The protesters who successfully shattered the security of the secretive Waihopai spy base are to be congratulated on their not guilty verdicts.

Father Peter Murnane, Adrian Leason and Sam Land (known as the Waihopai Three) have not committed a crime at all. They have been found not guilty on the basis that they were defending human life by deflating one of the spy base's domes. Indeed the spy base has reportedly been active in collating signals intelligence that assisted the US and the UK in their illegal wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq, amongst other shady activities.

While New Zealand has forces in Afghanistan, it is true that we didn't send combat forces to the Iraq War. However, the collation of signals intelligence for the US (as New Zealand is part of the secret Western intelligence alliance known as UKUSA alongside the British, the Americans, Canadians and Australians) means that we were, for all intents and purposes, part of George W. Bush's 'Coalition of the Willing' in 2003. Evidence of this close collaboration is to be found in the fact that the US put New Zealand on its list of nations that could tender for so-called post-war 'reconstruction' projects in Iraq. No doubt our contribution of troops to supposed post-war clean up operations in Iraq and Waihopai's role in helping with wartime targeting were huge factors in this decision.

As Nicky Hager's book Secret Power (1996) also details, Waihopai and its companion base at Tangimoana were used to intercept defence and intelligence signals from not only former enemies such as the Soviet Union and China but also our putative allies such as the French, Japanese, Thais and Malaysians. This level of spying on both our friends and neighbours was an unwelcome revelation for the GCSB and it revealed that even within the capitalist Western world, there are economic and political rivalries that still exist below the surface.

But it is the Waihopai spy base and its role in acting as America's and Britain's eyes and ears in this part of the world that has been most concerning. As was revealed in Hager's book, the spy base (established in the late 1980s) was sold to the public by former prime minister David Lange as being a sign of New Zealand's need to develop an independent intelligence capability after the ANZUS alliance collapsed with the introduction of the nuclear-free policy. This was how the idea for the spy base was sold to the Fourth Labour Government by the GCSB spooks who were still carrying out signals interception on behalf of the Americans and the British as part of the secret UKUSA agreement. Therefore, irrespective of the nuclear-free policy, we remained a firmly committed UKUSA member. This was something that the spooks (who were and are a law unto themselves) were determined to keep secret even from Lange who admitted in the foreward to Hager's book that even as the intelligence services minister, he was kept in the dark about the real purpose of Waihopai.

Peace movement activists though knew more than Lange about its purpose. That is why every year since its opening, they have kept up an annual protest against the facility and called for its closure. Now with the trial of the Waihopai Three having ended in complete disaster for the spooks, they will be urging a much more intelligence friendly National administration to keep funding the spy base so that it continues to serve as one of the Western alliances listening ears in this part of the world.

However, the peace activists have truly scored a victory for all those who believe in peace and justice. They have truly observed the Biblical injunction that swords should be turned into ploughshares. If more actions like this are undertaken in defence of innocent human life afflicted by war, then we may all feel the benefits over time.

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