Christchurch Progressive Network

24 April 2017

Media Release:
Silent vigil and wreath laying at Burnham Military Camp
The Christchurch Progressive Network is holding a silent vigil and wreath laying at Burnham Military Camp tomorrow morning to remember the death of six Afghani civilians during “Operation Burnham” on 22 August 2010.
Details are: Anzac Day, 25 April, Burnham Camp, 9am to 10am
Operation Burnham was the name given to the New Zealand SAS attack on two villages in Afghanistan in 2010 three weeks after New Zealand soldier Lieutenant Tim O'Donnell was killed by a roadside bomb. Burnham camp was where Tim O’Donnell did his basic training, hence the name of the operation.
In the book Hit and Run, journalists Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson provide detailed evidence that not only were no “insurgents” killed in Operation Burnham as claimed by the Defence Force, but that six Afghani civilians were killed and a further 15 injured.
Included in the vigil will be a banner “Operation Burnham – Inquiry now” and the laying of a wreath to remember the six civilians killed in the raid.
Those killed were:
Abdul Qayoom, son of Sakhidad
Abdul Faqir
Fatima (3), daughter of Abdul Khaliq
Mohammad Iqbal
Abdul Qayoom, son of Mohammad Iqbal
Islamuddin, son of Abdul Qadir
The book describes the cover up of what the then Defence Minister Wayne Mapp described as a “fiasco” and the Prime Minister has joined the cover up by refusing to hold an independent inquiry.
The Defence Force conducted Operation Burnham in our name and the botched raid and cover up leave a stain on all of us.

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