NEW ZEALAND: Foreign Minister condemns radical group
Updated
New Zealand police have arrested more than a dozen people so far in a major operation aimed at what's being described as guerilla style training camps in the Eastern Bay of Plenty. Prominent Maori radical Tame Iti was arrested at his house near Ruatoki, south of the coastal town of Whakatane as search warrants were executed in several other cities around the country.
Presenter: Bruce Hill
Speakers: Winston Peters, NZ Foreign Minister and leader of the New Zealand First Party
PETERS: Well a group like this could be extraordinary, bad for New Zealand, you don't really know its membership's motivations. People who act in concert with that, that is terrorism in mind is bad enough but when you've got some amongst them who potentially would act on their own, then it's a great worry because it takes out the capacity to keep surveillance of them. So these actions now are important in terms of the law enforcement, demonstrates I believe the need for the law which some disputed in the first place.
HILL: Do you think there's a serious potential terrorist threat in New Zealand though? It's not a country people would associate with terrorism?
PETERS: No but we have the odd person who believes that they're above the law and certain people who claim to represent Maoridom and they don't, but by their outrageous behaviour have had far too much prominence, mainly due to the ignorance of the European media in New Zealand. And as a consequence they have got themselves a type of currency which emboldens them in this way.
HILL: The lawyer for some of the people that have been arrested Annette Sykes says that this is an overkill and reminiscent of the invasions of last century?
PETERS: Well that's the kind of language that Annette would say, and this is nothing different from the kind of language she would use on all other matters, innocent or otherwise.
HILL: One of the more prominent people that's been arrested is Maori radical activist Tame Iti, who's been involved in many actions over the years. What do you think his involvement in this indicates?
PETERS: Well perhaps that they lack the intellectual firepower to be the biggest ... they thought they would be. He has engaged himself in some disgraceful acts in the past, a terrible insult to outsiders and also to Maoridom, and without the authority of Maoridom as well. But you've got to confront these sorts of things and confront them now.
HILL: Is this incident going to affect the way the outside world sees New Zealand, perhaps a country where there might be at least now a threat of instability?
PETERS: Well this is a new world where you can't be certain where instability threats or threats to humanity might come from. Some countries hope that we have handled it better than others, but we've all got to be on alert, and I hope in that context the world doesn't see New Zealand differently.
