Defence Force delaying tactics raise suspicion
The mother of a fallen Kiwi soldier suspects the military has something to hide. Eugene Bingham and Paula Penfold report.
The old adage a picture tells a thousand words needs urgent updating for the digital era. Take the case of pictures filmed during New Zealand’s deadliest battle of the war in Afghanistan. Depending on which angle they’re viewed from, the words they tell fill volumes.
They tell the story of war, the horror, the confusion; of courage and the human condition in terrifying circumstances.
They also tell a story of official obstruction, of political involvement, of broken freedomof-information laws.
And beyond that is evidence of manipulation of the public – and, worse, how the family of a fallen soldier was misled.
‘‘I always wondered if they had the actual footage of Rory dying,’’ says Helen Thomasen, mother of Lance Corporal Rory Malone, killed in the Battle of Baghak. ‘‘And maybe they do but I don’t think we’re going to see it.’’
Stuff Circuit has been on a threeyear quest to uncover exactly what does and doesn’t exist. It’s a quest that took bizarre turns, and which leaves glaring questions unanswered.
If you watched The Valley, Stuff Circuit’s documentary on New Zealand’s Afghanistan deployment, you’ll remember the pictures. They were filmed during the Battle of Baghak on August 4, 2012, when Malone and Lance Corporal Pralli Durrer were killed and six other New Zealand soldiers wounded.
The Valley uncovered evidence casting serious doubt on official findings about the battle, and exposed the likelihood New Zealand and friendly Afghan forces mistakenly fired at each other.
The first the public knew of the battle footage was mid-2013 when the Defence Force released a three-minute clip at a press conference.
Then Army chief Major General Dave Gawn told journalists the footage would help public understanding.
‘‘What I want you to take away as we go through the events that subsequently occurred is the steepness and ruggedness of the terrain; the uncertainty of ascertaining exactly what is going on when you’re in a situation like that; the sheer volume of noise that you get in a firefight.’’
He said the footage had been filmed on a helmet camera, suggesting this was an official record, filmed as part of the military operation.
Later, we established that wasn’t right – it had actually been shot on the soldiers’ own cameras. These soldiers were of the social media generation and so, for some, when the battle broke out, their instinct was to film.
Some months after that press conference, suspecting there was more footage, we submitted an Official Information Act request.
In December 2014, Commodore Graeme Smith, of NZDF, wrote saying: ‘‘The Defence Communications Group holds over seven hours of raw video relating to the Baghak incident and a large number of photographs.’’ (He later retracted the seven-hour estimate). Smith arranged for us to deal with an NZDF video editor to obtain it.
Simple enough. The process proved otherwise.
Finally, though, in April 2015, about 25 minutes of battle footage arrived.
But once we looked at what had been disclosed, and after checking with sources, we believed still not everything had been provided. And so we asked again.
Colonel Paul Curry responded: ‘‘That release is the full footage we have of the Baghak incident.’’
It wasn’t, as more footage leaked to us proved.
By May 2015, the Defence Force admitted there was more material, but it would first need to be cleared by then Minister of Defence Gerry Brownlee.
Peter Coleman, strategic adviser in the Office of the Chief of Defence Force, said there was a ‘‘technical issue’’ which was holding up ‘‘the sign-out process. This is part of our ‘no-surprises’ obligations set out in the Cabinet Manual. Obviously the current Minister of Defence and his office were not the minister at the time of Baghak or the subsequent COI release, so most of this is new to them. Hence why they are keen to see the footage as they have not seen any of it before’’.
Coleman said there were 3-4 hours of footage. It never arrived, and so we complained to the Office of the Ombudsman.
A back-and-forth process unfolded until, in August 2016, the Defence Force sent a DVD of video and photos.
In total, there was now 45 minutes of video which we knew from metadata had been filmed on at least five cameras. The metadata also told us some clips were missing.
And we knew from sources there was more footage that they said showed crucial events from the battle.
Why does any of this matter?
First, state agencies should be open, transparent, and accountable. And in the case of the Defence Force, that’s important, says lawyer and Official Information Act expert Steven Price, of Wellington’s Victoria University.
If New Zealand was sending soldiers overseas into harm’s way then access to
information surrounding the decisions was crucial, so the Government could be held to account for the decisions made at the time. Failing to disclose material in a proper manner was unethical, sometimes unlawful.
Also, was the Defence Force trying to cover something up? Certainly, once we were able to examine the raw footage and compare it to what was originally released at the press conference we saw it had made edits that changed a viewer’s perception of what the pictures actually showed.
Thomasen fears there’s more being covered up. After the original three minutes were released, she asked the Defence Force what else existed.
‘‘I asked the liaison officer, I asked the brigadier, I asked anybody that would listen to me and they said they do not have any more,’’ says Thomasen. Of course, there was.
‘‘They’re afraid of something. They don’t want us to know something that happened.’’
The Defence Force says it has now provided all the battle footage it holds. In consultation with the Ombudsman it advertised in military publications seeking anyone with more. No one came forward.
Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier accepts nothing more can be done, and that the Defence Force is seeking to improve its handling of Official Information Act requests.
Those processes do seem to need attention: after further intervention from the Ombudsman, the Defence Force said in November it had another two hours of footage. But this turned out to be a loop of clips previously released.
It cannot explain four of the missing clips, and says it has approached several soldiers about specific footage and photos Stuff Circuit sources say exist.
Their inquiries drew a blank – despite Stuff Circuit already having obtained from a source a photo taken on one of the soldiers’ cameras that day.
And sources insist there is still more, showing a critical moment of the battle.
Maybe it has been deleted. Maybe it has been hidden. Maybe it will emerge.
Maybe there are even more words to be told.
They’re afraid of something. Helen Thomasen, mother of Lance Corporal Rory Malone