Newly Elected Blenheim Green MP to Speak at Waihopai Spybase Protest January 21st

The Anti-Bases Campaign (ABC) congratulates Steffan Browning on his election as one of the Green Party’s new MPs. For the past decade Steffan has been ABC’s key contact in Blenheim during our marathon campaign to have the Waihopai spybase closed down. He has always represented the local Greens at our regular protests in Blenheim and at the base.

Now we’re delighted that he will be speaking at our Waihopai spybase protest on Saturday January 21st in his new capacity as a Green MP.

This continues a long tradition of active Green Party support for our campaign, dating back to when the late Rod Donald started out as an Alliance MP in the 1990s. Rod unfailingly spoke at every Waihopai protest for the rest of his life and the just retired Keith Locke never missed speaking at one either, most recently in January 2011. The past Co-Leader Jeanette Fitzsimons and present one, Russel Norman, have also spoken at Waihopai protests. And it is particularly appropriate that Steffan, as a Blenheim person, speaks at the January 21st protest.

Waihopai is NZ’s key contribution to all of America’s wars, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq or anywhere else (such as Iran). It is basically a US spybase operating on NZ soil, a vital outpost of the American Empire. The war in Afghanistan is America’s longest since WW2, and the US says it will be there until 2014. Hundreds of thousands of troops from the US, NATO and other countries, including New Zealand, are fighting in, and occupying, that country. New Zealand’s most visible military presence there is the Special Air Service, plus regular troops who are officially there for “reconstruction” for several more years. Nicky Hager’s 2011 book “Other People’s Wars” revealed the reality of what the NZ military is up to Afghanistan and its subordinate role actively engaged in the American war there.

Also, let’s not forget Iraq. Despite the American war having just officially ended, the US military and its private “contractors” are still entrenched there, albeit in a more covert fashion. The US Embassy in Baghdad is its biggest in the world, with a staff of 16,000 and a huge military contingent to guard it.

The threat of a new war, on Iran, is an ever present possibility.

Wikileaks revealed that full intelligence ties between NZ and the US were secretly fully reactivated in August 2009. ABC will be emphasising the critical, invisible, 24/7role that Waihopai plays in this global killing machine.

ABC
Anti-Bases Campaign
www.converge.org.nz/abc

ENDS

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