Mission & Justice

Jarrod Booker; 1/5/08

A Catholic priest who took in and kept tabs on freed Algerian asylum seeker Ahmed Zaoui is one of three people charged with inflicting an embarrassing blow to a top-secret spy base. Dominican friar Peter Murnane joined organic gardener Adrian Leason and Hokianga farmer Sam Land in yesterday’s early-morning raid on the Waihopai satellite communications interception station, near Blenheim. They used sickles to puncture one of two 30m rubber balloons that protect radar aerials from the weather. Prime Minister Helen Clark called the raid “a senseless act of vandalism”, and the head of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) ordered an urgent investigation into the base’s security.

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They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift sword against nation; and there shall be no more training for war. Isaiah 2/4 This morning, 30 April 2008, we entered the Waihopai Spy Base near Blenheim. Our group, including a Dominican Priest, temporarily closed the base by padlocking the gates and proceeded to deflate one of the large domes covering two satellite dishes. At 6am we cut through three security fences surrounding the domes - these are armed with razor wire, infrared motion sensors and a high voltage electrified fence. Once inside we used sickles to cut one of the two 30-metre white domes, built a shrine and knelt in prayer to remember the people killed by United States military activity.

See: http://ploughshares.org.nz/