Bastion Point

Press, 29 May 1978, Page 16

Bastion Point

Sir, — It was ironic that the Government tried to excuse its treatment of the Bastion Point Maori land protest by calling it a communist plot. The operation reminded me most of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. I felt ashamed to be a pakeha. — Yours, etc., D. STRATON. May 26, 1978.

Sir, — I read Mr Rata’s impassioned speech on Bastion Point with utter dismay. Evidently Mr Rata has a convenientlv short memory. Wher. he was Minister of Maori Affairs and Mr Rowling was Prime Minister the police were called in and asked to forcibly remove protesters and a tent which was erected in Parliament grounds. If Mr Rata had done his Ministerial job efficiently this Bastion Point issue would never have eventuated. Great credit, must go to the present administration and to the whole of the police force who handled a nasty situation with the utmost efficiency and considerable restraint and courtesy to all Maori people concerned. — Yours, etc., T. M. MOORE. May 26, 1978. Sir, — May 25 must now rank highly among the sad days of New Zealand’s recent history. The events of the 109 years since the Native Land Court reserved 700 acres of “absolutely inalienable” land to the Ngati Whatua were a shameful enough record without this invasion force to drag people from the land. It is to be hoped that the wide spread of TV sets will have forced the majority of New Zealander’s to witness the events. Some may have felt sufficient shame and anger that we have let this happen here to be motivated to examine the whole issue of Maori land rights more deeply and to act appropriately. The Prime Minister’s almost laughably ridiculous blaming of the S.U.P. would be u bitter joke were it not for the arrogant condescension of the deep insult against Joe Hawke and his supporters whom he thereby relegates to the role of manipulated puppets. — Yours, R. E. FINLAY. May 25, 1978. Sir, — In planned overkill, the police and army were tools by order of the culturally narrow and conservative powers in our nation, exerting their known antipathy to other culture and colour, exaggerated in the current Government. They carried a century of arrogance, the loaded system of pakeha legalisms; land courts, confiscation laws, appropriation laws, Maori land laws, disguising a century of landgrab founded only in selfinterest. Crown land indeed They would not allow “Maori land” so close to their Kohimarama. They have never accounted for Maori land ideals. Hollow the “sincere regrets.” Long before the land wars a century ago, some Maoris have been found who acquiesce. But the shadow of the wars remains. Who called them the “Maori Wars” to show whose might was law? The moral victory is with Te Tangata Whenua, with the young Niuean boy, with the randomly checked, and those on the side of tolerance and compassion. — Yours, etc., TREVOR M. COBELDICK. May 26, 1978. j