Demonstrators to dog P.M.

Press, 1 June 1977, Page 2

Demonstrators to dog P.M.

NZPA London Bastion Point demonstrators will dog the footsteps of the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) while he is in London for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. Their aim, according to Simon Wallace, a former Bastion Point squatter, is to show other Commonwealth summit delegations that New Zealand’s /.-ace relations are not as harmonious as many people seem to think. “While Mr Muldoon will no doubt be telling African countries that our racial policy is second to none, we will be outside telling the true position,” Mr Wallace said. Fifty New Zealanders, resident in London, met yesterday to decide where and when to demonstrate, with Bastion Point the focal point; but Mr Wallace said that New Zealand’s sports contacts with South Africa would also be attacked. “We have to wait until we

;see Mr Muldoon’s itinerary, but at this stage we plan to stand with placards outside New Zealand House and outside Lancaster House which is the venue for the Commonwealth Summit,” said Mr Wallace. In a written statement issued after the meeting, which was also attended by members of the Londonbased anti-apartheid movement, Mr Wallace said that the occupation of land at Bastion Point in Auckland, by members of the Ngati Whatua tribe, had “emerged as a test case for the Maori ownership of tribal land under the disputed terms of the Treaty of Waitangi.” The squatters had aroused! “wide public sympathy” in' their campaign against! threats of police harassment. and the efforts of pri-; vate contractors to move in'; with bulldozers to prepare' the land for building, said Mr! Wallace. ; Bastion Point, at Orakei, is j within Mr Muldoon’s elec-i torate of Tamaki.