New Zealand: Peace Action Wellington endorses Anzac Day
By
John Braddock
8 May 2017
Following Anzac Day commemorations in New Zealand on April 25, the media seized on an incident at the Wellington dawn ceremony to initiate a “debate” over whether political protests should be allowed on what is increasingly promoted as the country’s “sacred” national day.
Members of Peace Action Wellington laid a wreath at the cenotaph for victims of a NZ Special Air Service raid in Afghanistan. A recent book, Hit and Run, presented evidence that the elite troops carried out an assault on a defenceless village in 2010 that killed six people, including a three-year-old girl, and wounded 15 others. The pacifist group is calling for an independent inquiry to establish whether a war crime occurred.
Peace Action representative Laura Drew told TV3 the group wanted to “draw attention to the fact that it’s civilians who are overwhelmingly the casualties of war … [W]ar is a big tragedy and it’s awful that soldiers died and it’s awful that civilians died, so remembering both is appropriate.”
The occasion took what the New Zealand Herald declared an “ugly turn” when an on-camera interview was interrupted by the chief-of-staff of the right-wing NZ First Party, David Broome, and his 12-year-old son James. The boy was filmed berating protesters: “Do it tomorrow, do it the day before, do it any day but today it is wrong, wrong, wrong.” Broome senior told the protesters their actions left a “sour taste.”
Later, NZ First defence spokesman Ron Mark, a former army officer, told the media: “Anzac Day is a sacred day for commemoration and reflection and using it for protest is inappropriate.” Party leader Winston Peters denounced the protest as…