Day Four – Waihopai Ploughshares Trial
By Letitia - Indymedia Ireland
The day began with Adi Leason under continued cross examination from the Crown. The prosecutor set about seeking
admission from Adi that the action was not about stopping the satellite dishes from working thus slowing the pace of the
war in Iraq but merely symbolic. Otherwise, why hadn't the three defendants slashed the second dome?
Adi replied that it was both a real effort to interfere in the war efforts of the base and also it was a highly symbolic
action. It was both and, not either or.
The Crown continued to probe around this issue for some time but Adi made the point emphatically that both foci were in
his lenses as he proceeded with the action.
The Crown then sought to ascertain who the leader of the group was. "Someone must have had the idea first", he said,
"Who was it?"
"Isaiah" said Adi, sending the Court into laughter. As the laughter subsided, the judge noted dryly that Isaiah was not
on trial, then added "Perhaps he should be!" It was a lovely light moment.
The crown really failed to hear or understand Adi's case, and went on to suggest the damage done to the base was an act
of violence. Mr Marshall suggested that it was 'little violence' as compared to 'big violence. '
Adi had been saying the principles of non-violence required the use of the minimum amount of damage to be done to
property. At this point he said it wasn't about big violence v little violence at all – it was about nonviolence.
To illustrate this he produced a small piece of pounamu – greenstone, unique to New Zealand's soil – and told the recent
story of this particular piece of stone. He said the stone had been given to his family by a Maori woman who stood god
mother to one of his children. It was part of what had been a much larger piece given to the people of Parihaka in the
1880s by Ngai Tahu, a tribe from the South Island of New Zealand, who were helping them after devastating violent action
by Crown forces taking the Parihaka land.
Adi then told the Parihaka story – a story of Crown forces moving into the settlement of several thousand Maori in
November 1881 and forcibly taking the land, arresting the leaders and their followers and imprisoning them all in
southern prisons for several years. Many died of the cold and hunger. The point he made was that the resistance to the
violence of the Crown at that time was completely non-violent. Not one fist was thrown, not one gun fired, not one act
of violence occurred to prevent the government troops arresting the people. It was Gandhian non-violence 50 years before
Gandhi.
After Adi finished his testimony, Fr Peter Murnane took the stand the give his testimony.
Peter is a measured speaker, quietly spoken. He has researched in detail the issues that move him, and had a huge
amount of material to present to the Court. While the judge kept a strict eye, telling Peter that everything had to
pertain to Peter's mental and spiritual outlook at the time of the disarmament action, he still left plenty of room for
Peter to explore relevant issues - and to reveal his passion for justice and his deep Christian faith.
After talking a little about his early years, and his vocation as a Dominican Brother, Peter started out by saying that
there were four crimes that the USA was committing with assistance from Waihopai:
rendition/torture,
overthrowing legitimate governments,
waging illegal wars of aggression,
using weapons of mass destruction, especially depleted uranium.
He spent some time focusing on the process whereby the US target people for rendition. Rendition is illegal, breaking
international agreements by imprisoning and torturing suspects. He spoke of more than 1000 victims, and argued that this
had happened with the aid of the Echelon system, including Waihopai.
He linked this programme with the known historical practices of torture being carried out by the CIA and other agencies.
He asked 'how can civilised people torture other human beings?' He talked at some length of the role of the School of
the Americas training foreign soldiers for counter insurgency, including torture. He quoted from the CIA manual which
allowed for torture under certain conditions.
He then introduced the story of Sister Diana Ortiz, an American nun, who was kidnapped and tortured in Guatemala in
1989. He told her story in graphic detail and of her efforts to get the US Government to take her case seriously. She
was gang raped, burned 111 times with live cigarettes, and suspended over a pit full of dead and dying people.
Eventually she was forced to use a machete on a dying woman. The aim was to make Sr Diana 'one like us in murdering
others'. She conceived and later aborted a child from the gang rape.
Eventually she found out that one of her torturers was a CIA man and that the then US Ambassador to Guatemala was the
head of the CIA operation in that country. This was at a time when two people every day were being kidnapped, tortured
and killed. More often than not, they were Church people active in their communities among the poor. They were usually
accused of being communists.
Peter then spoke of the six Jesuits and their housekeeper and her daughter who were killed by the military in El
Salvador in 1988. Since they were regarded as the intellectuals behind the Salvadorean resistance to the military, their
brains were spilt out over the lawn. 'You are the brains behind the drive for social justice and we will spill your
brains on the lawn.' And they did. Those responsible were trained in Georgia at the school for the Americas, and were
part of US military strategy. Of which Waihopai is an integral part.
His final piece for the day was the role of weapons of mass destruction, namely Depleted Uranium, and the role it has
played in both Gulf Wars. He spoke of the danger of the uranium being released into the atmosphere, 'like from an
aerosole can' and how it has a life of millions of years. He described graphically how saturated Iraq is now with the
fallout from DU. The result has been that leukemia rates have risen by 600% and baby deformities by 300%. The legacy of
the Gulf wars will remain to haunt the people for millions of years.
Peter's testimony will conclude tomorrow.
The trial continues.
- Letitia