Never again can this happen
After 10 years, the assault on their little town . . . is still recalled with a sense of traditional injustice by many in the region, but nothing more.
This past weekend marked the tenth anniversary of our most inept and unjustifiable armed law enforcement operation in more than a century.
On October 15, 2007, police, backed by the armed offenders squad, arrested 18 people thought to be involved in terrorist training camps near the little rural township of Ruatoki.
Homes and people were also searched in many other parts of the country in a poorly planned, and subsequently found to be illegal, operation which was so over the top it would have been hilarious had not innocent families and children been intimidated and terrified.
Among those arrested was Tame Iti, the colourful and flamboyant Tu¯ hoe activist. Police claimed he was running military-style training camps in the Urewera Ranges, in preparation for establishing an independent Tu¯ hoe state by military force. Surveillance videos, released sometime later, certainly showed young men running through what could be obstacle courses in forest clearings, dressed in camouflage clothing and carrying military-style weapons. Was it a group of deluded people living out a fantasy or something more sinister and dangerous? Any suggestion that they posed a real threat to public safety is preposterous beyond credibility.
There should be no doubt, however, that police had to investigate the situation and take appropriate action but the subsequent operation, since dubbed the ‘‘Tu¯ hoe raids’’, belongs in a Boys Own adventure story, not New Zealand of the 21st century.
Eventually a raft of terrorism charges were dropped and only Iti and three others were convicted of illegal possession of firearms. Two received nine months’ home detention and the other two, including Iti, were sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison.
It was not the first time the Tu¯ hoe people have been subjected to overreaction by armed law enforcers. In 1867 Colonel St John led an expedition into the Urewera in search of Kereopa who had executed Rev Volkner as a spy during the Land Wars. Kereopa was not Tu¯ hoe but sought refuge in their Urewera stronghold. He was eventually arrested and hung for murder.
Also that year Te Kooti, who had escaped from illegal imprisonment on the Chatham Islands, used the vast Urewera country as a base for his campaigns against the government. Over the next few years, innocent Tu¯ hoe people, including many women and children, were killed and their villages and farms raided, looted and burnt by British forces which included co-opted Nga¯ ti Porou fighters. Most had never meet Kereopa or Te Kooti.
During World War I the New Zealand government heard rumours that the selfstyled Tu¯ hoe prophet Rua Kenana was opposed to Tuhoe men enlisting for war to fight for a government which had so recently dispossessed them of their tribal lands.
On April 2, 1916, an armed police party arrived at Maungapohatu to arrest Rua for sedition. Although Rua offered no resistance, some of his supporters did and two them, including Rua’s son Toko, were killed. Rua was arrested, his long hair and beard cut off, and sent to Mt Eden prison. Rua was held, at first, on a nine-month sentence imposed for the 1915 charges and now increased by his default of fines. After a trial on sedition, he was found not guilty but sentenced to one year’s imprisonment for resisting arrest.
Given their history of mistreatment, which most Tu¯ hoe children learn at an early age, they could be forgiven for harbouring deep resentment over the raids of 2007, but many Tu¯ hoe people seem far more resilient than many other communities would be.
After 10 years, the assault on their little town, the unforgettable terror of school children faced with large, armed men dressed in black, are still recalled with a sense of traditional injustice by many in the region, but nothing more.
They are also realistic about subsequent government reaction, particularly the eventual, and long overdue, apology for that terrifying day.
Huka Irene Williams, who was held at gunpoint facedown on the lawn outside her workplace for several hours, put it clearly when she said recently: ‘‘Apologies can always be broken. It’s not a treaty, it’s not a binding thing. You can apologise tomorrow and be different the next day.’’
Tame Iti, however, is in the pragmatic group and wants to move on, declaring October 15 to be just another date. ‘‘It’s just another day. This will be the last time reporters come and talk to us about the raids.’’
It should be the last time reporters ever have such an event to ask about or police to apologise for.