Watch kept on Waihopai base

Press, 4 June 1988, Page 2

Watch kept on Waihopai base

Women protesters camping at the Waihopai satellite communications intercept base are preparing for further protest next month.

A group of five women continues to maintain a vigil on a property opposite the proposed site near Blenheim. Further reinforcements of women from throughout New Zealand are expected next month to coincide with the defended hearing of charges against three protesters of trespassing on the site, after a scuffle between the protesters and contractors. The women have pleaded not guilty. One of the initiators of the women’s camp, Ms May Bass, a Hamilton peace worker, said women who had been at the camp were getting ready for further protest during July. Part of the preparations at the camp would include training the women in non-violent action techniques during the week of the trial in Blenheim, she said.

Peaceful, non-violent action, was one of the hallmarks of the women’s

movement. The women’s camp did not want to use violence or vandalism as part of its protest, said Ms Bass.

She said neither the women at the camp nor the Anti-bases Coalition had been involved in recent vandalism at the base, resulting in 500 metres of security fencing being cut.

The women have also written to the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, seeking a meeting to discuss the communications base, which they say will be used to spy on satellites.

After the hearing, women from the camp will join a protest outside Parliament in Wellington from July 13 to 15. A spokeswoman at the Waihopai camp, Ms June Gregg, said the Government would be breaking both its own telecommunications laws and that of the international Nairobi Convention it had agreed to, both of which protected the privacy of individuals in telecommunications. “This base is not a communications facility. It will be a listening station,” she said.