Maori activists raided in Ureweras under Anti-Terrorism Act

[Ahknaton]

IRA-style war plan revealed

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4240093a25364.html

Tame Iti was preparing to declare an IRA-style war on New Zealand in a bid to establish his long-standing dream of an independent Tuhoe nation, according to police documents.

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A source close to The Dominion Post said the documents disclosed by police to legal parties for the accused showed police had been monitoring Iti's movements for 18 months, videoing and photographing his Urewera commando training camps and intercepting text messages sent by Iti to his co-conspirators.

Iti christened the group "Rama", the Maori word for enlightenment, and is alleged to have stated three months ago that he had stopped all his other activities in order to "make war on New Zealand".

The source described the movement as "comical" and "amateurish", with the group purchasing military uniforms from an Auckland army surplus store.

Numbering about 20, the participants were predominantly based in Auckland. Many were in their late teens, the youngest a 15-year-old girl.

During the training camps members were required to wear balaclavas in order to hide their identities from each other, and many of their methods were based on a "green book IRA manual".

It is understood several of the group are former New Zealand Army soldiers, some of whom fought in the Vietnam War.

Iti is alleged to have purchased shotgun ammunition from an Auckland gun shop and tried to obtain grenade launchers.

It is not clear from the documents whether he succeeded.

But a document does suggest the arms dealer was willing to obtain grenade launchers.

No mention of targets is made in the documents, but it is believed the only explosives to which the group had access were Molotov cocktails.

The group was allegedly trained in ambushes and "IRA-style attacks", with a "key camp" being held in the Ureweras last November.

Much of the police evidence is based on text messages sent between group members.

The police documents show the group had been under continuous electronic and visual surveillance.

No mention is made in the documents of which government intelligence units were involved.

Nine of the people arrested and charged after Monday's raids remain in custody following court appearances yesterday.

Jamie Beattie Lockett, 46, unemployed, of Takanini, appeared in Auckland District Court yesterday morning, and was initially granted bail.

The Crown appealed against this decision and Lockett's bail was revoked by a High Court judge later in the evening.

The Crown said police had intercepted text messages sent by Lockett, saying he was intending to launch a war on New Zealand.

"I'm training up to be a vicious, dangerous commando," one message said; another text stated "white men are going to die in this country".

Lockett, who said he was a friend of Iti, did not apply for name suppression.

He said he was not involved in any illegal activity: "I have never, ever, transported a gun or ammunition in any vehicle in New Zealand. I'm anti-ammunition and guns." He dismissed police evidence against him as "lies, weak and uninvestigated".

Four other men and a woman also appeared in Auckland District Court on firearms charges, including possession of a military-style semi-automatic weapon, an automatic rifle, Molotov cocktails and a rifle.

All five, aged between 18 and 58, successfully sought name suppression and have been remanded in custody till their next court appearance on Friday.

Iti is to appear in Rotorua District Court this morning to find out whether his application for bail has been successful.

Iti and a woman, who was granted name suppression, appeared in court yesterday charged with firearms offences.

The woman has been remanded in custody till October 29.

A man, 53, was remanded in custody in Palmerston North after appearing in court on two charges of unlawful possession of a firearm.

[Ahknaton]

Tame Iti - the face of Maori nationalism

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10127889

12:00AM Saturday May 28, 2005
By Catherine Masters

http://www.stuff.co.nz/images/333533.jpg

Tame Iti sat in the classroom of his little rural school in the Ureweras as a 10-year-old and struggled to understand what the headmaster had just said. No one was allowed to speak Maori anywhere in the school.

It was the early 1960s. Iti was no rebel back then but deep inside rebellion stirred and rippled through the class. He and the other students looked at one another in disbelief.

Maori was their first language, spoken at home in Ruatoki, their Tuhoe birthplace nestled in the foothills of the wild and rugged Ureweras, where people got around on horseback.

The headmaster's edict was a defining moment for Iti. He says his activism was born that day. To make matters worse, the headmaster was Maori, from Waikato, a victim of colonisation, says Iti.

"If you can imagine yourself in a room and you are the blackbird and then the other blackbird decided that nobody is allowed to sing like a blackbird, it's all the seagull language.

"So you can imagine, there's going to be resistance. I think that's the first action that took place. We kind of talked to one another and I think we all said things like f *** you, in our own language, in our own way."

And they carried on speaking Maori. The shy Iti was among the first pupils to be told to remain after school. His punishments were to write 100 lines of "I will not speak Maori" or to collect a wheelbarrow of horse and cow dung from the animals in the schoolyard. Iti received these punishments quite often.

Flash forward to this month. In a courtroom in Whakatane, the 53-year-old veteran protester is speaking te reo Tuhoe. He is conducting his own defence against firearms charges, and the hearing is in Maori.

A translator is present and Iti's comments pass through the translator and are relayed to whoever is on the stand and to the magistrates.

Anything asked of him in English travels back through the translator and is repeated in Maori. Occasionally, Iti becomes impatient with the translation and asks a question in English.

To have the hearing in Maori is the kind of ploy that annoys many Pakeha. They see him tying up court time, deliberately spinning out a process which would be faster if everyone spoke in English.

Iti admits he can speak and understand English just fine these days, although it was not always that way.

It is not a ploy, though, he says. He expresses himself better in Maori, and why shouldn't he speak the language of his birth, the one he was punished for speaking as a child? "It's a right to speak in your language."

Tuhoe, one of the last people to be reached by the Europeans, have one of the highest percentages of fluent Maori speakers. Iti speaks the language as often as he can.

The court case, which is ongoing, relates to shots being fired during a passionate Tuhoe re-enactment of what is known as the scorched earth policy - where the Crown destroyed crops and homes, starved, killed and arrested people and confiscated lands in the 1860s - and Iti's subsequent arrest for unlawful possession of a shotgun.

Iti says through the interpreter he is there "to debate with you the mana of Tuhoe that has been compromised, trampled by Pakeha". He speaks of it being nearly 100 years since the police went to the sacred mountain of Maungapohatu in the Ureweras to arrest Rua Kenana (a Tuhoe prophet fighting the Pakeha system) who was put on trial for allegedly breaking the laws of New Zealand, "so this is not a new experience for me today".

Now and then people in the public gallery quietly say kia ora as Iti talks of Tuhoe's stolen land and the degradations imposed on the people.

Later, in a cafe in Whakatane, Iti says to understand him you have to understand Tuhoe. Actually, you have to be Tuhoe.

His is the most recognisable face of Maori nationalism. He is the short, stocky warrior with the full moko who turns up at protests and land occupations baring his buttocks or spitting. He is the one who emptied his nostrils at Maori MPs during the hikoi against the foreshore and seabed legislation.

Some of the words about him heard on talkback radio and used in letters to the editor include, "pig", "savage", "embarrassment" and "posturing pest". His supporters use other words, among them "savvy", "smart", "loving", "kind", and "softie".

There is no sign of any buttock- baring today, just a congenial and hungry member of Tuhoe. Is he really a pig, or a savage?

"He's a sweetie," says the young Pakeha waitress behind the counter. "A pussy cat," she adds, sounding a bit squishy. A cousin supporting him at court says he is a "a sweetie, a big, huge teddy bear".

But not everyone thinks he is sweet. Members of his own tribe are sometimes embarrassed by his methods. A Tuhoe mother from Ruatoki cringes at the mention of his name.

She does not like the spitting and snotting. She worries all Tuhoe will get a bad name when he does this. But she agrees with his message, just not the method.

Tuhoe elders, too, have at times apologised for Iti's public behaviour. But Tuhoe kaumatua Peter Keepa says since Iti began speaking out no one has stopped him "because what he really says is the truth".

Others say Iti is a good role model for the young. He is anti-drugs, does not drink alcohol, does not smoke. And he walks his talk regarding Tuhoe custom and rights.

Iti was born on a train, or so he was told, just out of Rotorua.

"Yeah, yeah, on a wagon train, never quite made it to hospital." The story goes he was placed in a nail box and given to whangai grandparents, Hukarere and Te Peku Purewa, who raised him.

In the whangai tradition children are raised not by their biological parents but by others in the whanau. Iti calls them his grandparents but the man was a "great grand uncle" who came from the same whakapapa and who also raised Iti's biological father.

"I think that altogether the couple raised something like 20 or 30 kids."

He grew up in a small house built in the 1930s on a farm in Ruatoki. "A kitchen, a bedroom but no lounge room, no bathroom, outside toilet, no power, water tank. You have a bath in the river and the stream.

"I wouldn't say hardcore but, you know, survival. I learned a lot. You learn to keep the place clean, simple, nice, comfortable. We were warm, we were well dressed, we were well kept, we went to school."

There was a lot of love and a lot of hard labour. His backyard was the mountains, the bush and the river.

"I had the body of a guy who worked out in a gym. Horseriding was the main transportation, the old man never owned a car, never had a TV."

He learned to work with the animals, chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys and pigs, and he milked an awful lot of cows. "We had everything but we were brought up to conserve food because we never had fridges."

He was never a naughty child and, hard to believe now, he suffered from shyness. "I was a very quiet boy, very quiet. In a lot of ways, I'm still quiet."

He is not shy any more and thinks shyness comes from fear, a fear of making mistakes, of saying the wrong things at the wrong time in the wrong place.

As a teenager in Ruatoki, a teacher told the students about apprenticeships. Iti could have chosen to go into forestry, mechanics or panel beating. But he chose an apprenticeship in interior decorating and left for Christchurch at 15.

"I didn't know where I was going, I just picked anything to get away from milking cows."

He was still shy in Christchurch. He could read and write English but found it hard to articulate. In his third week he saw a notice at the hostel and went to English classes a couple of nights a week with an old Pakeha lady. He is fond of her, she helped him.

Iti grew in confidence and Iti-the-revolutionary emerged. The frustrations of his past and his people's history took voice.

It was the late 1960s. The Maori nationalist movement was growing in parallel with the struggle for equality for blacks in America, opposition to apartheid in South Africa and class struggles around the world.

Iti met others in the struggle for Maori sovereignty and he joined the left. He protested against the Vietnam War, he protested against racism.

He joined numerous protests against sporting links with South Africa. He joined the New Zealand Communist Party and went to China in 1973 during the cultural revolution.

He was involved early on with Maori protest group Nga Tamatoa.

He claims to have been in contact with revolutionary movements around the world, from the African National Congress while Nelson Mandela was locked up, to freedom fighters in East Timor. The Vietcong National Liberation Front was his first contact to the revolutionary movement, he says.

Outside Tuhoe, his heroes are still Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Lenin and Ho Chi Min. "They inspired me. [They were] people very determined in their thoughts and philosophies, they were guided by their ideology and principle. I have a lot of respect for people with strong principles, right or wrong, it doesn't matter. I might not agree with it but I have respect."

He has continually bucked the system in New Zealand and could talk for hours about the impact of colonisation. "You've got nearly 100,000 Maori here who don't know where they come from, they know they're Maori, that's about it.

"The whole thing about colonisation is to train these natives to be obedient, trained puppy dogs, so when you bark you've only got to bark at a certain time, a certain day.

"There's two kinds of being brought up in our world: being brought up at home and being brainwashed at school and so it can cause a bit of brain damage. That's how my life was."

When asked whether the hurt will always be there, he says you can just as easily ask the Scottish or the Irish the same question. It was the same people who committed atrocities there who came here.

"Tuhoe was part and parcel of that whole global domination. We're still dealing with it today."

The only power people really have is the right to speak and assert their mana. His message is "don't be shy to stand up and say who you are".

The baring of buttocks which so inflames people is part of his culture, he says. It is only shocking to those not raised with it. Actions like this are a language in themselves. He does not have to justify why he does it and will not justify it.

If it is seen as an insult, so be it. The Crown has insulted Maori repeatedly through murder, theft of land, denigration of language and culture.

"The law itself has committed a crime against the Waikato people, the Taranaki people and the Tuhoe people. To me, that's more insulting. A little bit of spit has no power."

But he does not hate Pakeha. "Understand that it's the system that I don't like. The system is full of holes."

There are many other aspects to Iti. He is an employee of Tuhoe, a long-time social worker in drug and alcohol addiction. He paints, he used to have a gallery. He used to have a restaurant in Auckland serving traditional food. He used to have radio shows and was a DJ.

He is a father and grandfather, with two adult children and an 11-year-old boy. He softens when he talks about his family.

When asked about that alternative "teddy bear" image, he doesn't flinch. "I think that whole tough image is created by the media."

He admits he uses the media sometimes, but sometimes it uses him, pitching him a certain way. His children suffer through the image sometimes, he confesses, but it is part of what makes them strong.

"I know when my little boy was confronted by some kids at school, those kids said to him, 'your dad is a pig' and he said to these kids 'don't you speak to me like that'."

When one of his adult sons, Wairere, was young he came home one day saying he had a new name. The teacher could not pronounce Wairere so called him Chappie.

Iti remembers telling the boy to pronounce his name correctly for the teacher then tell him Iti would call on him in a month. A month later he asked his son how it was going and the boy said: "Oh, now my name is Wairere, not Chappie."

Iti chuckles. He loves fatherhood and says this is a side of him people do not see. "I mean, I still kiss my big boys, you know, 30-year-olds, I still give them a big kiss on the lips."

[Ahknaton]

Crown claims activist declared war on NZ

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4239580a25364.html

'White men are going to die in this country' | Tuesday, 16 October 2007

A man bailed after being arrested as part of nationwide police raids on suspected weapons training camps yesterday is tonight back in custody.

Jamie Beattie Lockett, 46, of Takanini in Auckland was bailed by Auckland District Court Judge Josephine Bouchier this morning after appearing on firearms charges.

That decision was overturned last night in a late sitting at the High Court in Auckland following an appeal from the Crown.

Justice Helen Winkelmann said Judge Bouchier had failed to take into account that further "more serious" charges could be against Lockett under the Terrorism Suppression Act.

Police had produced a photograph "retrieved" from a security camera yesterday morning showing men wearing camouflage clothes and balaclavas training at a "para military-style" training camp in the Urerewas.

While only two of the group had so far been identified, police alleged Lockett attended the same camp about the same time.

Lockett was remanded in custody until Friday.

Lockett, who represented himself and had waived his right to interim name suppression, was one of five people who appeared in Auckland District Court yesterday after the police raids.

The Crown opposed his bail application at the hearing this morning.

But Judge Josephine Bouchier said at the time that on the evidence before her at the moment, Lockett could not be considered to pose such a significant danger to the public that he should be in custody.

Judge Bouchier said it was difficult to assess the strength of the Crown's evidence.

The Crown said police had intercepted communications in which statements like the following had been uttered:

# "I'm training up to be a vicious, dangerous commando";

# "White men are going to die in this country";

# "I'm at war. I'm declaring war on this country very soon".

It described Lockett as someone who was an active participant in a group that had the potential to make a violent impact on New Zealand society.

The charges Lockett faces relate to alleged offences in January, April and June.

Police yesterday arrested 17 people after executing search warrants carried out under the Firearms Act and the Terrorism Suppression Act in Wellington, Auckland, Palmerston North, Christchurch, Hamilton, Whakatane and Ruatoki, which is 20 kilometres south of Whakatane.

Police Commissioner Howard Broad said the raids were the culmination of a year-long investigation into weapons training camps alleged to have been held in the Eastern Bay of Plenty.

Firearms and reportedly a napalm bomb were seized in the raids.

Mr Lockett said he was effectively kidnapped by police, Radio New Zealand reported.

Meanwhile, Wellington activist Sam Buchanan, whose house was raided yesterday, said it was likely people using his house had links with prominent Maori activist Tame Iti, who was among the people arrested in yesterday's raids. But he said there was absolutely no chance terrorists had been meeting at his house.

SUSPEND JUDGEMENT ON POLICE UNTIL TRIALS - KING

Police Minister Annette King said people should withhold judgment on yesterday's police raids until cases go through the courts.

She was asked today if police had overreacted in their swoop and arrests as part of an investigation into alleged weapons training camps.

"Police have to do what they have to do, they have to decide how, when and where. It's not for me or for people standing on the sidelines to decide that," she said.

"We have to rely on their judgment to do that and we will see in the fullness of time what their actions bring."

Ms King said if police had made the right decisions or not would be revealed when cases went to court.

She said the Government had no role in the operation.

"I don't decide what call they make and it's not a political decision and it would be a sad day in New Zealand when the Minister of Police tells them who to arrest and who not to arrest. You'd really worry about a police state if that was the case."

The Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill is before Parliament due for a second reading.

Some of the people yesterday may be charged under the Terrorism Suppression Act and Ms King was asked if the timing was favourable for the Government.

"There's no politics behind this action, in fact we were not aware there was an operation in place until the commissioner advised us that he was terminating an almost year-long operation," she said.

She did not think police's decision about the operation had anything to do with politics either.

"I don't believe the police are playing politics, I think that is a pretty unfair suggestion. They have to make decisions on the evidence they have and I suspect that anything had happened you would be standing here saying to me 'why didn't the useless cops do something about it'?"

RAIDED GROUP'S PLANS 'WILL HORRIFY MIDDLE NZ'

One left-leaning commentator who says he has links to political activist movements says "middle New Zealand will recoil in horror" when it hears the reasons behind yesterday's raids by police.

Martyn "Bomber" Bradbury said on one blog site that he had been talking to people in the activist community and was concerned that the activities of some "clowns" could lead to a backlash from the wider public.

"If the allegations as I understand them are true, this country is about to get very, very, very angry," Mr Bradbury said.

"Though I don't believe for one moment what will be revealed is anything more than stupid arrogant boasts... middle New Zealand will recoil in horror."

PROMINENT ACTIVIST TAME ITI AMONG THE ARRESTS

Fourteen people including high profile Maori activist Tame Iti appeared in court yesterday.

Iti, facing eight charges relating to possessing firearms and molotov cocktails, is due to reappear in Rotorua District Court again this afternoon to apply for bail.

Assistant Police commissioner Jon White said today there was at least one area in Ruatoki that was still subject to being searched and police wanted to talk to more people.

"The operation was not completed yesterday. There's a number of inquiries to complete as you might expect when you undertake activities of this scale and nature - it leads to other inquiries and so our work is far from finished," he said on Radio New Zealand.

However, police had scaled back their presence in Ruatoki, he said.

Waiariki MP Te Ururoa Flavell yesterday questioned the manner in which police had carried out the raids in Ruatoki and the surrounding Urewera Valley.

He said a school bus was searched and Maori families living in the area felt "intimidated" and "harassed" by the anti-terrorism raids.

Mr White said police obtained warrants under the Terrorism Suppression Act, despite the offenders only facing firearms charges, because police believed there was evidence which could point towards offences under the act.

"We have to go to the solicitor-general, who has the delegated authority under the attorney-general, to gives his consent to any charges under the Terrorism Suppression Act."

The commissioner was assessing all the evidence before he decided whether or not he would apply to the solicitor-general to lay charges under the Act, he said.

In his blog, Mr Bradbury said he believed the police had been right to be concerned.

"There is going to be outrage when the full story gets out the likes of which talkback has never dreamt of."

Mr Bradbury gained some public attention for his public defences of Tim Selwyn who was jailed for sedition.

Elsewhere on anarchist web sites and independent media blogs meetings and protests were being against what they described as continuing repression by the state.

RAIDED CAMPS 'FOCUSSED ON HEALTH AND EDUCATION'

A member of the group running "weapons" training camps in the eastern Bay of Plenty raided by police yesterday were merely running fitness camps with an emphasis on health and education.

The man, known only as Dave, said the organisation was about 4000-strong and had been running monthly fitness camps in the Ureweras for more than a year.

He described the group as well-organised and well-disciplined, focusing on racism, mental health and "corruption in our Government".

Dave said the camps were training for health.

"You go down there, it's a very open forum. You can talk about things, you can go for a decent trek through the bush but you have to be reasonably fit do so."

He refused to comment on whether weapons were involved in the camps or with the group, but did say: "We have the ability to protect New Zealand in the event of any threat from any other country".

Dave said the group was not just about activism, although it did want land titles changed so land was returned to Maori.

It was made up of Europeans, Maori, Pacific Islanders and Americans. It was open to men and women and had no links to terrorist organisations.

"It's not a Maori activist bunch of people. We are there for fitness, we are there for education, we are there for mental health and we are there for the long-term goals of New Zealanders."

Maori broadcaster and Nga Puhi elder Kingi Taurua, who was approached by Tame Iti to teach "bush craft survival" in the Urewera ranges, said he saw nothing sinister in the courses.

"I don't know nothing about weapons. All he said was to train the kids [in] bushcraft survival in the bush."

Iti told him he was training young people and asked him to help because of his experience in the army, Mr Taurua told Radio New Zealand.

"I didn't see anything wrong with teaching people. I mean if you ring me and asked me to teach you how to survive in the bush, I will teach you and that's what it was.

"That's how I took it. I thought it was a good idea to teach young people survival skills."

He was unable to do it because he had other commitments and had to look after his wife, who had suffered a stroke, during the weekends, he said.

He had spoken to police about this yesterday, and everything that had gone on had given him a "bloody fright", Mr Taurua said.

"It gave me the bloody shits...and I'm bloody glad I didn't go."

- stuff.co.nz, NZPA

[Ahknaton]

More serious charges possible in terror op

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4238342a10.html

A nationwide police swoop this morning in connnection with alleged guerrilla style training camps in the Bay of Plenty has resulted in 17 arrests for firearms charges, with the potential for more serious charges to be laid.

So far at least 12 people have appeared in court, facing charges under the Firearms Act and have been remanded in custody.

Those arrested appeared in district courts in Wellington, Rotorua, Palmerston North, Hamilton and Auckland.

Maori, environmental and political activists were targeted by the raids, which began in the early hours of this morning.

Dozens of Armed Offender Squad and secret Special Tactics Group officers were this afternoon in place around Ruatoki, about 15 kilometres south of Whakatane, along with a large number of uniformed and plain clothed police.

Sunday Star Times reporter Tony Wall, who is on the scene, says the main focus appears to be on a bach where the prominent activist Tame Iti lives and Te Ao Hou Maori health trust where he works as a social worker.

Iti, 55, appeared in Rotorua District Court facing eight charges relating to possessing firearms and molotov cocktails.

Judge James Rota asked the media and about 10 members of the public to leave while Iti and the woman's cases were dealt with.

He said he made the ruling given the uncertainty of the charges and the defendants' futures on the face of "scant information" before the court.

"The court is erring on the side of caution."

Iti was remanded in custody for a bail application to be made tomorrow at 3pm.

Mr Iti's lawyers strongly deny he has any terrorist connections.

Police this morning executed search warrants around the North Island with Police Commissioner Howard Broad saying they had moved "in the interests of public safety".

Firearms were seized and Mr Broad said the raids resulted from an investigation into suspected weapons training camps held over the past year in the Eastern Bay of Plenty.

A high level secret government group based out of Prime Minister Helen Clark's office has been involved in the unprecedented operation.

The search warrants were carried out under the Firearms Act and the Terrorism Suppression Act.

Today is the first time New Zealand police have used the powers conferred on them by the Terrorism Suppression Act, which came into force in 2002.

During television coverage of the raids tonight, TV One News reported it understood there had been "a threat" to the safety of Prime Minister Helen Clark.

A spokeswoman for the prime minister said she could not comment on the report, and referred to Miss Clark's response earlier today when reporters asked if any threats had been made against her or other politicians.

Miss Clark's reply was that she did not comment on security matters but she had not noticed any increase in her own security arrangements.

Mr Broad today told media a number of people had been conducting and participating in Bay of Plenty training camps involving the use of firearms and other weapons.

"Based on the information and the activity known to have taken place, I decided it was prudent that action should be taken in the interests of public safety."

The numbers of people attending the camps had been in the "tens", he said.

The people involved had been of varying ethnicities, with a raft of different "motivations" for attending.

Training involved the use of firearms and other weapons for "military-style" activity.

Mr Broad said the activity was domestically oriented and there was no evidence of any international connection.

"We're aware that this is the first time that the Terrorism Suppression Act has been considered in terms of an operation," Mr Broad said.

"We are, therefore, proceeding with full care in talking to people and assessing information before we can determine whether there is sufficient evidence to seek the consent of the Attorney General through the Solicitor General to charge anyone under that Act."

Once the operation was over police would assess all information before them before charging anyone under the Terrorism Act.

He urged people not to jump to conclusions.

The Terrorism Act requires the police to seek the approval of the Attorney General before court proceedings are initiated.

Most who appeared in court today faced weapons charges.

This included six people in Auckland, five men and one women, who appeared in the Auckland District Court this afternoon on a mix of firearms charges, including possession of a military-style semi-automatic weapon, an automatic rifle, molotov cocktails and a rifle.

Five of the accused were remanded without plea and in custody till Friday. The names of all were suppressed till their next court appearance.

A sixth man, Jamie Beattie Lockett, 46, unemployed of Takanini, was remanded till 9.30am tomorrow, when his bail application would be heard.

Mr Lockett said he was a friend of Maori activist Tame Iti but had never transported weapons or ammunition as alleged by police. rifles, shotguns and Molotov cocktails.

The four Wellington accused were also granted name suppression.

The two men, aged 28 and 23, and two women, aged 36 and 30, faced a total of 20 charges between them when they appeared in Wellington District Court this afternoon.

The charges were all firearms-related, jointly charged with other people, many not from Wellington.

The four were remanded in custody until Friday, but the judge said an application to transfer the cases to Auckland could be heard on Wednesday afternoon.

The group had a large contingent of supporters, who filled the public gallery for their appearance.

Friends of the four accused expressed shock and disbelief, saying they were all pacifists.

A 24-year-old Hamilton woman has also appeared in the Rotorua District Court and was remanded in custody for two weeks.

Fairfax Media understands the top secret Officials Committee for Domestic and External Security Coordination met at the Beehive earlier this month to hear what was planned for today.

Known as ODESC, the group is chaired by the prime minister and makes high-level decisions on terrorism, security, intelligence and civil defence issues.

It includes the heads of the police and the Defence Force as well as other government departments and agencies.

The Sunday Star Times' Melanie Jones reports that this morning's arrests are the culmination of months of work by a specialist police anti-terror unit which has hundreds of hours of recordings from bugged conversations, video surveillance, and tapped cellphone calls and texts.

Police have video of military-style training with live ammunition in camps deep in the Urewera mountain ranges and expected to find machine guns and grenades during their raids

Campaigners from various Maori sovereignty, environmental and "peace" groups are implicated.

Police units infiltrated the training camps during months of investigation - sometimes being within metres of those firing live rounds.

Investigators believe although the groups were training together, they were each planning to hit targets related to their own interests although all the hits would be co-ordinated to cause maximum chaos and stretching police resources across the country.

Rotorua lawyer Louis Te Kani, who is acting for Mr Iti, told the Sunday Star Times that his client was woken at 4am today near his home in Ruatoki in the Eastern Bay of Plenty.

"From what he's told me, he heard some one rustling outside and from there the police issued instructions for him to come out," Mr Te Kani said.

"He's cooperated with the police and nothing untoward has happened."

Prominent activist and lawyer Annette Sykes, who is representing some of the accused said this morning's raids by police were "overkill" and likened them to "the invasions last century".

"A lot of people had their homes entered this morning," she said.

One man was taken from his family about 6am and questioned by police for several hours. He and about 14 others had since been released without charge.

Ms Sykes said she could not understand why police were using the Suppression of Terrorism Act to conduct the raids.

"They've screwed the people everywhere," she said.

Ms Sykes, told Campbell Live some of the accused "have a history of activism in areas that frankly I can't comment on."

"What is concerning, is the speculation that seems to occur that you can detain people for charges that may, or may not, be brought under a piece of legislation that may, or may not, be invoked and that you should be held in custody while the police do their homework," she told Radio NZ.

"That's hardly a recipe to give confidence to our people that human rights freedoms that we've all fought for, are being looked after carefully in this situation," Ms Sykes said.

[Ahknaton]

http://img.scoop.co.nz/stories/images/0710/c98ad99d9861928dc3ce.jpeg

Indymedia coverage (strongly left-wing perspective):

http://indymedia.org.nz/

Solidarity with the Urewera 17! Free them now!

17 Oct 2007 (Updated)

Update 7:51pm One News reported during their broadcast that Police were currently searching two more houses in Tuhoe country.

Five arrestees appeared in the Rotorua and Wellington District Courts today, after yesterday evening's revoking of Jamie Lockett's bail in the Auckland High Court.

In Rotorua, Tame Iti was denied bail and will reappear on October 24th. In addition, 3 more charges under the Arms Act were laid against him. In Wellington, four arrestees were expected to have a hearing on whether or not their cases would be moved to Auckland, but no decision was reached. All four will reappear on Friday for a bail hearing.

Around 4-5 people in Auckland have been questioned by police on Tuesday and Wednesday, although none have been arrested. It is extremely important that anyone called in for questioning has a lawyer present, and makes no comment whatsoever. There is no such thing as a harmless conversation when it comes to police questioning.

[Jake Featherston]

In the whangai tradition children are raised not by their biological parents but by others in the whanau.

That is one damn peculiar custom. I wonder what its basis would be?

[Geist]

One of the missing elements here is that the IRA saw themselves as defending a community under attack so the desire to procure weapons was seen as a neccessity and done quite efficiently and globally. If theres no overbearing army presence the desire to get weapons is kind of vague and half-hearted. I mean buying shotguns in the local shop...