Talk given to GE Free New Zealand meeting on May 17th 2004 at WEA in Christchurch

GE FREE
NUCLEAR FREE NEW ZEALAND

By Larry Ross, Secretary/Founder of the New Zealand Nuclear Free Peacemaking Association

We started our campaign, after introducing our 5 point plan and getting approval of Peace Movement Aotearoa at their Annual 1980 conference.
The plan included: (1) making New Zealand nuclear free and (2) making New Zealand a neutral nation specializing in international peacemaking.

That was a vital ingredient of our plan - that New Zealand could be more than just a small nuclear free territory in the South Pacific.
We could become a neutral international peacemaker as well, a mediator/facilitator, as we did in the Bougainville war, and working for human survival in a planet that still is today, more than ever, threatened by a nuclear war doomsday.

Versions of that vision are shared today by many, including the Green party and Labour,, which is implementing a more independent policy, no automatic support for allies wars, and peace keeping, peacemaking where possible. So it is possible for ideas and campaigns - like Nuclear Free New Zealand, to become accepted by the majority, and woven into the fabric of a nation.
The same applies to GE free New Zealand ideas.

The NFNZ campaign has many similar elements to the GE FREE NZ campaign and you have used, and may use, many of our techniques to achieve your goals.

1. We organized the campaign on 4 levels
2. (a) The people campaign to make churches, schools, offices, homes etc nuclear free - using stickers, declaration certificates, literature. That could be used by GE FREE NZ.
(b) The local body campaign to encourage local authorities of towns, cities and regions to think and debate the issue and agree to declare their area nuclear free. To do this we organised local peace groups, who created local petitions to declare a city nuclear free, and lobbied local counsellors, sent mailings of informative literature to counsellors and presented submissions to Councils on why their city or region to declare nuclear-free status. Sometimes it took, 3 submissions to councils and more peace group educational efforts, before Councils seriously considered the issue and declared their city nuclear free. That can be used by GE FREE. The petition to be launched today is an example. People could take copies of this petition door-to-door to discuss with their neighbours and get signatures.

(c) We did a series of about 6 New Zealand maps from 1981 to about 1985 showing the cities and towns that had declared themselves nuclear free. It grew from 28 cities to over 70. This was mailed with our NUCLEAR FREE newsletter to all groups and interested people throughout New Zealand. It was a winner and great motivator. This is something you could emulate, using GE Free declared cities. The Maps worked for both the local and national campaigns.

(d) The National campaign: This included mailings of key papers to all MPs on why New Zealand should become nuclear free. We lobbied MP's ourselves and encouraged everyone, including local peace groups, to lobby their own MP - not just once, but regularly as new information came to hand. We also worked with MPs to incorporate nuclear free peacemaking remits to be presented at their annual conferences. The labour Party considered and passed many of our Nuclear Free peacemaker inspired remits at their annual conferences.
When a city declared itself nuclear free, it would be a news item in the local newspapers. The MP would read it.
No doubt it would make many people think about the issue, that might have dismissed it before. That realization that something was happening in New Zealand got to many MPs. So they considered the issue. That was augmented by the periodic nuclear free cities maps, which we sent to all MP's. We also sent them the best we could find of informative nuclear issues papers. All this had its effect at the national level.
Similar techniques are applicable to the GE FREE campaign.

28% New Zealanders lived in nuclear free zones when the first map was published toward the end of 1981. By 1984 there were some 65% of New Zealanders living in locally declared Nuclear Free Zones.
Politicians were aware of that. However David Lange took the
people's message to heart and declared that:
IF LABOUR WAS ELECTED TO GOVERN HE WOULD MAKE THE WHOLE OF NEW ZEALAND A NUCLEAR FREE ZONE.

Labour was elected in 1984 and immediately pursued a nuclear free policy, making New Zealand Nuclear Free in law in 1987.
So our overall plans, strategy and implementation did work
(a) in helping get a party that would implement our basic aims.
You have that with the Greens and I suspect many labour people, and politicians who sympathize with you.
(b) preparing the electorate to make this issue an important element of their voting decision. They had a clear choice - nuclear free and more independent under Labour, or risking nuclear accidents in port under National and becoming a nuclear target as a US ally, if nuclear war erupted by accident, miscalculation or madness.

The GE FREE campaign should expect more supporters if they continue and if possible increase their efforts to educate both the electorate and politicians.
National, underestimating the people's concerns and too fixed in their views to consider the complete issue, under Robert Muldoon, were left wondering what happened.

THE SITUATION TODAY

National has just given the government and its other opponents some priceless political gifts.
(1) Don Brash has said: If National is in power we will end the nuclear ship ban by lunchtime
(2) Simon Power, National's Defence Spokesman and ranked number 3 in his caucus, told a National Party conference that "without reservation we will support our close allies, Australia, the United States and Britain, when and wheresoever our commitment is called for". His and Bash's statements told everyone what National's foreign policy will be if National is elected to office. Pro nuclear and pro US all the way.
Most people know that that means violating international law, the UN Charter, the Nuremberg Tribunal laws and lying to deceive people into supporting an illegal war for oil that involves murdering imprisoning and torturing thousands of Iraqis. People are not as stupid as national seems to believe. People know that following the
US means that New Zealand would also be committing these war crimes. It also means making more terrorists, and like the US, supporting Israel's
war and expansionist policy rather than supporting the UN resolutions on Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine.
(3) Wyatt Creech, chair of a special National subcommittee on New Zealand's Relations with the US, recommended in a special report that New Zealand amend its nuclear free law to allow nuclear powered US and UK ships to visit our ports, but leave the nuclear weapons ban in place.
That report tried to obscure the real nuclear issues, and the increasing risks of a nuclear war due to US policies. Their aim was to help National's chances for re-election, without alienating the public, in spite of lifting the nuclear ships ban.

CONCLUSION
So people may use this political gift from National as an incentive to become active to Keep New Zealand Nuclear Free, strengthen the law if possible and back those politicians and parties that support the nuclear free law.
Those who become politically active will ensure that National does not get elected to implement a destruction of the nuclear free law, and follow the US into any war. If you fail our children and grandchildren may suffer the consequences.

The consequences of a GE contaminated New Zealand could be suffered by all of us, and generations to come.
It could happen, unless we support the Green politicians who work for a GE Free New Zealand.

SUPPLEMENTARY PAPER NOT GIVEN TO MEETING
The Wyatt Creech Report focused only on the alleged safety of nuclear reactors in ships. What they refuse to talk about, and hope New Zealanders wont think about or talk about, is that ships may be nuclear rearmed at any time by the US (if they declare a crisis) without informing anyone. That all US warships and their ports, particularly those suspected of being nuclear armed, become targets in a war or targets of terrorists. The report's suggestions are the thin edge of the wedge designed to help get national elected. Given national's foreign policy, any nuclear weapons ban would likely be overlooked by a National Prime Minister if the US declared a crisis, or said they needed New Zealand military support for Iraq or some of the other endless wars to come promised by the Bush Administration. Most objective and thorough analysis shows that these aggressive wars -

Afghanistan, Iraq and perhaps Bush's "Axis of evil" states, Syria, Iran and North Korea. These wars are designed to extend the Bush Administration's imperial ambitions and to feed the various contractors and companies that make up the military/industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about in his valedictory address of 1960. The wars, allegedly against terrorism, are totally counterproductive - in that they make far more terroristsand terrorists sympathizers, than existed in the first place.

TORTURE AND SEXUAL HARRASSMENT
A good example is the torture and sexual harassment of Iraqi prisoners.
As the New Yorker magazine said, this policy was designed at the top. Defence Minister Rumsfeld is responsible for a US sex and torture policy that will inflame Arab opinion, expand the war, and provide a platform the US can use for more lies to justify ever greater US financial and military commitment for endless wars in the middle east and elsewhere. Remember that every bullet that is fired and every bomb that is dropped, every mine that is laid, represents a profit for some US corporation. As profit is a supreme good and goal in the US, there are powerful incentives to keep finding or inventing reasons for new wars to fight.