The Ruatoki Valley 'Anti-terrorism' Police Raids: Losing 'Hearts and Minds' in Te Urewera

Abstract

This paper was written in response to being invited to be the guest speaker at the one year commemoration of the 2007 police ‘antiterrorism’ raids in the Rūātoki Valley, and forty copies were distributed at the talk, held at the Te Rewarewa marae in Rūāatoki. Addressing an audience of Tūhoe and their guests, it presents perspectives from political anthropology which would be relevant to their experiences. I describe my research on the conflict in Northern Ireland and relate it to the ‘anti-terrorism’ raids in New Zealand, address the debate about ‘terrorists’ and ‘freedom fighters’ and identify how indigenous and ethno-national armed resistance has been misrepresented as ‘terrorism,’ provide a critical introduction to the concept of ‘terrorism’ and the significant criticisms anthropologists and others have concerning how it evolved and has been used mainly for the purposes of state propaganda and political control. I argue that the Ruatoki Valley ‘anti-terrorism’ raids can be interpreted as a form of pre-emptive counterinsurgency operation during which acts amounting to state terrorism caused significant ‘collateral damage’ to innocent members of the community. I conclude that raids not only failed in their stated aim to protect New Zealand from ‘terrorism’ but, by losing the ‘hearts and minds’ of local people, possibly increased the potential for political violence or ‘terrorism’ in this country.

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“…The framing of Tuhoe as 'violent', and behaviour of its members as 'gang like' and requiring suppression, needs to be analysed within the context of the 'terror raids' carried out by New Zealand Police in October 2007. Ostensibly undertaken due to supposed 'terrorism-like' conduct by members of Tuhoe, armed police descended on Tuhoe lands and arrested eight individuals who were charged under the Suppression of Terrorism Act 2002 (Sluka, 2010). Despite the fact that the terrorismrelated charges were eventually dismissed, the Tuhoe were subsequently problematised in discourse related to the Bill.…”

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“…For Ngāi Tūhoe, the day of the raids has become known as ‘Black Monday’ (Sluka, 2010). According to Te Wēti: ‘For us, it is Here we go again— our whenua [land] is being invaded again by the same state, only nearly a century later.…”

“…According to Te Wēti: ‘For us, it is Here we go again— our whenua [land] is being invaded again by the same state, only nearly a century later. They always come to this place; they have always invaded’ (2010: 82). Te Wēti’s assertion referred to the 1916 police raids where the prophet, Rua Kenana, was arrested, and his son and another follower were killed (Rae, 2008).…”

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“…These re-enactments typically occur at the outer edges of society -the frontier -where state authority is most visibly threatened. Hunt for the Wilderpeople's paramilitaristic overtures allude to the gravity of originary violence as enacted by the state, through the numerous paramilitary raids that have targeted the Ngāi Tūhoe people over the last century, epitomised in recent memory by the 2007 anti-terror raids codenamed 'Operation 8' (Devadas 2008;Jackson 2008;Keenan 2008;Sluka 2010).…”