[asia-apec 835] APEC & NZ Spy Agency in Spotlight

[Gatt Watchdog]

Green Left Weekly               Issue #338                        October
28, 1998

NZ SPY AGENCY FIGHTS FOR SECRECY OVER BUNGLED BREAK-IN

     By Leigh Cookson 

     AUCKLAND -- With less than a year to go before the 1999 APEC
(Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) leaders' summit here, a high-profile civil court
case against the New Zealand spy agency, the Security Intelligence Service
(SIS), has left many New Zealanders wondering how far the government will go
in cracking down on dissent against APEC's narrow economic agenda and the
extremist new right policies which it is hell-bent on pursuing.

   Just before New Zealand last hosted a major APEC meeting, when APEC trade
ministers met in Christchurch in July 1996, two SIS agents were caught at
the home of GATT Watchdog organiser (and occasional Green Left Weekly
contributor) Aziz Choudry. They had entered his house, disturbing
documents, but nothing seemed to have been taken. 

     The bungled break-in occurred during an alternative forum on free trade
organised by GATT Watchdog, a coalition of NGOs and community groups
campaigning against GATT/WTO, APEC, the MAI and other free trade and
investment arrangements. 

        Bomb hoax

     After the official APEC entourage had left town, and while Aziz was away
on a speaking tour with Dr Alejandro Villamar of the Mexican Action Network
on Free Trade, his house was raided by police, supposedly looking for
"bomb-making equipment".
        Police also searched the home of David Small, a speaker at the
        alternative conference, for the same reason.
	It was Dr Small who discovered the SIS agents, gave chase to them and
noted down their getaway vehicle's registration number, after he had gone
to Aziz's house to collect a TV and video for the GATT Watchdog forum. 
        A hoax device marked "Apec bomb" had been left outside the
        Christchurch City Council offices -- after the ministerial meeting
        had finished -- but no-one was ever found responsible for this. On the
        night of the botched break-in, on the orders of a senior officer,
        police dropped their investigation into the incident, saying that no
        offence had been committed.
        The resulting media interest led to the vehicle registration being
        traced to a Wellington office called "Amalgamated Office Services", a
        fictitious company and a front for the SIS.
        While outraged, many aware of its dubious track record were
        unsurprised that the SIS had broken into the house of an activist.
        It was just that this time it had been caught red-handed.

        Cover-up

        Subsequent attempts to elicit information from the police and the SIS
        were largely unsuccessful. Choudry and Small complained to the
        inspector-general of intelligence and security, a retired High Court
        judge appointed to investigate complaints against the SIS. He produced
        a June 1997 report which many saw as a whitewash.

        The SIS, and the then prime minister, Jim Bolger, refused to confirm
        or deny SIS involvement in the affair.  It wasn't until SIS was
        dragged into the High Court -- when Choudry sued it for trespass and
        breaching his rights under the Bill of Rights Act -- that it admitted
        its operatives had entered his house that night.

        Unlike the taxpayer-funded SIS, Aziz has been able to fight this case
        only with support from donations from the public. So far the
        Democratic Rights Defence Fund, set up to raise funds for the case,
        has brought in just over half of the estimated NZ$20,000 to see the
        case through.

        The Choudry break-in occurred within two weeks of new legislation
expanding the definition of "security" which the SIS is supposed to concern
itself with. The act expanded the scope of SIS targets to include those
allegedly threatening “New Zealand's economic and/or international
wellbeing”. 
	Successive governments have pushed through with enormously unpopular
market reforms and policies designed to lock New Zealand into maintaining
one of the world's most open economies. 

        Human rights

        GATT Watchdog has long argued that human rights violations and the
suppression of legitimate dissent go hand in hand with the market model of
development that APEC promotes. The SIS break-in seemed to be par for the
course for a government which was so zealously wedded to extremist economic
theories, and so desperate to convince the rest of the world to follow the
“New Zealand experiment”, that it would not tolerate dissent. 
	Auckland law Professor Jane Kelsey agreed that the incident was
symptomatic of a growing intolerance of dissent about the country's
economic direction. When, in a submission on the new legislation, she had
raised the possibility that the new definition of “security” might be used
to monitor organisations engaged in legitimate critique, she was told she
was "naive and paranoid".

        Opponents of globalisation as far apart as Geneva and Vancouver find
themselves targets of police harassment and surveillance. Swiss police
raided a seminar on globalisation last month and detained 50 participants
without charge. 
	Canada's media are currently dominated by revelations that anti-APEC
activists were placed under surveillance by police and other intelligence
agencies in the months before last November's APEC summit in Vancouver, and
that the prime minister's office gave orders for the police to spare APEC
leaders such as Indonesia's Suharto from any embarrassment by non-violent
protesters. 
        What this meant in effect was the pepper-spraying, roughing up and
        arrest of dozens of peaceful protesters by Canadian police. Some were
        arrested for holding up cardboard signs saying "Free
        Speech"; others were arrested as part of a police plan to
        "eliminate" higher-profile anti-APEC organisers.

	Appeals

        In a July High Court hearing, SIS's lawyer told Justice Graham
        Panckhurst that Prime Minister (and minister in charge of the
        Security Intelligence Service) Jenny Shipley had personally
        considered documents about the incident and certified that producing
        them would prejudice the security and defence of New Zealand.

        However, the judge ruled that he wanted to inspect the documents
        himself.
But he also ruled that although the legislation had not specified the
methods to be used, an SIS warrant to intercept or seize communications
carries with it the implicit right to break and enter the private dwelling
of a person, and indeed any other premises used by the person named in the
warrant. 

        The next step in the case will be in the NZ Court of Appeal, possibly
        next month. Aziz is appealing the judgment in relation to the
        interception warrant, and SIS is cross-appealing against the judge's
        decision to inspect the documents that it does not want disclosed.

        Next year's security operation for APEC will be the biggest in New
        Zealand history, with a budget of over NZ$18 million for security
        alone.

        With Aziz's case still before the courts, and the SIS doing its utmost
        to maintain the shroud of secrecy over the incident, some hard
        questions are being asked about the post-Cold War role and
        accountability of New Zealand intelligence agencies.

        The kind of stability and security which countries embracing the
        global economy want to display to the world can exist only where ideas
        which threaten to reveal that the emperor of globalisation has no
        clothes -- and the people who promote those ideas -- are vigorously
        suppressed.

        For more information on this case, or to make a donation, write to
Democratic Rights Defence Fund, PO Box 1905, Christchurch, New Zealand, or
e-mail: <gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz>