown out. There were many more throughout the four year period, all of them unsuccessful. There were also other court hearings initiated by the prosecution as the two sides battled over evidence and procedure.
I have listed the main hearings and legal manoeuvres to demonstrate the intensity of the legal battle. Most of the proceedings and decisions were suppressed at the time and this legal battle was fought out of the public eye.
The trial of the “Urewera Four” will be analysed in a later post.
An Analysis of a NZ Police Intelligence Operation into Alleged Terrorism in the Urewera, 2006-2007.
This complete series of analyses is based on a detailed affidavit I prepared for the defence of the Urewera Four at their trial in February 2012. Almost all of material in this series was covered in that affidavit but in lesser detail. For reasons that will be explored in a separate anaylsis of that trial very little of it was used by the defence.
Apart from helping to prepare a trial defence I came to this analysis for a variety of reasons.
The first I suppose was personal. About midday on Monday 15th October 2007 my business premises in Parnell got locked down as part of a nationwide search and seizure operation aiming to discover information to vindicate a Police terrorism narrative. I took the Police to court that afternoon and stopped them from taking away my computers and documents. They agreed to pay $2,000 towards my legal fees. I was pissed off but I got over it quite quickly. A rare win in the High Court against the coercive power of the State helped me to move on.
The second reason was also personal. Rangi Kemara, one of those arrested that morning, was my IT Manager and a loyal, trusted and valuable employee and friend and I knew he was no terrorist. I supported him as best I could throughout his long battles through the courts, at his eventual trial as part of the “Urewera Four” in February 2012, and in the years since.
The third reason and the one that drove most of this analysis was purely professional. The Police intelligence operation crossed into three of the main areas of my own expertise; military operations, intelligence analysis, and Maori development and activism. I switched out of the personal into the professional. It’s what professionals do. It’s what I was trained to do.
For I had been a commissioned officer in the NZ Army for twenty years. With extensive training in all aspects of warfare, as a trainer myself in counter-revolutionary warfare, and with active service in Borneo and Vietnam I knew a bit about the military stuff the Police were alleging. I had also been involved at HQ staff level in the establishment of a counter terrorism capability in the NZ Army. I knew a bit about terrorism. With training and employment as an intelligence analyst in my Army days I knew a bit about intelligence analysis. Quite a bit.
By 2007, after twenty years a soldier, I had spent twenty five years involved in many aspects of Maori advancement and Maori development. I was aware that many of those activities had from time to time been thought to be subversive by an ignorant, racist and paranoid fringe in New Zealand society, including some in the NZ Police. In the 1980s, twenty years before Operation 8, some Maori activists had been labelled “Maori terrorists” in Police intelligence reports. They were wrong then and I instinctively knew that they would be wrong again. But instinct is not enough and I determined to objectively analyse the Police intelligence operation to prove my point. Or not.
I knew and respected many in the activist networks, both Maori and Pakeha. Of those arrested I knew Taame Iti and Rangi Kemara. I also knew some of those who had attended Taame’s wananga in the Urewera who had not been caught up and arrested in the “raids” on that day. I knew none of them were terrorists. I suppose in my own way I was a minor activist myself, having chosen in 1988 to use the power of my writing to support Maori political, economic and social aspirations. “Te Putatara” was the vehicle then, and is still.
I remain the proud holder of the Queen’s Commission I received when I was commissioned as a junior infantry officer in the 1960s. A commission is granted for life and it is one of my most valued possessions, three decades after I retired from active duty. To me it signifies that I was then and remain still a “trusty and well beloved” servant of my country. My commission says so. It reads in part:
“Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Her Other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith – To Our Trusty and Well beloved Roslyn Nepia Himona, Greeting: We reposing special Trust and Confidence in your Loyalty, Courage, and Good Conduct, do by these Presents constitute and appoint you to be an Officer in the Regular Force of our New Zealand Army ….”
It embodies for me the code of honour, the ethical values and the belief in democracy that underpinned my commitment to complete this analysis. For I was professionally offended by what I saw at the time as a cavalier Police attitude to democracy, the rule of law, human rights, liberty, freedom, and justice; the things I value as a citizen of a democratic New Zealand.
Would that the commissioned Police officers involved in Operation 8 thought the same way about the obligations imposed upon them by their parchment commissions.
My fourth reason for embarking upon this project was to make sure that a complete analysis was laid down for future reference in the hope that one day an official public inquiry would be commissioned. There have been inquiries by the Independent Police Conduct Authority and the Human Rights Commission but they were both quite shallow and did not get to the core problems of Police conduct and ineptitude in Operation 8. The Parliament refused to allow a full public inquiry. The suspicion is that Parliament did not want to lift the lid to reveal some fundamental flaws in our New Zealand version of democracy and a failure of democratic process. For this operation was signed off by the Prime Minister herself.
My final reason is to lay down a platform for the children of the late Tuhoe Lambert to clear his name. Tuhoe was a fellow Vietnam veteran; a patriot. He was arrested on that fateful day, and was included in the final five to go to trial but did not live to see the day. His name remains sullied, at least in the public record. As part of this analysis I have written a tribute to Tuhoe Lambert in which I declare his innocence. As a direct response to Operation 8 two of Tuhoe’s children have studied law and I hope that one day they will be able to clear his name.
While they’re at it they might clear the names of their father’s friends Rangi Kemara and Taame Iti, and Emily Bailey and Urs Signer; the “Urewera Four”.
Having said I was determined to objectively analyse the Police intelligence operation I readily concede that in places I venture into subjectivity and opinion. My opinions are those of an expert and I think I have made it abundantly clear where I have been subjective and personal. It was deliberate and not an unconscious slip of the pen, or malfunction of the keyboard. Unlike the detectives whose work I was analysing I know when I’m being objective and when I’m being subjective. Long ago during my training as an intelligence analyst the difference was drummed into me.
I was partly motivated to conduct this analysis by the outpouring of anger, opinion and commentary immediately following the paramilitary operations in October 2007. Whilst I understood the anger I did not agree with much of the opinion and commentary. It seemed to me to be situated in academic and activist intellectual frameworks that were remote from the reality of the events. People had situated their analyses of Operation 8 within their own frames of reference and political understandings instead of within the actual events.
I resolved to correct, or at least to balance the record. In doing so I have had the advantage of access to information that was not available at the time and I have not had to speculate about what Police were thinking. They wrote a lot of it down. The information includes:
Multiple Police affidavits;
Police evidence;
Court records (many of them originally suppressed);
Indictments;
Court summaries; and
Many other documents.
I have also been able to interview some of the key accused over a period of time. That has not been easy as I have had to treat what I was told with a degree of scepticism until I could verify what I was told. It took some persistent questioning and checking before I was able to piece together what I thought was actually going on in the Urewera.
Without that access to information in the period immediately after the paramilitary operation there was much comment in the media and some commentary was circulated in the networks. Probably the most permanent and representative record of that commentary is in “Terror in our Midst, Searching for Terror in Aotearoa New Zealand”, edited by academic and historian Danny Keenan (Huia Publishers, Wellington, 2008).
The book contains eighteen commentaries (including editorial) mostly by academics with many of them, in my opinion, somewhat wide of the mark. They situated the events of October 2007 within discourse on colonialism, early settler history, Ngai Tuhoe history, and legal “suppression” history. I think the real reasons for the events of October 2007 are far more prosaic; ordinary and everyday. It was a simple Police cock up. Fuelled, I agree, by ongoing ignorance, paranoia and racism, but mostly by simple incompetence and ineptitude. Fuelled also by a troubling disregard for democracy, the rule of law, human rights, liberty, freedom, and justice.
Anyway, that is the major conclusion of my study based mainly on the evidence presented by the Police themselves, and on my own investigations into what was really going on at those wananga in the Urewera. I have mostly put aside theory and tried to focus on fact.
Having said that I don’t disagree with all of the commentary. From “Terror in our Midst” I have quoted extensively from the essay by Luke Crawford, “Ruatoki, the Police and Maori Responsiveness” (p.79). I was entertained by the Epigraph by Pou Temara, “Terrorist in our Midst?” (p.15) in which he humorously and correctly debunks the notion of Taame Iti as terrorist.
I was inspired by the essay and poetry of Alice Te Punga Somerville in “Poetic Justice: Writing (as) the Struggle” (p.223) to add my own account to the public record. And I was heartened by a comment by law lecturer Mamari Stephens after she had analysed in “Beware the Hollow ‘Calabash’ Narrative, Analogy and the Acts of Suppression” (p.181) some of the legal analogies used by some commentators:
“But I would suggest the 2007 raids should be best understood on their own terms and that we, as commentators, might seek to avoid collapsing histories and time to make rhetorical comparisons unless the points to be gleaned are so compelling and enlightening of both situations as to make the risk worth it”.
I hope I haven’t quoted her out of context to serve my own ends! I have tried to understand the 2007 raids on their own terms.
Incompetence. Unlawful and unprofessional behaviour. An assault on human rights by the NZ Police. It was failure of command on public display.
In the matter of the information gathering about activities in the Urewera in 2006 and 2007 that the NZ Police tried to label as terrorism, Police behaviour was found to be unlawful by the High Court and again by the Supreme Court. It was found to be unlawful in a report by the Independent Police Conduct Authority, and in a report by the Human Rights Commission. During the information gathering phase of Operation 8 the Police were guilty of unlawful trespass and unlawful surveillance. In the “termination” paramilitary phase they were guilty of unlawful detention, unlawful search and unlawful roadblocks. An awful lot of unlawfulness from the beginning to the awful end.
In writing this series on Operation 8 I have examined in considerable detail the progress of their intelligence gathering and analysis, and I have concluded beyond doubt that it was unprofessional and incompetent. Essentially there was no professional analysis whatsoever. Intelligence is an intellectual activity and I have concluded that the “intelligence” operation was devoid of intellectual engagement.
That includes the oversight and review of the so called “intelligence” at the highest level of command before approval was given to launch the paramilitary operations on 15th October 2007. There was no effective oversight and review. Imagination substituted for intellect. And lacking the expertise and intellect to properly evaluate the advice given to them the chain of command was captured by the tunnel vision and groupthink originating in the Auckland team of the Special Intelligence Group.
Before the final operation Commissioner Broad briefed ODESC (Officials Committee for Domestic and External Security Coordination). He also briefed a small group of Cabinet ministers before the raids. His assertions must have passed through ODESC without review. One cabinet minister was sceptical and asked him several times to confirm his assertions. He prevailed.
Taken together, all of those failures constitute a failure of command at the highest level. Someone ought to be responsible to ensure that police officers are properly trained for their allocated duties, that they obey the law, and that the police paramilitary force is properly led, trained and disciplined.
Police Commissioner Howard Broad’s desk was where the buck stopped. So he must bear prime responsibility for that failure. But he was not without assistance. Deputy Commissioner Rob Pope was responsible for operations and he must be equally culpable. Assistant Commissioner Jon White was responsible for all intelligence operations and it was his responsibility to ensure the professionalism of those operations. He didn’t.
The record clearly shows that none of them had any real expertise in intelligence. It wasn’t until R. Mark Evans was recruited in October 2007 that the NZ Police had a real intelligence professional who over the next few years set about developing a professional intelligence capability. Prior to that the so called intelligence units set up after 9/11 as a counter terrorist measure focused entirely on ham-fisted heavy-handed gathering of political intelligence about political activism mainly in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland.
Those counter terrorism teams, part of the Special Intelligence Group (SIG), were manned by untrained amateurs; mere detectives instead of professional intelligence analysts. The lack of professional oversight and the lack of professionalism within those powerful teams reflected a failure of command at the highest level.
When Operation 8 was launched as a counter terrorism operation there was some disquiet within the NZ Police. There were those at the working level who knew that it was flawed from the beginning. At Police National HQ level there was also some dissent. Yet despite that Commissioner Broad went ahead, as he said, “to nip it in the bud” with a massive armed response despite knowing that no imminent terrorist or criminal activity was planned by the suspects.
The result was a huge loss of trust in the Police within Maori communities. Trust is essential to successful policing. When trust in the Police takes a dive Police Commissioners lose their jobs.
Allegations of rape and sexual misconduct caused the Government to set up a Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct in 2004. Dame Margaret Bazley was a commissioner. That scandal caused a dramatic loss of trust. At the end of 2005 Police Commissioner Robinson resigned barely one year into his second term. Restoration of trust after such a loss can take ten years or more. Part of Howard Broad’s brief as the incoming Police Commissioner in April 2006 was to restore that lost trust. He in his turn lost the trust of Maori in October 2007.
In October 2012 Fairfax media reported a survey that indicated trust in the Police had hit a new low, having fallen 11.5% to 59.9% in the preceding five years. That included four of the five years Howard Broad held the appointment of police commissioner. The survey was of course disputed by the Police and their minister.
“Comments in the survey indicate that the fall in public trust centres on the police’s management of complaints against its officers, and actions considered heavy-handed, including the Urewera and Dotcom mansion raids”.
The sensational raids in the Urewera came just seven months after the release in March 2007 of Dame Margaret’s Commission of Inquiry report into Police misconduct. The Police launched their own inquiry into the same misconduct in 2004, called Operation Austin. The raids in October 2007 were launched at almost the same time as the release of the Operation Austin report.
However coincidental, Operation 8 accompanied by a professionally orchestrated media campaign certainly served to deflect media and public attention from those damning reports, and from the huge sexual misconduct scandal that had brought the NZ Police into disrepute, and had dogged them for the previous three years.
In the following years from 2008 to 2011 the Operation 8 accused and their lawyers uncovered and proved more unlawful conduct by the Police as they slowly battled their way through a series of court hearings culminating at the Supreme Court in September 2011. At the Supreme Court the main evidence against them was declared to be unlawful but allowed to be used in criminal group charges against four defendants only. Most of that process was suppressed by the courts until September 2011. Police misconduct throughout Operation 8 did not register with the public.
In late 2011, almost immediately after the Supreme Court finding of unlawful conduct, video evidence was released to the media under the pretext of “public interest”. It deflected that public interest away from the Supreme Court’s substantive findings of unlawful conduct by the Police.
It is certainly speculation to infer that Commissioner Howard Broad’s contract was not renewed at the end of his first term in 2011 because of Operation 8, but for some reason it wasn’t renewed. Deputy Commissioner Pope resigned in 2011 before his contract was not renewed. Assistant Commissioner White quietly moved on to Australia in 2010 and is now CEO of the Australia New Zealand Police Advisory Agency.
The three senior officers in the chain of command during Operation 8 all moved on, or were moved on. The next Commissioner seemed to do little to restore trust. He didn’t have his contract renewed. The present Commissioner seems to be working hard to have his contract renewed.
In the 2011 Queen’s Birthday Honours Howard Broad was made a Companion of the NZ Order of Merit. He has since been appointed to the Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet as Deputy Chief Executive Security & Intelligence. He is now responsible for policy and coordination for the whole security and intelligence community. His career has been resurrected.
The resurrection of Broad’s career shows that he was not really held accountable for the failure of command and loss of trust. So, if not Broad, who in the Police hierarchy should have been made publicly accountable for that failure of command? Or was all quietly forgiven and forgotten?
This series of tweets posted by Rangi Kemara on 15th October 2015
The story of the paramilitary assault on the house and caravan at Manurewa where Rangi lived with the late Tuhoe Lambert and his whanau. An innovative and powerful use of Twitter to tell the story of his gunpoint arrest.
Rangi Kemara @Te_Taipo @te_taipo STG Gunman: “Bullshit! you don’t have a license”, Me: “Pointless debate, go have a look for yourself”, he sends a runner.
Rangi Kemara @Te_Taipo @te_taipo So we wait, face down for arresting detectives to arrive. Half hour, still nothing. Shit, I’m going to be so late for work.
Rangi Kemara @Te_Taipo @te_taipo Finally hear the dullards voice, allowed to kneel facing the fence as Det Hamish McDonald formerly arrests me.
Rangi Kemara @Te_Taipo @te_taipo Charged with what feels like 1.21 Gigacounts of unlawful possession of firearms, fuck, I’m sure they’ve found my license by now.
Rangi Kemara @Te_Taipo @te_taipo Tells me he wants to talk to me about terrorism, I reply, na get me a lawyer. We’re off to Wiri cop shop for parakuihi.
The Cowboys in Black Fancy Dress and Operation “Hi Ho Silver”
Today is the eighth anniversary of the New Zealand Police paramilitary operation carried out in the Urewera and elsewhere by a bunch of over-hyped, poorly led, poorly trained and poorly disciplined cowboys.
To date in this series on Operation 8 I have concentrated on a critical analysis of the Intelligence process leading up to the paramilitary operation on 15th October 2007. I have done that from the perspective of a retired Intelligence analyst with twenty years military experience and over thirty years experience in community and Maori development.
In this post I am looking at the paramilitary operation itself, euphemistically called the “Urewera Raids”.
I claim superior expertise to critically analyse that operation as well. In my twenty years in the NZ Army my primary specialty was as a combat arms commander. I was experienced in planning and conducting operations of the type on display on 15th October 2007 . During my deployment to Vietnam in 1967 I commanded an infantry platoon that took part in the “cordon and search” of several towns and villages. They were towns and villages where it was 100% certain that any enemy in hiding would fight fiercely if discovered, and there usually were enemy combatants hiding out in the villages. Additionally in my final posting in the Army 1980-82 I was involved at HQ staff level in the establishment of a counter-terrorism capability.
For a long time after 15th October 2007 I had assumed that the paramilitary police Special Tactics Group (STG) must have had very little time to plan and rehearse their paramilitary operation. It was obviously way over the top and has since been found by the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) to have been illegal in many respects (he says unlawful, I say illegal). That would seem to indicate a lack of time to prepare a plan that met all legal requirements. However the IPCA Report of 22nd May 2013 reveals that on 27th September 2007 the Operation 8 team briefed the Police Commissioner and senior staff at Police National Headquarters and on 10th October 2007 the Commissioner authorised the “termination” operation. Warrants for the paramilitary operation were obtained that day.
The Police National HQ and STG leadership had at least five days and up to 18 days to prepare for their paramilitary operation. There was therefore no excuse for the illegal aspects of the plan. There was however some justification for the ferocity of the plan because of the flawed information they were given to base that plan upon. The planning process for the operation was the standard military and police operational process and the IPCA states that it was followed. However that process was only as good as the people who conducted it and the Intelligence on which it was based. The summary of that Intelligence is shown in this extract from the IPCA Report:
“93. The information which STG relied upon in formulating the plan included the following:
“the targets possessed numerous weapons including “heavy calibre military style semi-‐ automatic weapons” and were part of a group actively training in military tactics;
“they had received training in the use of rudimentary explosives and incendiary devices;
“intelligence suggested they were prepared to “die for their cause” and use lethal force to achieve their purpose, including sleeping with weapons under their beds to be better prepared for any attack on them;
“the intention of this group was to achieve “an independent Tūhoe nation within the Urewera area”;
“the area where the training camps were situated was rural and some distance from comprehensive medical facilities;
“not all attendees at the training camps had been identified by Police;
“intelligence suggested there was an unknown “local group” in the area who could pose a threat to Police; and
“the feelings of the community towards the participants in the training camps were largely unknown and thus it was stated that “the existence of sympathisers and supporters for their cause cannot be discounted””.
Having analysed the Intelligence process in detail I have absolutely no doubt that the last two of those bullet points were wild assumptions for which there was no Intelligence or evidence either way. They were however critical elements in the planning of the paramilitary operation. The third and fourth bullet points were not supported by corroborated and verified evidence.
It was a way-over-the-top intelligence assessment that led to the way-over-the-top paramilitary operation. In several previous analyses of the Intelligence process I have shown why it was unprofessional, incompetent, lacking in depth, unverified and wrong. To that I now add way over the top. That briefing to the STG also shows that the Police were proceeding into New Zealand’s first major counter-terrorist operation with insufficient and incomplete information, and on the basis of some wild assumptions about the “terrorists”, their capabilities and their intentions. That was a command failure at the highest level.
In several of my previous analyses I have referred to Commissioner Broad’s statements after the event. It is appropriate to do so again. He admitted that he had no indication of an imminent terrorist event and that he authorised the operation only to “nip it in the bud”. With a full on assault on an innocent community?
Despite there being some justification for the style of operation they mounted based on faulty Intelligence and a failure of command, the STG and Armed Offenders Squad (AOS) teams committed some egregiously unlawful behaviour involving innocent whanau and communities. This extract from the executive summary of the IPCA Report describes that behaviour:
“10. … the planning and preparation for the establishment of the road blocks in Ruatoki and Taneatua was deficient. The Authority has found there was no lawful basis for those road blocks being established or maintained. There was no lawful power or justification for Police to detain, stop and search the vehicles, take details from or photograph the drivers or passengers.
“11. There was no assessment of the substantial and adverse impact of such road blocks on the local community. The road block at Ruatoki was intimidating to innocent members of that community, particularly in view of the use of armed Police officers in full operational uniform.
“12. The majority of complaints received by the Authority in relation to property searches were not from target individuals but rather from other occupants at these properties complaining about the way they were treated by Police. Some felt they were being treated as suspects. A number of occupants were informed by Police that they were being detained while a search of the property occurred, despite there being no lawful basis for such detention. Police had no legal basis for conducting personal searches of these occupants.
The behaviour of the Police that day has been publicly documented. It included:
Detaining at gunpoint several innocents, including women and children still in their night attire, and sometimes in stressful positions; some were made to kneel on concrete paths with guns at their heads;
Conducting intrusive body searches of women who were not suspects;
Forcefully separating children from their carers;
Detaining a woman and her children in a shed for hours without food and water and toilet facilities, and laughing when she asked for relief.
The IPCA Report states:
“Police actions led occupants at five properties to have reasonable cause to believe that they were being detained while the search was conducted. The detention of occupants at these properties was contrary to law, unjustified and unreasonable”.
There were other stupid behaviours including:
Chain-sawing through a fence when a gate was wide open a few metres away; and
Smashing doors that weren’t locked.
The most egregious behaviour related to the callous and intimidatory attitude of several “black role” Police officers towards innocents and to the disregard for their human rights and their dignity. It was an assault on human rights.
That behaviour displayed to the discerning eye of someone who has trained and commanded combat troops:
a culture of arrogance;
that they were over-hyped;
that the recruitment and selection process is poorly designed;
that they were poorly trained;
that they were poorly disciplined;
that they were poorly led; and
at the command and policy level they were poorly governed.
I am not alone in my assessment. And it is why I have called them “cowboys in black fancy dress”. They deserve the opprobrium. I am aware that some in the Defence community call them “The Keystones”.
In Vietnam we were on active service against an armed and very dangerous adversary. Yet in our “cordon and search” operations we never treated innocents with such arrogance and disregard for their rights. We did search them at roadblocks but with as much respect as was possible in the circumstances. We did remove them from the houses we searched but as respectfully as we could and never with the same shouting and pointing of weapons. People will do what you ask if you treat them with respect. It was a disciplined approach. We were never masked. Nothing is more calculated to instil fear than the mask, despite the Police’s claim that it is an operational necessity. We tried to minimise the fear. The innate empathy and friendliness of the New Zealand soldier went a long way towards that.
There was no empathy or friendliness shown to innocents in the Police paramilitary operation on 15th October 2007. Just arrogance and hostility and intimidation. There’s a fucked up mentality behind that attitude. A serious culturally ingrained fucked up mentality.
It was reported that the cowboys in black fancy dress were given their operation orders as late as 3am on the morning of the operation. They were fed the over-the-top terrorism story almost immediately before they went into action. They went out fired up and ready to combat terrorists. Their superior officers hyped them up and set the adrenaline surging. But that is no excuse whatsoever for their arrogant and hostile treatment of innocents.
That was a function of poor policy and governance, poor leadership, poor selection, poor training, poor discipline and a serious culturally ingrained fucked up mentality.
Before the Special Tactics Group (STG) can be deployed a formal STG Request for Assistance has to be submitted.
Who wrote that request?
Who submitted it?
When was it submitted”
To whom?
Who approved it? The Commissioner? Deputy Commissioner? Assistant Commissioner Operations?
Who conducted the “appreciation” to assess the risks posed by an STG paramilitary operation to “terminate” Operation8?
What were the identified risks, if any?
Who conducted the after action debriefing?
Is there a written record of that debriefing?
These questions need to be asked.
The IPCA again:
“13. The Authority has concluded that a number of aspects of the Police termination of Operation Eight were contrary to law and unreasonable. In a complex operation of the type that was undertaken here, there are always a number of important lessons to be learned about future Police policy and practices. The Police internal debrief following the termination of Operation Eight has already identified a number of those lessons and necessary changes to Police training, policy and operational instructions have been made. The Authority has made a number of other recommendations in light of its own findings. This includes the need to re-‐engage, and build bridges, with the Ruatoki community”.
The Police debrief and resulting recommendations did not address the real failures of Operation 8 and did not address the real shortcomings of their paramilitary policy, structure, culture, training, leadership and discipline. It glossed over all of that and seemed to focus on what they needed to do to recover from their disastrous operation, including what they needed to do to repair their relationship with Ngai Tuhoe. A major part of its deliberations were about the paramilitary uniform and concluded that the “black role” and Nomex hoods were still necessary.
It recommended that the Commissioner engage with Ruatoki and it dumped most of the responsibility for repairing the relationship on the National Manager Māori & Pacific Ethnic Services. The same Superintendent Wally Haumaha who had been deliberately excluded from Operation 8 and would surely have moderated its excesses was now responsible for cleaning up the mess.
No-one has been held publicly accountable for all of that illegal and unprofessional behaviour.
The Police have since paid compensation and have apologised to some whanau. They have apologised to Ruatoki and Ngai Tuhoe. They’ve got a long way to go yet. A new generation of Ngai Tuhoe have been given renewed reason to distrust the Police and 15th October 2007 will live on in tribal memory, forever.
Stupidity, paranoia and incompetence know no bounds. It could all have been avoided.
This TPP agreement has its origins in and after World War II. The war realigned global power relationships and those new relationships persist into these times, seventy years later.
The war marked the end of the old European empires and the beginning of the American Empire. In rapid succession in our region the Philippines gained independence from the USA, Indonesia from the Dutch, Indochina from the French and India, the present Malaysian states and Singapore from the British. Africa decolonised.
British influence worldwide was much reduced and by the end of the war Britain was hugely in debt to the USA for loans it had used to fund its war effort. The debt wasn’t paid off until the time of Prime Minister Tony Blair. Britain was firmly locked into the American Empire while pretending to still be an independent world power.
In the Anglo-American world the USA, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand entered into a number of parallel military and intelligence agreements signifying that the USA was now the undisputed leader of that world. These included the Signals Intelligence UKUSA Agreement now known as the Five Eyes Agreement, the ABCA which was a military standardisation agreement, and others.
The USA led in the Cold War against the USSR and China. That gave rise to other military agreements such as SEATO or the Manila Pact, signed in 1954 and designed to prevent the fall of domino states in Asia into the Communist sphere of influence. SEATO included the old colonial powers in the region, Britain and France. ANZUS, signed in 1951, was the US, Australian and New Zealand security pact. NATO signed much earlier in 1949 became the USA-led military relationship in Europe. The USA was the dominant partner in all of them.
Throughout the Cold War the USA was also trying to bring the former European colonies under its own umbrella. For instance with the rise of President Suharto and the Indonesian military after 1965 Indonesia fell into the American sphere of geopolitical, military and economic influence. Malaysia and Singapore remained aligned through Britain and their membership of the Commonwealth. The Philippines remained allied to the USA. India and Vietnam were two that got away.
US economic dominance went unchallenged, even by the behemoth that was the Russian Empire – the USSR. Japan became a major world economy within the ambit of US influence. As other Asian economies such as South Korea and Taiwan developed they too aligned with the US. The US also embarked with mixed success on numerous covert operations in Central and South America to lock those countries into the new American Empire.
It was an undeclared American Empire and it effectively ruled the world until China adopted state capitalism and embarked on its rapid rise as an economic powerhouse. China now challenges the might of the Anglo / European / American economic bloc.
What has changed in recent times is the ability of the USA to project its military power across the globe. It still dominates the oceans, the air and space but it no longer has the ability to dominate on land, or indeed in the South China Sea. That started with the American defeat in Vietnam but was driven home by the recent defeats in the Middle East and Afghanistan. They are not acknowledged as military defeats but they are. The USA won some battles where it could concentrate and focus its military power but it has lost the wars it started.
America’s economy still dominates, for the moment.
From World War II onwards America’s corporate might has increased inexorably and in recent decades has spread its grasp over the whole globe; globalisation. In the 2008 Global Financial Crisis caused by corporates, the corporates were still the main beneficiaries of the recovery process through massive financial bailouts. Corporates have taken control of the US political process with the billionaire Koch brothers preparing to pour over a billion into the next elections. Both main political parties are beholden to their corporate donors.
Hollywood is trying to restore its dominance in entertainment through its political connections. Jeremy Malcolm writing at the Electronic Frontier Foundation has stated that in relation to the IP provisions in the TPPA the US Trade Representative is “utterly captured by Hollywood“. The drug companies are involved in negotiating the TPPA to their own benefit, as are many others. Corporates now go to war with the military, performing many logistic and even operational functions.
The USA has become a corporatist state in which corporations now have more power and influence than citizens (who are now called taxpayers) in both domestic and foreign affairs.
The rise of the corporatist state has been greatly assisted in recent times by judicial decisions in the United States, beginning over 100 years ago, in which corporations have been granted increasing corporate personhood and the ability to assume the rights of individual persons. This has been disputed, the argument against revolving around whether or not corporations qualify as “persons” under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Even though the original decision extending corporate personhood was highly questionable (Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118 U.S. 394 (1886)) the precedent was set, is now fait accompli, and corporations are making increasing use of their “personhood”.
That American notion of corporate personhood is embodied in the TPPA and is behind much of the agreement including one of its contentious elements allowing corporations to sue sovereign governments.
Having lost its total military dominance and become a corporatist state, and facing the possibility of China becoming the premier world economic and therefore military superpower, America has few options. Its last weapon in the geopolitical power struggle with China is its corporate power.
And that is what the TPPA is about. The projection of American power through corporate power and through building that corporate power in “free trade” agreements that have nothing to do with free trade.
The choice for New Zealand is not about how much NZ will benfit from “free trade”. The choice is geopolitical and about sovereignty. Should NZ remain within the American sphere of influence? And what should the terms of that relationship be? Should New Zealand allow itself to become subject to American corporate rule? And what should be NZs relationship with its present major trading and investment partner China.
New Zealand’s political and business elites have made choices for us in secrecy without any democratic debate, and disguised it within their free trade rhetoric.
Regardless of whether we should or should not be part of TTPA we should first debate its real purpose. It seems that democracy is only about the small stuff.
So why is the USA now making a few concessions on trade when for decades it has maintained high trade barriers against its allies, and why were the negotiations so hard fought? Because it needs to lock 40% of the global economy into its geopolitical strategy at the least cost to its own economy.
The primary consideration in all geopolitical relationships is, and has always been, self interest. Since the end of World War II the primary beneficiary of all partnership agreements with the USA has been the USA.
Now, if you doubt my hypothesis about the USA’s grand geopolitical strategy through the medium of trade agreements consider this:
the TPPA includes USA, Canada, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam (40% of the global economy); plus
the USA has existing agreements mostly concluded in the 2000’s with Israel, Canada, Mexico, Jordan, Australia, Chile, Singapore, Bahrain, Morocco, Oman, Peru, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Columbia and South Korea;
the USA is negotiating agreements with the European Union, Indonesia, Ghana, Kenya, Kuwait, Mauritius, Mozambique, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia, Ecuador and Qatar;
the agreement being negotiated between the USA and the European Union is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). It is the equivalent of the TTPA; and
the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), still in negotiation and involving 50 countries, covers about 70% of the global services economy. Its aim is privatizing the worldwide trade of services such as banking, healthcare and transport.
The big BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China) are missing of course but are being counter-balanced if not surrounded by the USA “free trade” strategy. Of course the BRIC economies are also agressively pursuing their own “free trade” strategies with many if not all of the same countries as the USA.
It’s like the nuclear arms race of the Cold War only its now a “free trade” race that we might come to know as the Trade Cold War. Trade wars have long been the genesis of empires.
The European empires lasted from the 15th Century to the 20th Century and used chartered trading companies in the vanguard of the colonisation of the known world. There were scores of them including British East India Company, British East Africa Company, British North Borneo Company, British South Africa Company, New Zealand Company, South Australian Company, South Sea Company, French East India Company, Dutch East India Company and Dutch West India Company. Portuguese chartered companies included Companhia de Mozambique and Companhia de Niassa. The chartered companies controlled the global economy.
The nascent American Empire of the 21st Century has simply borrowed and adapted an old idea to its own geopolitical strategy as it paves the way, through multiple bilateral and multilateral trade agreements, for its transnational corporations to control the global economy. This time around they are sovereign unto themselves.
From an analysis of Operation 8 documents there were, as far as I can determine, just three or four registered and casual informants who provided information to the Police about the wananga in the Urewera in 2006 and 2007. So far just one of those informants has definitely been identified and in this article his identity is revealed. Work continues to discover the identities of the others.
The Importance of HUMINT (Human Intelligence) Undercover agents, spies and informants
The Police stated in their affidavits seeking search warrants and interception warrants that they were not able to infiltrate an undercover agent into the wananga.
Given the extent of the information gathering operation, and the huge resources allocated to it, the number of informants and the quantity of informant information was quite small. They got some HUMINT from the small number of informants in Wellington and Auckland and virtually nothing from within Ngai Tuhoe. One of the main reasons for the incompleteness of their information and the deeply flawed analysis of that information, apart from Police incompetence, was their lack of reliable HUMINT.
Despite the mass of electronic and other information they produced they had absolutely no way of knowing what Taame Iti and the others were thinking, what was in their minds, what they were planning, and whether or not they intended to act as the Police thought they would, despite all of their intercepted revolutionary korero. In trying to predict human intentions HUMINT is absolutely necessary.
The problem is that the less we know about the minds of others the more we use our own minds to fill in the blanks. As the context in which you’re trying to understand another mind becomes more ambiguous the influence of your own perspective increases.
The HUMINT they had from their informants was sparse and unreliable. If they had not deliberately excluded Superintendent Wallace Haumaha and his network of Maori liaison officers from Operation 8 the HUMINT available to them would have totally altered their perceptions and conclusions. I have reached my own conclusion that they didn’t want their perceptions and conclusions altered by the facts.
Information gathering phases
In analysing the so called intelligence operation that eventually led to the armed paramilitary assault on Ruatoki I have divided it into four phases. The phases are convenient for determining when various police informants were active, and in an ongoing investigation to discover their identities. The phases are:
Phase 1 – From February to May 2006, during which the Police followed serial Police antagonist Jamie Lockett and his sometime employer, associate and millionaire businessman John Murphy to Waitangi, noted their new found sympathy with Maori aspirations and that they had talked with Taame Iti, monitored them at Murphy’s home in Remuera in Auckland, came to believe that Lockett at least was involved in some sort of revolutionary plot, conducted surveillance on them and a number of right wing Pakeha individuals, then switched their attention to Taame Iti and his wananga in the Urewera.
Phase 2 – From June to August 2006. Early in June two police officers travelled to the Urewera to try to locate training camps. During this time the police conducted intensive surveillance on Jamie Lockett and John Murphy in Auckland and some surveillance on Taame Iti at Taneatua and Ruatoki.
Phase 3 – From September 2006 to January 2007. On 6 September 2006 the Police watched Lockett buying bush gear and boots in Auckland and on 8 September they followed him as far as Taneatua as he made his way to the first of several wananga he attended. This triggered on 15 September the first of numerous call data warrants which were used by the Police to obtain telephone metadata and text messages dating back to 1 March 2006. In the first place they focused on Taame Iti, John Murphy and Jamie Lockett. Over the next few months they obtained call data warrants to obtain telephone information on most of the people that those three called. This was the start of a massive network building and profiling exercise. 15 September was effectively the date when the nationwide search for a terrorist network began.
Phase 4 – From February 2007 onwards. 22 February saw the first of multiple interception warrants used to place bugs in houses and cars, to video people at the wananga and elsewhere, and to place interception devices on computer servers (with the assistance of internet providers). Telephone call data warrants continued. Having built the basis of their terrorist network through network analysis the Police then concentrated on finding evidence of their guilt. Search and seizure and arrest warrants were not used until 15 October 2007. Those “termination” warrants were also used to try to find computer and documentary evidence of a nationwide terrorist plot.
As the information gathering moved through from Phase 1 to Phase 4 emphasis shifted from physical surveillance and informant information to more and more electronic surveillance. However physical surveillance by following people on foot and in cars continued throughout all four phases.
An Interview
Sometime in Phase 1 or Phase 2 a person was interviewed about activists and their attitudes and beliefs. That took place early in the Operation and does not appear to have greatly influenced the outcome although it was used consistently in affidavits used to obtain multiple warrants from the District Court.
Urewera Informant(s)
In Phase 2 and/or Phase 3 an informant provided some information about Taame Iti and another provided the dates of wananga at the end of 2006. They may well have been the same person. In both cases the information seemed to stop by about January 2007. That person may have been someone who attended just a few wananga, or who was close to someone who attended a few wananga.
Wellington Informant(s)
In Phase 3 some information was provided by an informant (or informants) in Wellington. That information related specifically to the Wellington activists who attended the wananga in 2006 and 2007. The most likely person was Rob Gilchrist who was exposed as a Police informant in December 2008. However his handler was Detective Peter Gilroy of Christchurch and although Gilchrist did spy extensively on activists in Wellington and Auckland he was probably not working directly to Detective Sergeant Aaron Pascoe who headed up the Operation 8 team at Harlech House in Auckland. He was not noticed by any of the accused to be particularly interested in their activities in the Urewera.
Pascoe would have had access to the Police intelligence database of information about the Wellington activists built up over many years. That database would have included a large trove provided by Gilchrist during his many years as an informant. In the High Court in February 2012 Pascoe obfuscated when asked about any relationship he might have had with Gilchrist or whether he had access to Gilchrist’s information. He didn’t say “No” and tried not to say “Yes”.
The Wellington activists have not been able to identify anyone else who might have been informing on them. Yet.
An Auckland Informant – Keith Madden
Throughout all four phases the Police used at least one informant in Auckland, his usefulness declining as the information gathering exercise became more focused on technological information, and ceasing after he was uncovered as an informant. He was Keith Madden. He has also been known by a number of aliases. This is his story.
Madden was a long-time associate of both John Murphy and Jamie Lockett but was closer to Murphy. He spent quite a bit of time at Murphy’s house in Remuera. Lockett was also often there and lived there for a while. Madden is an intelligent man who was always in the money and had cars and houses. Until the bad times including some failed deals. In early 2006 he had serious criminal charges hanging over him and that was probably the lever the Police used to turn him into an informant.
That immediately made him an unreliable source of information. Informants, just as much as intelligence officers, need to be vetted and verified as honest and reliable, and objective observers. An informant under duress, or seeking to minimise a possible prison term, will tend to tell his handlers what they want to hear.
Whereas Jamie Lockett is extremely wary of sharing information after years of Police surveillance John Murphy tends to run off at the mouth, to elaborate, embellish and exaggerate. Lockett told Madden nothing and recalls that Madden never really tried to get any information out of him. Murphy was an easier mark and Madden almost certainly got most of his information from Murphy.
That made the Police “Informant Information” doubly unreliable. Yet it was that information that set Operation 8 in motion.
By late May 2006 the Police had heard the story about terrorism in the Urewera and sent two officers off to the Urewera early in June 2006 looking for a training camp.
Lockett went to the Urewera to the first of a few wananga he attended three months later in September 2006. He invited Madden to go with him to another wananga but didn’t tell him what it was about other than he should bring a gun for a bit of a shoot up. Madden said he would go. Lockett waited at the agreed rendezvous for three hours but Madden didn’t show and he went on his own. Whether Madden got cold feet or was warned off by the Police is not known.
Early in 2007, probably in February or March, Madden approached Rangi Kemara through Lockett. He offered to sell Kemara a fully automatic shotgun. It was probably a Police “sting” because automatic shotguns are illegal. The offer set off alarm bells and Lockett and Kemara both became suspicious. Coincidentally and shortly after the shotgun episode Lockett came into possession of a copy of a letter Madden had sent to his Police handler. He gave a copy to Kemara who told Taame Iti about it. He took it show Taame Iti on 3 June 2007, the same day that Iti received text messages telling him that the activities in the Urewera were mentioned at Police HQ in Wellington.
The letter was probably written a few months before it was discovered. It confirmed that Madden was a Police informant and that his handler had told him to get more information from Lockett rather than Murphy. The letter stated:
“Look there are several big issues looming here and I am sailing through a bloody troubled straight”.
“Jm is now obviously a much larger figure potentially involved in multiple criminal pursuits than any to which I was aware”.
“You were correct to steer me to continue plying jl a much safer more transparent source than jm will ever be”.
“At the end of the day if this is or has the potential to be a politically opposed challenge to current or any government in NZ, or is seditious behaviour period, or some form of subversive movement based as another highly charged radical group of disgruntled Maori (using their contacts with pakeha or other ethnics or non maori and all of whom jm and jl included are ultimately one by one or if timely all become expendable) then within the pursuit of your operational objectives a goal must include discovery of defined theme agenda’s or motive I guess in detective speech”.
“But more you need as explained to me to link probable multiple individual agendas with the commonality of a mutually shared proven criminal theme of agenda. A hard ask albeit even with the affront to operate a terrorist training facility in our summer playground backyard, the Bay of Plenty”.
Those extracts from the letter, in their convoluted way, show exactly what Detective Sergeant Pascoe was trying to discover and prove, almost certainly based on earlier information provided to him by Madden. It showed also that Pascoe didn’t have the evidence he needed to prove his terrorism narrative. He never did get it. The Solicitor General’s refusal to allow terrorism charges to proceed proved that.
Throughout the letter Madden raised his personal concerns about being discovered and about his belief that John Murphy was onto him and was having him tailed. He was obviously worried about it, or said he was.
Sometime after Madden’s role was discovered Lockett met Murphy in a café and told him about Madden. Neither of them told Madden what they knew. The very next day the Police whisked Madden away and stashed him in a motel in Orewa for a month, presumably to protect him from any retaliatory action. The Police often followed Lockett into cafés and eavesdropped on him and that may be how they knew. Or Murphy himself may have told them? Lockett didn’t.
That was probably the end of Madden’s usefulness. Lockett didn’t go to any wananga after June 2007 and Murphy never went. Lockett has stated publicly that he was not impressed by Taame Iti and didn’t think the wananga were his thing.
Quite some time later, after the October 2007 paramilitary operation and after Lockett’s arrest and release on bail, Lockett “hunted Madden down” and they met on Maungakiekie (One Tree Hill to the uneducated). It was a typical American TV standoff as they both stayed in their own cars for the meeting. Madden was apparently “shitting his pants” but was desperate to find out how they knew he was a Police informant. Lockett didn’t tell him and to this day he doesn’t know. Madden didn’t know either how the Police found out that he had been identified.
And that, e hoa ma, was the unreliable informant who told a fanciful tale to Aaron Pascoe, who fell for it and convinced his bosses, and over the next year or so they spun it into a nationwide terrorist plot, and convinced Commissioner Howard Broad and Prime Minister Helen Clark to sanction an armed “black role” paramilitary assault on the sleepy Ngai Tuhoe village of Ruatoki, and a few other places as well.
Operation Hi Ho Silver. And as Tonto might have said to Lone Ranger, “What you mean ‘terrorism’ Paleface?”
Tuhoe Francis Lambert was not a terrorist, or part of a criminal group, as alleged by the NZ Police after the paramilitary operation in which he was arrested and charged on 15th October 2007. He was war veteran, a patriot who had served his country on active service, a loyal New Zealander, staunchly Ngai Tuhoe, and a devoted family man.
The NZ Police Operation 8 team compiled shallow profiles on all who were suspects. Had they been real intelligence analysts they would have done a lot more research into their targets and could have come to different conclusions. They didn’t bother. But then, they were just amateurs in the profession of intelligence analysis.
Tuhoe Lambert remained a suspect until the day he died. He was one of five primary suspects and after he died four went to trial; the Urewera Four. I’m going to tell you something about Tuhoe Lambert that only a Vietnam Veteran can. This is the deep profile the police didn’t bother to find out.
I’m going to tell you about a lead scout in Vietnam, and about the damage that war did to those who came home. About the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that afflicted so many and does still to this day. And about Tuhoe Lambert’s struggle with that affliction. It was one thing for him to be at war for a short time in the flower of youth, and yet another to live with that war for the rest of his life. This then is a tribute to Tuhoe Lambert.
In the aftermath of his arrest he was condemned by quite a few in the Vietnam veterans’ community. At the time I urged them to suspend judgement until they knew the facts. One of the facts was that the Solicitor General did not agree with the police that terrorism charges were warranted and declined to allow prosecution. Over the long battle through the courts many other false assumptions and transgressions by the police were brought to light. This tribute should also remind us – the veterans – of the loyalty we owe each other in good times and bad.
In one sense it is also a tribute to all of the lead scouts and cover scouts who served us so well, the nine rifle companies of the Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment that rotated through Vietnam from May 1967 to November 1971 as part of the ANZAC battalions. A tribute to those who died, and a tribute to all of those who came home afflicted by their war in body and mind.
Tuhoe and Taame Iti had two different versions about how they met. Tuhoe said that after Vietnam he became a bit anti-war and went to the odd anti-Vietnam rally. That’s how he first met Taame Iti in the 1970s and when asked by Taame what he would do if he met Taame in the bush, fighting on the side of the Viet Cong, he told Taame he would blow his head off. There was probably an ‘f” word in there somewhere. According to Tuhoe they became firm friends from that day.
According to Taame Iti they met in Christchurch before Tuhoe embarked to join 1st Battalion Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment in Malaysia, and to go from there to Vietnam. Taame was living in Christchurch and some of the Maori soldiers from Burnham Camp ended up at his place at a party. Taame was anti-Vietnam and they had a debate about the war. He says that after Tuhoe came back home from Vietnam Taame worked with him for a few years to help him process the mental stuff he brought home with him.
I prefer Tuhoe’s version but it’s probably a bit of an elaboration and is probably based on an actual conversation. However they did become firm friends, the soldier and the anti-war protestor. That’s not unusual. Many Maori veterans went on to forge friendships and close working relationships with those who had protested against the Vietnam War. We found common cause in working together for the advancement of Maori. They were also both Ngai Tuhoe.
The Operation 8 NZ Police Intelligence team didn’t think to do a full profile on Tuhoe Lambert about his war service other than to establish that he was a Vietnam Veteran and that he was in league with Taame Iti in the Urewera. They didn’t think to do one of their background checks with Veterans Affairs.
A proper profiling by a professional team would have quickly established that like so many among our veterans’ community Tuhoe Lambert was a lingering casualty of the Vietnam War. He suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), badly, and had suffered from it from 1971 when he returned from Vietnam until the day he died in Auckland Hospital in July 2011. Forty years. Vietnam and thoughts about Vietnam lingered on in his mind, forever. They lay just below the surface and in the bad moments they rose to dominate his life. He didn’t have many good nights in that forty years.
Tuhoe Lambert was a lead scout in an infantry platoon. And young. Very young.
Scouts were selected for their skill in the field and for their skill at arms. Good deerstalkers usually made good scouts. Their skills were fine-tuned by intense training. They were a combination of hunter, stalker, tracker and marksman with lightning fast reactions. Outwardly they were calm and assured and they had a wonderful to behold swagger, born of total confidence in their abilities. But in the quieter moments of reflection after we came home some of them would talk of the fear.
As platoon commanders and platoon sergeants we had three infantry sections each of 9 or 10 infantrymen led by an experienced corporal, and including two scouts, a lead scout and a cover scout operating as a team. The scouts were our eyes and ears and we trusted them totally. Our lives were in their eyes and ears, and in their hands, trusting that they would shoot fast, shoot first and shoot straight.
Mines killed more than half of all Australians and New Zealanders who died in Phuoc Tuy Province in Vietnam where we fought together. Stepping on a mine was even more likely than running into an enemy force. The scout’s job was also to scan the ground and jungle ahead looking for any sign of mines, knowing that if he missed sign either he or someone behind him would get his legs and other pieces blown off.
It was the most stressful and dangerous job in a platoon in which every job was stressful and dangerous, just one step away from death, day after day, week after week, month after month. We rotated the sections and their scouts so that they didn’t spend too much continuous time at the front of the patrol but they nevertheless did that job for days on end, sometimes weeks on end, and they did it for the whole of their tour, usually for twelve months. Tuhoe Lambert’s V5 Company spent 270 days on operations out of the 365 days they were in theatre. 270 days when their very next step might have been their last. 270 days when their next breath might have been their last.
I often say, quietly in private conversation with my fellow infantry veterans, that we all died up there, one way or another. And I often reflect that of all of us it was our scouts who were truly the walking dead.
As master samurai strategist Miyamoto Musashi said, “The way of the warrior is the resolute acceptance of death”.
Or to paraphrase that, “The warrior first dies, then fights”.
And having survived you are never the same person again. Tuhoe Lambert survived and brought his war home with him as many if not all of us did.
PTSD is so prevalent in the Veteran community across New Zealand and Australia that it is the new normality. Many of my comrades are actively involved in welfare and support services for fellow veterans. Many of the soldiers I served with and the officers I trained with are stricken with it. It ranges from mild to severe and has no respect for age, rank and status.
There have been suicides, not many but some. Some of my friends and comrades have been and are still self-medicating with alcohol. A few of those drank themselves into an early grave. PTSD didn’t necessarily strike immediately after Vietnam. I have friends who like me were career soldiers for another ten, twenty or thirty years. The Army provided a structured environment in which war service was understood and valued. Some of my friends didn’t fall apart until they retired and lost that structure and support. Some found structure and support in their church. The NZ RSA and the Australian RSL provide more support. Quite a few veterans find their structure and support in golfing fraternities or veterans’ motorcycle clubs.
Community service especially for Maori veterans involved in the many aspects of Maori advancement provides a purpose in life that helps alleviate or distract from the symptoms of PTSD.
I have friends who are receiving psychological or psychiatric therapy usually paid for by Veterans Affairs in New Zealand or Australia, and who expect to remain in therapy until the day they die. Some of the treatment involves both therapy and drugs. With that professional support they lead full and productive, and almost normal lives. Writing is also therapeutic; keeping a journal of an examined life has long been common in the literary world as a form of self-examination and therapy, as well as creativity. Writing poetry is therapy although there are only a few warrior poets. Some find solace and outlet in painting or sculpture. Music is wonderful therapy.
Then there are the many who struggle through life untreated and often unsupported. For some of them the only support is the family and it is very tough on the families. There have been countless family breakdowns but in many cases the wives in particular soldier on living through their own version of hell supporting a war damaged husband with little more than love and tolerance. They are the true heroes. Family violence is not uncommon. I have a small number of friends who are virtual hermits, who have never returned from Vietnam in their minds and are living in a state of mental siege, some surrounded by improvised defences around their usually remote huts or cabins. One or two still carry out the standard dawn and dusk clearing patrols around their homes.
All of that is to describe the mental landscape we have lived in since Vietnam; the mindscape that Tuhoe Lambert lived in. PTSD is not a stigma. It is our normal in the mindscape we collectively live in. PTSD is not the only debilitating condition Vietnam Veterans live with for there are a wide range of medical conditions as well and Tuhoe Lambert’s health problems may well have been related to other aspects of his service, specifically exposure to Agent Orange. But PTSD is what I am concerned with in this profile.
For a long time Tuhoe Lambert had nightmares every night that would have him waking and screaming. After a time the screaming subsided but the nightmares remained. In later life he would go to sleep in front of the TV with the sound turned full on, something that usually indicates someone who is drowning out the chatterbox in the mind with the noise of the TV. A friend recalls watching him sleeping in front of the TV and said, “It was like watching someone having a fist fight with their eyes closed and hog tied”.
He had an incredibly loving, tolerant and supportive wife and whanau. He found purpose working for Tuhoe Hauora as a social worker. But for the most part his PTSD was untreated until Taame Iti took him under his wing and helped him process the bad stuff. It still didn’t go away though.
Rangi Kemara who came to know him well from 2005 onwards has commented about his good friend:
“When I was with him his thoughts were constantly on Vietnam during the day, reasoning over some of the activities they got up to and were ordered to do while he was there, and was constantly trying to retell the more humorous events that took place. His dreams seemed to revisit the place almost every night. He was a tortured soul who rarely spent a night sleeping in peace”.
“One of his methods of dealing with it was to talk shit constantly, and for hours on end. One of the finest shit stirrers you’ll ever meet… He was funny as hell much of the time, even when we were in prison together, but when we were locked up together for 26 days, being cellmates for most of that time, it almost drove me completely batshit because I couldn’t get a reprieve from it, heh”.
“That was our good mate Tuhoe”.
Interestingly Rangi and Taame Iti were perhaps the only people outside of the veterans’ community with whom Tuhoe shared his war experiences. Veterans rarely speak of it to others, not even to family.
After Vietnam and after a couple of short adventures overseas Tuhoe came back to New Zealand and fell on hard times, mentally and financially. He married, started a family, joined a church and eventually became a pastor. As we do in the veterans’ community he stayed in touch with his comrades in arms who are another pillar of support in the sometimes turbulent mental world of the war veteran.
In the early 1990s he did some courses in psychology partly to comprehend his own condition but also to gain some qualifications. He was eventually employed in the late 1990s by Tuhoe Hauora as a social worker. He worked with Taame Iti at Tuhoe Hauora after Taame moved from Auckland back to the Urewera.
Tuhoe had a massive heart attack in 2004, the first of a series of heart attacks that led to his eventual death on 8th July 2011. He had to give up his job at Tuhoe Hauora and in 2005 moved up to Kaitaia with several members of his extended family in tow. He also had family up there. He was a dedicated family man and his extended whanau followed him wherever he went.
In this profile by Joseph Barratt in Scoop News on 12 November 2007 his eldest son Neuton reflected on his father after he had been arrested:
“Lambert is a pensioner forced into retirement due to ailing health, according to his son, 32-year-old Neuton Lambert. He described his father as someone who was “really giving and had a really big heart.”
“The family was very shocked by the arrests, said Neuton. “He was always there for his friends and family. All the cousins treat him like a dad, if they are in trouble they come and stay for months and he lends them money.”
“Tuhoe was a social worker until he got too sick to continue. He suffered ongoing illnesses and heart problems. These included a heart failure that led to a recent bypass operation. Tuhoe also suffers from diabetes.
“Neuton describes a father who used to watch rugby with him every weekend. “It doesn’t even matter what team is playing, he loved it.”
“Tuhoe is also a real movie buff and buys a new DVD every week. “He’s also pretty onto it, he reads a lot and watches documentaries on the discovery channel.”
“Support from the whanau had been great with family members traveling from as far as Kaitaia and Gisborne to support him.
“A lot of us saw him as a leader, said Neuton. “We miss him.”
“But we are a strong family and we will support him.”
Rangi Kemara met him in Auckland in 2005 shortly before Taame Iti’s flag shooting episode. Tuhoe invited him to Kaitaia to meet the whanau. They became friends to the extent that Tuhoe regarded Rangi as part of his own whanau.
From Kaitaia he would travel back to the Urewera to participate in hui about the Ngai Tuhoe claims. Rangi would drive up to Kaitaia and drive him down to the Urewera. His health was failing and he became less and less mobile. In 2006 his wife got a teaching job at Manurewa in Auckland and they moved there. It was also closer to Auckland Hospital. Rangi Kemara moved into a caravan on the property as an adopted member of Tuhoe’s whanau and to help pay the rent.
They became regular faces at the wananga Taame Iti was facilitating in the Urewera. They travelled there together and after a while the cops bugged the car and listened in to the trash talk as they travelled to and fro. Tuhoe became one of the leaders of the wananga. His specialty of course was infantry minor tactics. Just what that was about is shown in “The Probability Space – Part 5, Unravelling the Paradox”.
The best way to say what I want to say about Tuhoe Lambert’s part in the war games in the Urewera is to start with this poem I wrote a few years ago.
Vietnam Paradox
Stalking the enemy
in far off lands, steaming jungles
so far from home and safety –
month after month
in the shadow of death
and ever present fear
of punji pits, mine-strewn tracks,
and death by tripwire, machine gun,
or AK47 in hidden bunkers.
Death waiting at every cautious step.
But can you feel my son,
how totally alive we were,
living fully in each moment,
engulfed in a purity
of all the senses,
focused only on Life itself
and Life’s true companion Death –
none of the extraneous distractions
of ordinariness and everyday being,
of ordinary people
living their ordinary everyday lives.
How utterly,
how completely,
exhilaratingly
Alive”.
Tuhoe Lambert wasn’t preparing to fight a new war, or a terrorist campaign. He was still as he had always been, and as he later proclaimed in an interview on TV3, a patriot and loyal soldier of his country.
He was living out his old war, the one he had been living for 36 years already. But this time he wasn’t living it in his mind in the troubled night. He was acting it out. Inwardly he was reliving part of the actual experience, and outwardly showing his audience of activists and Ngai Tuhoe nationalists just a small part of what it was that he was re-living. Tuhoe Lambert – lead scout. His audience was interested in his operational service in Vietnam and asked him questions about it. At night he talked to them about some of it and in the day he showed them a bit.
Although reliving his old war it was wrapped in the rhetoric and trash talk of his political cause, the Ngai Tuhoe cause. But in his/our mindscape he was actually reliving the experience of being part of a tight close-knit team with total trust in each other and totally reliant on each other for their lives. Brothers in arms.
And despite the ever present fear, and the shadow of death being constantly upon them, the feeling of being utterly, completely, exhilaratingly alive. If you haven’t been there you can have no idea how close it is to the very essence of existence.
In 2006 and 2007 with his heart problems, diabetes and fast failing health Tuhoe was once again living in the shadow of impending death. Tuhoe Lambert – lead scout. Out there in the Urewera bush though he would have been totally alive. They say that out there in the bush he moved again lightly with vigour and with purpose whereas at home in the city he hardly moved at all weighed down by his ill health.
The bush or the jungle is the spiritual home of the infantrymen of our era, the overhead “thwok, thwok, thwok” of the Huey helicopter its unnatural throbbing heartbeat. For most of the time though it is completely silent except for the birds and the beetles and we too lived and moved in harmony with it in total silence, communicating only through hand signals. You come to know the jungle and the bush as a world of its own and a place apart that is your place too and a part of you. If I were Tuhoe Lambert I would have been happy to die out there in the Urewera on one last patrol.
Tuhoe vented his depression, exhilaration, frustration and anger through his trash talk. That’s what he always did. Part of his mamae was about the way Vietnam veterans were treated after they came home from the war. Part of it was about the never ending struggle for justice by Ngai Tuhoe. He was staunchly Ngai Tuhoe and he followed the Ngai Tuhoe claim and settlement process closely. Tuhoe often expressed his feelings in extravagant and exaggerated ways, sometimes absurd or bizarre. That was his way. He vented. Other veterans became so withdrawn that they were almost mute, some shut themselves off becoming virtual hermits, and some found solace at the bottom of a bottle. Tuhoe Lambert ran off at the mouth. To his family, friends and comrades that was just Tuhoe the Vietnam Veteran.
NZ Police intelligence knew none of that. They took his trash talk at face value and said he was a terrorist. Perhaps because that’s what they really wanted to find, rather than a PTSD stricken and diabetic Vietnam War veteran, once again close to death.
The cowboys in black who conducted the paramilitary operation on the morning of 15th October 2007 knew none of that either, of the life of the real warrior. Unlike those cowboys who invaded his home in Manurewa in the early hours of 15th October 2007 and who then held at gunpoint him, his wife and 12 year old granddaughter, and the rest of his whanau, all of them unarmed, Tuhoe Lambert was a real warrior. He was a lead scout.
He got locked up for 26 days after being arrested. By dying before being brought to trial Tuhoe was spared the indignity of a longer time in prison alongside his two friends Taame Iti and Rangi Kemara who had supported him in his bad moments, rejoiced with him in the good, and put up with his incessant sometimes infuriating banter and trash talk. For behind the troubled mind and trash talking mouth was a heart of pure gold. The heart of a soldier, friend and comrade, loyal New Zealander, staunch Ngai Tuhoe nationalist, and a loving and much loved family man.
584865 Lance Corporal Tuhoe Francis Lambert, Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment – Lead Scout. He was not a terrorist or a participant in a criminal group. He was a patriot. A wounded patriot.
In February 2015 after a long struggle in the courts Tuhoe Lambert’s whanau finally received confidential financial compensation from the NZ Police in an out-of-court settlement. It was probably not a large amount. Whilst the police have never admitted that they got it wrong about Tuhoe, and probably never will, that settlement is an acknowledgement of the unwarranted, undeserved and arguably unlawful treatment meted out to his whanau – the collateral damage.
E kore ratou e koroheketia, penei i a tatou kua mahue nei
E kore hoki ratou e ngoikore, ahakoa pehea i nga ahuatanga o te wa.
I te hekenga atu o te ra tae noa ki te aranga mai i te ata
Ka maumahara tonu tatou ki a ratou.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Kei wareware tatau. Lest we forget.
E Tuhoe haere te tamatoa haere, No reira e te rangatira haere, haere atu ra.
He maimai aroha tenei na
Major (Retired) Ross Himona,
Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment.
