Like Te Rohe Potae, Te Urewera is a place close to my heart, together with the people therein.
So today my thoughts goes out to Tuhoe and is mamae again to be reminded of the terrifying events that took place on their beloved whenua, for many, in front of their loved ones, kuia, koro, tamariki.
This report is about the police actions on the 15th of October 2007 in the Ruatoki area.
One only has to ask if there are no consequences to them, what is the point of all these laws that the police have broken.
Their actions are self-evident and many Tuhoe whanau have to live with the memories of those frightening hours their communities were besieged yet again by amped-up cops whose heads had been filled with movie styled stories of Al-Qaeda terror cells, catapults, cows, buses and napalm bombs, held a town of peaceful Tuhoe ransom as they set about to unwittingly prove that certain divisions within the police force consider themselves to be above oversight.
Even though I found the report to be dry, sterile, and at times heartless, it does clearly expose that the police analysis of the threat Ruatoki posed, (the police believed that the entire valley was in on a scheme of armed uprising against the state to overtake a piece of land that was already theirs…) was completed flawed, and they broke many laws in their actions on that day and in the years prior to the raids with illegal spying.
It however fails to connect the dots between the damage caused by the police actions to the community they were enacted on.
In fact I wonder if this report is of any real use to Tuhoe at all other than to reinforce what everyone already knows and perhaps as a legal basis for legal action.
This Waco styled approach and intention on the day was clear, as it has been said by many who it was a show of force to the people of Ruatoki and the wider Tuhoe communities, to create fear in their hearts in order to remind Tuhoe whose boss, so to speak.
I can personally attest to the way in which over-zealous state forces surrounded and dealt with those living in the whare I was resident at.
Those of Tuhoe Lamberts whanau that were dragged out of the house and made to kneel against the fence out on the road in the pouring rain for an hour while they watched their father be cuffed, interrogated and eventually dragged away.
Rifles were held against the back of the heads of all those terrified whanau there that day, with complete disregard of age, young and old alike.
After the four weeks heads up the crown's executive branch, and police were given to prepare their spin for today’s press release, John Key this morning defined the police conduct as being, "a little bit wrong".
The dictionary has a quite different definition for this.
The report is so late in coming that its recommendations of policy change have already allegedly been implemented some years ago by the cops, and laws amended to make what was illegal, legal, as is the common practice these days.
So for many that were victims of this, this report and its accompanied vacant apology from the police commissioner would be no more than a painful reminder of this yet unresolved crime committed by the state against the people of Tuhoe.
Taku aroha tonu e te iwi o Ngai Tuhoe, me mau tonu raa koutou i te kawau maro.
Te Rangikaiwhiria Kemara
#lifeinside with Te Rangikaiwhiria Kemara
A Question and Answer interview with Te Rangikaiwhiria Kemara
Tell us about Prison is it everything you thought it would be?
I had been wondering where all the Maori had gone to, assumed we were all moving abroad, turns out we are just getting locked up in droves, over and over again. For most Maori and working class people being imprisoned is like being kicked out of a burning 747 without a parachute. The system of rehabilitation in here is akin to being put through the theory part of a parachute making course while falling. Once Maori enter the prison system we rarely escape its revolving door policy. Iwi, hapu, and whanau need to custom design their own solutions to this issue. Anything has to be better than what is going on in here.
You said once or something to the effect that having hope in the State and the System undermined the effectiveness of movements for rapid social change? What are your thoughts on this issue?
Im going to have to use another metaphor, hope in that sense can be compared to a donkey chasing after a dozen carrots proverbially suspended from its head. Connected to the donkey is a cart full of freeloaders calling themselves business and political leaders. Each iwi, each hapu, each community needs to stop chasing carrots and begin determining their own future from within their own means, values and geography etc. We call this Mana Motuhake.
So you are an anarchist then?
I would say I am a Maniapoto ….. Rereahu … of the Rohe Potae
Among other things you’ve worked as a web programmer and as an avid permaculturist but you were also a professional musician and composer. What are your thoughts on the roles of artists and musicians and social change?
Tame of course is known as an artist with one of his recent paintings on the cover of National Geographic, myself and my co-accused Urs Signer are both professional musicians. In the past artists have been crucial to social change. You know your art has challenged bigotry, racism and falsities of the powerful when it comes back to bite you in some shape or form. The life sentences being handed out to electronic graffiti artists, members of the Anonymous movement are a recent example of this along with punk band Pussy Riot who got jailed in Russia for mocking Putin. A relevant local example would be the artistic enactment in Ruatoki in 2005 which had the media plastering images of Tame shooting a flag on the marae atea. This of course led to the government spy operation and lock down of Ruatoki. 18 people were arrested, many of whom were artists, musicians and creative dancers. Art that doesn’t move, inspire or provoke is just fancy wallpaper really. Art and Activism can be like close cousins if the artist chooses.
Tell us about your latest projects?
Most stuff is on hold or in planning stages for obvious reasons. The most advanced in terms of development would be the work I was doing as a part of a small collective called Te Karaka o te Waonui based in the Rereahu territory developing a modern type of native food forest. The premise being that forests should be self sustaining ecosystems providing food and medicine rather than nice places to have a picnic that sort of thing. We are endeavouring to transform a neglected park in Bennydale, eco-sourcing seedlings of food and medicine bearing native trees, bushes and vines to create a snapshot of what is possible.
*interview held with Teanau Tuiono over the phone
*interview held with Teanau Tuiono over the phone
The Days the Raids Came
This article by Te Rangikaiwhiria was originally published in the book 'The day the raids came' - by the good people at Rebel Press
Go back to Sunday, 14 October 2007: the night before the raids. I had been in bed all day. I had hurt my back the day before, so I spent the whole day lying down. I was watching these undercover cars going past, wondering what the hell was going on out there. The day before our neighbours had been in a huge fight, and they had wrecked their place, so I assumed that the cops were looking at them. I was inside my caravan, parked just in front of Tuhoe Lambert’s house in Manurewa.
About 4.30 in the morning, I woke up to a couple of cars sitting outside; again, I assumed it was the neighbours because of the events that had taken place. Tuhoe and his wife Aida were awake. They always woke up at about 4.30 in the morning and had a cup of tea. I went back inside the caravan and lay down. More and more cars were arriving outside and parking down the street.
Where the caravan was situated, it was like a sound shell; I could hear everything. There was an enormous noise and a whole lot of shouting. I could hear the cops yelling at the neighbours. I thought they were raiding them; it seemed like a full-on bloody raid. But as their voices became clearer, I could hear that they were actually telling the neighbours to get back in the house. It took a minute or two before I suddenly realised: No, they are actually raiding me—raiding us. I stepped outside the caravan. In my initial shock, it seemed that the sky had been lit up with stars. It was, in fact, the police lights on the front of their guns that lit up the place; it was almost like standing in a glowworm cave.
Almost every corner of the property had guys with guns hanging over the fence. The cops were on the megaphone yelling for me to come out. As I was about to step out from behind the caravan there were armed officers on either side, right around in a semi-circle. The ones that were on my left were yelling that I had a gun in my hand, which was crap. It was one of those situations that either I stepped out and got nailed, or they would come around the corner and nail me. So I had this little thought to yell out that I had no gun. I thought that would ruin their day, and make things more difficult. I said about three or four times that there was no gun. ‘No gun. No gun. No gun,’ I said and then stepped out from behind the caravan.
At this point I was escorted out by armed men. They were not your average armed offenders. You see the AOS on TV all the time. These people were another level up. They were an elite squad brought in for this particular raid. They did the first part of the raid. They brought me out and lined me up against the fence outside. Then about five minutes later everyone who was in the house was brought out. There were quite a few people staying at the house because there had been a family gathering the night before. We ended up lining up right down the block, about half the street. We were placed down against the fence, handcuffed and forced to kneel down on the pavement. There was an armed officer standing behind each one of us with a rifle to our head.
Tuhoe’s partner, Aida, became very agitated because the younger people had firearms to the backs of their heads. She began to voice her opinion about that quite strongly. The police reaction of course was to try and shut everyone up, but they were unable to silence that kuia. It was obviously a distressing thing for everyone involved, but much more distressing to see children put through that process.
We were handcuffed with those little plastic cuffs. Then it started to rain quite hard. It was pouring down. Not only were we kneeling there against the fence with all the neighbours watching and dozens and dozens of very hyped-up crazy police behind us yelling and screaming, but it started pissing down rain. I was thinking, Gee, I wish I had put on a raincoat before coming out.
The cops then tried their separation techniques. They put us in different areas to try to coerce a quick confession or to achieve whatever they were trying do. I had seen this type of thing in the past. It had happened to other people. I had also been through something similar to this once before and had seen the type of destruction these cops can do. They are so amped up; they will go to any length to achieve what they want.
They were looking for firearms. They wanted to search the car. I could have sat back and said, ‘Stuff you, you’re not going to get anything from me,’ but they would just break everything—break the caravan, break the house, break the car. So when I was trying to explain where my car keys were, I said, ‘They are right there by my firearms licence.’ That is when the next big dialogue took place. One of the officers was quite adamant that there was no way I had a firearms licence. It occurred to me then that they had obviously mis-instructed these guys in order to get them so heightened and amped up, and oddly enough, almost shaking in their boots. It was kind of strange for me; really it should have been the other way around, and for part of the time, it was. I noticed the dissipation of their anxiety the moment that they realised that they had been misinformed. It was almost like letting the air out of a balloon. It was like night and day between two different events and the attitudes of the officers.
After that, they were exchanged out; the commando cops were pulled out and replaced with the ‘normal’ armed offenders squad. The second team of about 15 to 20 cops came in, and they were wearing the ‘normal’ armed offenders black garb. They maintained the scene until the detectives who had obviously ordered the whole thing turned up. Once they took over, the armed offenders were pulled out, and a whole lot of armed police in blue uniforms turned up. So there were three entirely different sets of police at the place.
At that point, I didn’t realise that a whole lot more people had been arrested. I thought someone must have complained to the cops because they saw one of my hunting rifles being loaded into or unloaded from my car. I hadn’t worked out exactly what was the purpose behind this entire masquerade, until I was questioned by one of the detectives, Hamish McDonald.
He said, ‘We are going to charge you with unlawful possession of firearms.’
And I said something along the lines of, ‘Unlawful possession? How is it possible that I can unlawfully possess firearms that I lawfully bought?’
The thought hadn’t really crossed my mind at the time that such a thing was possible, but apparently it was. That of course was all within the thinking that maybe someone must have complained.
Then McDonald said, ‘We also want to question you about terrorism.’
Then I thought, Whoa. Hang on. That’s not a neighbour complaining about a firearm being loaded into the car out of my gun vault. We are talking about the silly stuff now. It was then that I had to resign myself to the fact that this was going to be a long one; it was not going to be an in’n’out today event. They had gone beyond the issue of whether something was criminal or not, they had stepped into the political realm of silly irrationality and illogical absolutism.
Go back to Sunday, 14 October 2007: the night before the raids. I had been in bed all day. I had hurt my back the day before, so I spent the whole day lying down. I was watching these undercover cars going past, wondering what the hell was going on out there. The day before our neighbours had been in a huge fight, and they had wrecked their place, so I assumed that the cops were looking at them. I was inside my caravan, parked just in front of Tuhoe Lambert’s house in Manurewa.
About 4.30 in the morning, I woke up to a couple of cars sitting outside; again, I assumed it was the neighbours because of the events that had taken place. Tuhoe and his wife Aida were awake. They always woke up at about 4.30 in the morning and had a cup of tea. I went back inside the caravan and lay down. More and more cars were arriving outside and parking down the street.
Where the caravan was situated, it was like a sound shell; I could hear everything. There was an enormous noise and a whole lot of shouting. I could hear the cops yelling at the neighbours. I thought they were raiding them; it seemed like a full-on bloody raid. But as their voices became clearer, I could hear that they were actually telling the neighbours to get back in the house. It took a minute or two before I suddenly realised: No, they are actually raiding me—raiding us. I stepped outside the caravan. In my initial shock, it seemed that the sky had been lit up with stars. It was, in fact, the police lights on the front of their guns that lit up the place; it was almost like standing in a glowworm cave.
Almost every corner of the property had guys with guns hanging over the fence. The cops were on the megaphone yelling for me to come out. As I was about to step out from behind the caravan there were armed officers on either side, right around in a semi-circle. The ones that were on my left were yelling that I had a gun in my hand, which was crap. It was one of those situations that either I stepped out and got nailed, or they would come around the corner and nail me. So I had this little thought to yell out that I had no gun. I thought that would ruin their day, and make things more difficult. I said about three or four times that there was no gun. ‘No gun. No gun. No gun,’ I said and then stepped out from behind the caravan.
At this point I was escorted out by armed men. They were not your average armed offenders. You see the AOS on TV all the time. These people were another level up. They were an elite squad brought in for this particular raid. They did the first part of the raid. They brought me out and lined me up against the fence outside. Then about five minutes later everyone who was in the house was brought out. There were quite a few people staying at the house because there had been a family gathering the night before. We ended up lining up right down the block, about half the street. We were placed down against the fence, handcuffed and forced to kneel down on the pavement. There was an armed officer standing behind each one of us with a rifle to our head.
Tuhoe’s partner, Aida, became very agitated because the younger people had firearms to the backs of their heads. She began to voice her opinion about that quite strongly. The police reaction of course was to try and shut everyone up, but they were unable to silence that kuia. It was obviously a distressing thing for everyone involved, but much more distressing to see children put through that process.
We were handcuffed with those little plastic cuffs. Then it started to rain quite hard. It was pouring down. Not only were we kneeling there against the fence with all the neighbours watching and dozens and dozens of very hyped-up crazy police behind us yelling and screaming, but it started pissing down rain. I was thinking, Gee, I wish I had put on a raincoat before coming out.
The cops then tried their separation techniques. They put us in different areas to try to coerce a quick confession or to achieve whatever they were trying do. I had seen this type of thing in the past. It had happened to other people. I had also been through something similar to this once before and had seen the type of destruction these cops can do. They are so amped up; they will go to any length to achieve what they want.
They were looking for firearms. They wanted to search the car. I could have sat back and said, ‘Stuff you, you’re not going to get anything from me,’ but they would just break everything—break the caravan, break the house, break the car. So when I was trying to explain where my car keys were, I said, ‘They are right there by my firearms licence.’ That is when the next big dialogue took place. One of the officers was quite adamant that there was no way I had a firearms licence. It occurred to me then that they had obviously mis-instructed these guys in order to get them so heightened and amped up, and oddly enough, almost shaking in their boots. It was kind of strange for me; really it should have been the other way around, and for part of the time, it was. I noticed the dissipation of their anxiety the moment that they realised that they had been misinformed. It was almost like letting the air out of a balloon. It was like night and day between two different events and the attitudes of the officers.
After that, they were exchanged out; the commando cops were pulled out and replaced with the ‘normal’ armed offenders squad. The second team of about 15 to 20 cops came in, and they were wearing the ‘normal’ armed offenders black garb. They maintained the scene until the detectives who had obviously ordered the whole thing turned up. Once they took over, the armed offenders were pulled out, and a whole lot of armed police in blue uniforms turned up. So there were three entirely different sets of police at the place.
At that point, I didn’t realise that a whole lot more people had been arrested. I thought someone must have complained to the cops because they saw one of my hunting rifles being loaded into or unloaded from my car. I hadn’t worked out exactly what was the purpose behind this entire masquerade, until I was questioned by one of the detectives, Hamish McDonald.
He said, ‘We are going to charge you with unlawful possession of firearms.’
And I said something along the lines of, ‘Unlawful possession? How is it possible that I can unlawfully possess firearms that I lawfully bought?’
The thought hadn’t really crossed my mind at the time that such a thing was possible, but apparently it was. That of course was all within the thinking that maybe someone must have complained.
Then McDonald said, ‘We also want to question you about terrorism.’
Then I thought, Whoa. Hang on. That’s not a neighbour complaining about a firearm being loaded into the car out of my gun vault. We are talking about the silly stuff now. It was then that I had to resign myself to the fact that this was going to be a long one; it was not going to be an in’n’out today event. They had gone beyond the issue of whether something was criminal or not, they had stepped into the political realm of silly irrationality and illogical absolutism.
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