Don't Turn Burma Into Another Zimbabwe

Recent Burmese "pro-democracy" demonstration. Note man on right carrying photo of Aung San, first General Secretary of the Communist Party of Burma and father of "democracy" campaign leader and Nobel Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi.


Yesterday's Burmese "democracy" demonstration in Auckalnd. Note woman in centre carrying Socialist Worker placard.

The Fascist/Socialist Burmese regime is one of the most repressive on the planet and NZ firms should most certainly not be trading with it.

However, anyone campaigning for a better Burma, should be damn' careful not to give aid or succour to the Marxist-Leninist forces that are unfortunately the backbone of the misleadingly named "democracy" movement.

Burma's 50 million people deserve better than to be pushed from the frying pan into the fire.

Don't let the left do to Burma what they did to Zimbabwe.

Support the Free Speech Coalition

Labour's Electoral Finance Bill is by far the worst attack on free speech this country has seen since WW2.

The newly launched Free Speech Coalition is fighting back.

I don't oftrn ask readers to support causes, but I am now. Check out the coalition's website and send them a donation.

Why?

From the coalition's press release;

The Free Speech Coalition, a group dedicated to stopping the draconian Electoral Finance Bill has publicly launched itself today.

We agree with the Human Rights Commission and the New Zealand Law Society that this bill threatens the human rights of all New Zealanders and is so flawed that it should be stopped, not amended. A replacement Bill should be introduced after there has been public consultation and debate on the key issues - something totally absent from the current Bill.

If you send an email like this to a friend after January 1, 2008, you'll be breaking the law. Under the Government's Electoral Finance Bill currently before Parliament, you'll be fined up to $10,000, and even be risking a jail term if you do it deliberately.

Why?

Simply because the email dares to discuss how we run our society.

Yes, this Bill is that sinister.

That's why I'm asking for your help to Kill the Bill. If we don't kill it, then on New Year's Day your Government will strip you of your right to criticise the Government, other parties, MPs and policies you don't like.

In an Orwellian twist, the Government claims the purpose of the Bill is to promote participation by the public in parliamentary democracy. The Human Rights Commission labels this a mockery of the actual likely effect of the Bill.

Despite this, the parties that voted for it - Labour, NZ First, Greens and United Future - won't give a commitment to stop it.

In fact, journalists report that the Government is determined to pass it.

The Bill will regulate political speech to an extent unheard of in New Zealand history:

* The definition of a political advertisement is expanded to be "any form of words or graphics, or both, that can reasonably be regarded as taking a position on a proposition with which one or more parties or one or more candidates is associated." Such ads will be highly regulated.

* You'll be banned from expressing your view on any political issue associated with a party or candidate unless you swear an oath via a statutory declaration that you will not spend more than $5,000 in the whole of election year in publishing your view.

* Unincorporated groups which have even a single member aged under 18, such as churches, will be banned from spending more than $5,000 a year - or $100 a week - on political advocacy.

* What sort of draconian activities does the Bill seek to protect us from? Handing out leaflets along the course of a protest march. Sending out a press release. Operating a website (other than a non-commercial blog). Displaying placards at a demonstration. Posting clips on YouTube. Putting up posters. That's right, all the things democratic societies call lawful expressions of free speech.

* Commercial advertising that conflicts with the views of a political party will not be allowed beyond a limit of $60,000 a year. How much evil propaganda will that buy you? About two full page newspaper ads in the NZ Herald.

* Political parties will be banned from running "issue" ads that oppose Government policies. For the whole of election year. They can only run ads that directly ask for votes.

Say your group wants to spend more than $5,000 a year publicising political issues. (Remember, that's anything to do with how we run our society.) In that case, the Government sees you as trouble. So you'll have to register with the Government. You'll also have to tell the Government who gave you your money. And in any case, you'll be banned from spending more than $60,000 of it in election year.

By now I hope you're feeling as outraged about this as I am.

If so, please help us Kill the Bill - while we still can.

A group of us have launched the Free Speech Coalition. We want it to be a focal point for all individuals and organizations opposed to the Electoral Finance Bill.

We plan to run an ad campaign. Our ads will educate New Zealanders about this Government's unprecedented assault on our cherished freedom of speech.

We've got a creative team waiting to get cracking. But we need your support. Specifically, your money.

Please pass this e-mail on to any of your friends and colleagues who you think will want to know about this Bill and do something about it.

You can donate instantly online at www.killthebill.org.nz . You can also donate via Internet Banking (BNZ 02-0500-0908920-00) or by sending a cheque to the Free Speech Coalition, PO Box 12270, Thorndon, Wellington.

With your support we can make a difference. It would be tragic to have the Bill pass into law - and your right to free speech pass into history - just because everyone assumed that someone else would fight it.

Remember: if the bill is passed, even a harmless e-mail like this one will soon be illegal. That's reason enough to Kill the Bill.

In the cause of free speech,

Cameron Slater
m: 021 535724
e: camslater@gmail.com
w: www.whaleoil.co.nz

The Real "Evil Empire"

The two main pillars of the real "evil empire" are moving ever closer.

From the Communist Party of China website


Chinese President Hu Jintao (R) meets with Russian Federation Council Chairman Sergei Mironov at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 27, 2007.

China will work with Russia to enhance strategic mutual trust and substantial cooperation to advance the China-Russian strategic partnership of cooperation to a new stage, Chinese President Hu Jintao said in Beijing on Thursday.

In a meeting with Russian Federation Council Chairman Sergei Mironov, Hu said China and Russia had maintained sound relations and the cooperation made progress. "The Year of China" in Russia had enriched Sino-Russian relations.

Hu said China would enhance mutual understanding and friendship with Russia in accordance with the principles of good-neighborly and cooperative treaty between the two countries.

Hu also said Chinese government supported legislative exchanges with Russia, hoping the two sides would strengthen the cooperation in the multilateral organizations including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Mironov said furthering the relationship with China had been common aspiration of Russia's all parties and political groups, and the Russian Federation Council would like to work with the National People's Congress of China to push forward cooperation of the two countries in all areas.

Mad Tyrant's Mutual Admiration Society

From Novosti


BUENOS AIRES, September 28 Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Venezuela's Hugo Chavez have agreed to intensify their fight against U.S. world domination, the Venezuelan president said Friday.

"We have agreed to follow the same path of fighting against imperialism and to strengthen our cooperation in eliminating America's domination in the world," he said after a meeting with the Iranian president.

Chavez described Ahmadinejad as "a great anti-U.S. fighter" and "a champion of truth and social justice." The Iranian leader responded by calling Chavez "a great revolutionary of Latin America."

Ahmadinejad, on his third visit to Venezuela, said that imperialism "has no other option but to start respecting the people's choice, or it is doomed."

Hugo Chavez has made five visits to Tehran, the last in July 2007. He has repeatedly stated his support for Iran's nuclear research program.

Ahmadinejad met earlier Friday with Bolivian President Evo Morales, signing a $1 billion trade and energy cooperation agreement.

NZ Communists Supporting Burmese Protesters

I'm in no way supporting the Burmese socialist regime, but guess who's supporting the anti government protesters?

From Indymedia


The peaceful people's revolution in Burma against an oppressive and brutal military dictatorship now faces a crucial few days, as the Junta declares it will crack down on protests and demonstrations with the utmost of severity. But the huge marches in Rangoon, Mandalay and other major cities that have been led by monks, have now been joined by students and workers.

Solidarity Union calls on workers and students here in Aotearoa to come and show your support for our courageous brothers and sisters in Burma this Saturday, 2pm, in Auckland's Aotea Square. Please bring your union or organisation banners and placards calling for freedom for Burma. This world does not need a horrific repeat of the massacres of 1988. "

Special speaker at the rally in Auckland will be Naing Ko Ko, a trade union and democracy activist with the Burmese Federation of Trade Unions, who was jailed and tortured for six years by the military dictatorship. The rally is also supported by the CTU, the Service and Food Workers Union, Amnesty International and Radical Youth. We appeal to other community groups to come and stand with Naing and the Burmese people in solidarity, and demand that the NZ Government has no truck with the military butchers or the companies that are profiting from Burmese slave labour.

- Joe Carolan
Solidarity Union Secretary

Joe Carolan is of course a member of the Central Committee of NZ's leading Trotskyist organisation, Socialist Worker.


The Socialist Worker Blog also featured this quote;

FROM THE BBC-

'Communist plot'

State television said the demonstrations of the past week were being fomented by communists and exiled media and student groups.

Obviously trying to tell to their supporters why they should be rallying to the cause.

I'd have thought the red flags would have been enough of a hint.

Burma-Socialists Versus Communists

As much as I would like to, I cannot get excited about the "Saffron Revolution" currently underway in Burma/Myanmar.


While I would like nothing more than to see the Chinese backed tyrants of the ruling State Peace and Development Council hanging from lamp posts, I doubt that their replacements would bring much improvement.

The Burmese regime has blamed communists for the unrest and in my opinion they are quite correct.

From USA Today

The government's New Light of Myanmar newspaper quoted Religious Affairs Minister Brig. Gen. Thura Myint Maung as saying that protests by monks had also spread to cities like Mandalay, Hinthada and Monywa in seven of the country's 14 states and divisions.

These agitators included members of the pro-democracy National League of Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, remnants of the defunct Burmese Communist Party and some foreign radio stations, the minister was quoted as saying.


Unfortunately the Burmese Communist Party is not defunct and is there is evidence that it is working with and within the National League of Democracy led by under "house arrest" Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

According to Once Upon a Time in the West

Suu Kyi has admitted that some of her advisers are “former” members of the CPB.

From the Buddhicisation of Aung San Suu Kyi

First, in early September 1988 prior to the foundation of the NLD Aung San Suu Kyi was accused of being surrounded by Communists...One observer put it that Buddhism ‘is an invaluable weapon in defending the political system against the attacks of the only hostile ideology capable of posing a serious threat, i.e. communism.’This drove Aung San Suu Kyi, in turn, to emphasize her Buddhist credentials from the start.

The accusation of communism was continued by military intelligence in mid September 1988, and later similar accusations were made by Aung Gyi on 3 December of the same year and in 1989. Though Aung San Suu Kyi denied this, stating on two occasions in June 1989 that these members had long renounced their communist views and that the NLD was, in fact, anti-communist, this became a repeated criticism by the SLORC. The accusations were perpetuated in subsequent journalist reports, and have continued right up until today.

In general the Burmese regime does not claim that Suu Kyi is a communist, but that she is being used and manipulated by the BCP and her leftist advisors.

In an interview republished in the Communist Party of Australia's Guardian 17th April 2002 entitled "Burma's Communists Re-Group" comrade Jacob of the CPB explained;

The anti-regime opposition is fragmented, reflecting both ideological and ethnic differences. The National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB) is an umbrella group composed of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), the Member of Parliament Union and the Democratic Alliance of Burma. The latter group is itself a coalition of 24 groups.

"The CPB has proposed working together on common issues with the NCUB. Just having a common enemy is not enough, we should have a common programme among the anti-regime forces," Comrade Jacob says.

The article went on to say;


While today, Aung San Su Kyi plays down her family's radical past, Aung San was in fact the first general secretary of the CPB at its foundation congress in 1939. An uncle on her mother's side was a later general secretary of the CPB.

According to Wikipedia, the Communist Party of Burma is still active and dangerous;

Actual party membership is estimated to be no more than around 3,000 at any one time, even though in its heyday the CPB could muster troops in tens of thousands and around a million-strong peasant organisation. The party continues to recruit according to the 'hard to join, easy to quit' principle. Some analysts still consider the CPB a force to be reckoned with in future upheavals and potentially a major challenge to the military regime.

Whenever socialists fight socialists, ther's only one thing you can be sure of. Socialists will win-the people will lose.

The National Question Part 32 Epilogue

In the last 31 posts I have attempted to show that New Zealand doesn't have a racial problem, it has a political problem.

Maori "sovereignty" is not based on race but is underpinned by Marxist-Leninist politics.

New Zealanders must not be sucked into hating fellow Kiwis on the basis of skin colour. They must instead rationally focus on those socialists of all races who would divide our nation in pursuit of their nightmares.

In 2007 National Question activity dominates New Zealand life at every turn.

Maori language and culture is forced on our children in schools. "Cultural Safety" has created a climate of fear in our training institutions as radical head cases dictate who may or may not have jobs in health, education and other sectors.

It is clear that National Question agenda could ruin New Zealand.

This fear of deteriorating race relations casts a pall over the country, that must be lifted if New Zealand is to live the tremendous potential it's citizens possess.

Improved conditions will not be handed to us, we must demand it of ourselves that they occur.

The solutions are of course libertarian.

They involve the dismantling of state racism and the establishment of a much simplified legal system, applicable equally to all New Zealanders. Thuggery, treason and extortion must be exposed and punished.

School choice and must be introduced to end the brainwashing of our children.

Socialist power must curbed by removing all remaining legal privileges for trade unions.

The socialist movement, in all it's facets, from the Marxist parties, to the agents of the United Nations and the infiltrators in the "mainstream" churches must be exposed and countered.

New Zealand's racial problems began when early socialist governments began to try and protect Maori from the world. Maori became wedded to the state earlier and more firmly than the rest of us. This retarded their progress and turned the majority of Maori into second class citizens, thus enabling more militant socialists to create the problems we have today.

This must be reversed, state power must shackled so that all New Zealanders can live as free and self supporting people.

Racial harmony will only come to New Zealand when we establish a true "New Freeland"

When people are free, when they are making money, when individual responsibility and rational self interest are the ruling ethos, then and only then will racial differences cease to be a significant problem.

Problems can only be solved when truth is confronted. I hope this series of articles has helped bring more truth to light.

I will deal with contemporary "National Question" issues in future posts.

Aotearoa Anarchists Rule OK!

Here's one for Cameron and Asher

A new book by historian of the left, Toby Boraman.

Rabble Rousers and Merry Pranksters:
A History of Anarchism in Aotearoa/New Zealand from the mid-1950s to the early 1980s


Rabble Rousers and Merry Pranksters captures some of the imagination, the audacity, the laughs and the wildness that animated many of the social movements of the sixties and seventies in Aotearoa/New Zealand. During this time, particularly from the late sixties to the early seventies, an astonishingly broad-based revolt occurred throughout the country. Thousands of workers, Maori, Pacific people, women, youth, lesbians, gays, students, environmentalists and others rebelled against authority. Innovative new styles and anarchistic methods of political dissent became popular.

A colourful and energetic bunch of anarchists occasionally played significant roles in these struggles. Anarchists were prominent in the anti-nuclear, anti-Vietnam War, anti-US military bases, commune, unemployed and peace movements. Rabble Rousers and Merry Pranksters is a richly-detailed tale about a much neglected anti-authoritarian leftist current in Aotearoa/New Zealand history.

Rabble Rousers and Merry Pranksters will interest not only anarchists and other libertarian socialists, but also those just interested in what happened in the sixties and seventies. The book includes a broad-ranging overview of the protest movements and social context of the time. It challenges the liberal orthodoxy of most New Zealand historians that writes class struggle out of history.

This book covers such little-known events such as:
• The worker-student siege of parliament in June 1968.
• The death of anarchist punk rocker Neil Roberts while he attempted to blow up the Wanganui police computer in 1982.
• The “Jumping Sundays” or the liberation of Albert Park in Auckland in 1969, a spontaneous free festival involving thousands of people.
• The Mount John “rock festival” of 1972, when anti-US military bases protesters sabotaged the only access road to the Mount John US Military Installation.
• The 1974 ferry case when a near general strike spontaneously occurred over the imprisonment of union official Bill Andersen by the Labour Government.
• The anarchist involvement in the formation of Peace Movement Aotearoa and the successful Save Aramoana Campaign, a seminal ecological struggle.
• The legend of Bill Dwyer, an anarchist firebrand whose “illegal” activities, such as selling LSD/acid, were designed to further the anarchist cause.
• The firebombing of the Christchurch American Consulate in 1973 by a couple of anarchists.
• And many more events, groups and movements!

The book is a pioneering work. It represents the first major history of anarchism in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It is primarily based upon interviews and correspondence with participants in the libertarian socialist scene. It also draws upon extensive research into unpublished manuscripts, documents, magazines, leaflets and other ephemera written by anti-authoritarians. To capture a little of the distinctive and colourful political style of the period, over 100 images are included in the book, including cartoons, posters and leaflets.

I've got a wee soft spot for anarchists. At least they believe in freedom, even if they do leave out the responsibility bit. Might even check out the book myself.

Lebanese President Thanks Iran for Support Against Israel

Here's a telling admission. Confirming what we all knew-that Iran helped Lebanese forces in the recent 33 day war with Israel.

From Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency

Lebanese
President Emile Lahoud on Tuesday thanked Supreme Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Iranian nation for their unsparing support for Lebanon in Israel's 33-day war with Lebanon.

In a meeting with President Ahmadinejad on the sidelines of the 62nd UN General Assembly session, Lahoud also appreciated Iran for its contribution to Lebanon's reconstruction.

He also stressed the need for expansion of mutual relations.

President Ahmadinejad, for his part, hoped that internal problems in Lebanon would be settled in line with the country's interests.

He said that the 33-day war and Zionist regime's merciless invasion of Lebanon showed that despite being a small country, Lebanon managed to break invincibility myth of the Zionist entity.

This showed that faith and efforts have influential and decisive power, he added.

Turnover Tax-The Second Best Tax System

Most libertarians will tell you that the best tax system is no tax.

But what if we acknowledge that most citizens support at least a minimal state and for the forseeable future that state will have to be funded in some manner?

What then is the SECOND BEST taxation system?

Here is my answer.

In the early '80s, friends of mine in the Tax Reduction Integrity Movement (TRIM) promoted Turnover Tax (TOT).

The idea had been mooted by an Auckland accountant, Bruce Grierson and was seized upon by my paleo-libertarian friends.

The idea behind TOT is very simple.

Basically EVERY financial transaction would be taxed at a very low rate, while ALL other taxes would be abolished.

At the time, Bruce Grierson, calculated that a TOT of 7.5% would have given the government as much revenue as did all the then existing taxes-Income Tax, Stamp Duty, Company Tax, Excise Duty etc etc etc combined.

Basically TOT is the free market plus X per cent.

I don't know what the per centage would have to be today, to replace GST, FBT, PAYE, Company Tax etc, but the principle remains the same.

TOT is extremely easy to calculate and administer.

For example, if you sold your house for $400,000 you would pay $30,00 in tax (assuming 7.5%)

If your salary was $1,000 per week, you would pay $75 TOT.

If you bought $200 worth of groceries you would pay $15 TOT.

If your business turned over $1,000,000 pa you would pay $75,000 TOT.

Assuming, as I do, that the free market is the most efficient provider of goods and services, you want a tax system that interferes as little as possible with market forces.

Currently we have a highly distorted economy because many people pump all their spare cash into real estate to secure a tax free capital gain. That starves the rest of the economy of capital to undertake more productive activity.

TOT would treat all transactions equally, minimising distortion. Therefore property transactions would be treated the same as any other economic activity. This would eliminate the current distortionary problems and encourage people to invest more widely. That would be better for us all, in all manner of ways.

Currently, huge amounts of productive energy are wasted by businesses trying to minimise profit and taxable income. This is also highly distortionary and wasteful.

TOT would eliminate that problem, because businesses would be taxed on their turnover (NOT THEIR PROFIT).

If your business turned over a million dollars but made zero profit, you would pay 7.5% TOT on that million.

If your business turned over a million dollars but made $300,000 profit, you would still only pay the 7.5% TOT on the million turnover.

The incentive to make profits would be huge, because you would only ever be taxed on your turnover. Profits, which any sane system would want to encourage, would go completely untaxed.

Tax evasion would be pretty pointless. It might be worth risking heavy penalties to avoid paying 39% on your hard earned profit. Few would take the risk to avoid paying a measly 7.5% on their turnover.

Everybody would benefit by adopting such a simple, transparent system, except of course the many IRD officers who would be forced to find honest employment.

Some accountants and lawyers might have fewer overseas holidays for a while, but even they would do better off in the long run as business boomed.

The rest of us would prosper as an efficient, productive economy delivered as an ever expanding and ever cheaper array of goods and services.

In the 66% top rate income tax Muldoon era, pushing anything as radical and simple as TOT was like pushing the proverbial uphill.

Even in today's climate its still pretty "out there".

However, I thought it was about time that someone started talking about TOT again.

What do you think?

Does it make sense? What are the drawbacks? Is it pure nonsense? Could it be "sold" to the public one day? Should I be committed for even suggesting it? Have I missed a basic flaw? Could TOT revolutionise New Zealand and make this country an economic wonderland?

Your views, criticisms, questions and suggestions are very welcome.

Ahmadinejad on Iranian Homosexuals

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's claim at Columbia University, that Iran did not have homosexuals "like in your country" has made world headlines.

From Jihad Watch


Asked about executions of homosexuals in Iran, Ahmadinejad said the judiciary system executed violent criminals and high-level drug dealers, comparing them to microbes eliminated through medical treatment. Pressed specifically about punishment of homosexuals, he said: "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country."

With the audience laughing derisively, he continued: "In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have this."

To be fair to Ahmadinejad, he was possibly not denying Iranian homosexuality so much as the existence of an overt homosexual subculture such as is common in Western countries.

Iran doesn't have an open homosexual subculture, because Iranian homosexuals are not stupid enough to flaunt their sexual orientation.

If they did, they might well end up like the Iranian homosexual mentioned in this post.

"National Question" 31 Fisking Ken Douglas

Ken Douglas on Marxism and Maoridom

The '90s Maori radicals, received much of their inspiration, training and money from the Marxist-Leninist controlled trade unions.

In 1995, the Council of Trade Unions passed a remit proposed by the Socialist Unity Party/Sociast Party of Aotearoa controlled National Distribution Union, calling for the CTU to identify with the struggle for Maori rights and sovereignty.


According to "Socialist Worker", October, 1995 Ken Douglas, then President of the CTU, stated that the CTU "strongly identifies" with and supports Maori Sovereignty, the developing Maori economy, the Treaty of Waitangi process, and greater support for Maori in union negotiating processes.

It is important to remember that despite his semi-respectable image, Ken Douglas was at the time still NZ's leading Marxist-Leninist.

Douglas' influence both open and hidden was and still is, immense.

Douglas joined the Communist movement in 1960, fresh from working in the Party led, "No Maoris No Tour" campaign.

Douglas trained extensively in Moscow and for many years was practically a permanent fixture at the Soviet embassy in Wellington. He still maintains a network of socialist and trade union contacts that spans the world.

A "true believer" socialist, and great admirer of late East German leader Erich Honecker, Douglas remains to this day, a totally committed revolutionary.

His opinions on Maori issues can therefore be safely assumed to reflect Marxist-Leninist policy.


In her 1995 book "Maori Sovereignty; the Pakeha Perspective" author Carol Archie included a lengthy and revealing interview with Ken Douglas.

Below I quote passages from her article and then attempt to interpret Douglas' Marxisms into plain language.

"Philosophically, the socialists empathised with the Maori concept of social ownership of the land and the idea that tribal societies saw preservation of the land as their heritage and future. Ken Douglas says that is why socialists and progressive labour people identify with the need to protect Maori land interests and to right the wrongs of the process of colonisation."

To me this is confirmation of my thesis that New Zealand socialists have attempted to exploit so-called "Maori Communism" in forging a Maori/Marxist alliance.
The socialists have exploited and embittered Maori grievances, real or imaginary at every opportunity for 60 years. Do they care more about Maoris, or more about revolution?

"Marxism encourages Ken to to analyse in a scientific way what he calls the dialectics of historical materialism, the issues of Maori exploitation and the circumstances that Maori now find themselves in... He says the debate around the economic and sovereign rights of the Maori is much sharper in 1995 than in what it was in 1960 because of that historical process.

Another example he gives is how the the "No Maoris No Tour" campaign in 1960 was a significant lead-up to the Springbok Tour protests in 1981 'So it's like a spiral of time. The issues go around, they almost come back to the same point, but they are further ahead and more people are aware of them'."

This shows just how deeply Douglas is enslaved by Marxist thinking. To me this statement means that socialists have campaigned on racial issues, gradually "brainwashing" public opinion into accepting the Marxist viewpoint. To Douglas this is the natural unfolding of history.

"Indigenous peoples rights are an internationalist issue for Ken. He says as a unionist he cannot view Maori rights in an exclusive way because the concepts of working class solidarity spread past national boundaries. On behalf of the CTU he is a member of several Asian and Pacific trade union bodies which recognise indigenous peoples rights.

One of them, the South Pacific Oceanic Council of Trade Unions, even offers support for indigenous independence movements. In New Calendonia, where the Kanak struggle became quite vicious, there were union initiatives to support the Kanaks to try and disrupt the supply of arms to French colonial forces there. Involvement in the independence movement of another country raises the question of what you are doing about the independence of the indigenous people in your own country."

This supports my thesis that "National Question" activity is international in scope and that trade unions are the major transmission belt of Marxist direction and aid to indigenous peoples movements.

Douglas did plenty to help the "indigenous peoples movements" in this country. I wonder if Douglas would have supported the blocking of supplies to the New Zealand army if it were ever engaged in combat against "indigenous" forces?

"Within it's own structure the CTU has a national runanga which provides two Maori members for the 15 member national executive. Ken also says the CTU has built a relationship with the National Maori Congress to co-operate on such issues as Maori unemployment and to press politicians for an independent Maori economy".

The Maori National Congress was a socialist influenced body directly affiliated to the CTU. It purported to be the national voice of Maoridom and strove for the "independent Maori economy" so long sought by the Marxist-Leninists.

The unions were and are the "transmission belt" of communist ideas from the party to the people.

Question For An Old Comrade

There is a big gap in my knowledge of NZ's former leading communist organisation, the Socialist Unity Party.

That is, in what year and in what circumstances did the SUP fold its tent?

I know that the occasional ex-comrade tunes into this blog, so if someone would be good enough to answer the question I'd much appreciate it.

China/Cook Islands Ties Increasing

China has been trying to gain influence with our near neighbours, the Cook Islands, for some time.


Now the Cook Island's Prime Minister is off for a trip to Beijing

From the Communist Party of China website

At the invitation of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Jim Marurai will pay an official visit to China from Sept. 24 to 30, announced Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu here on Thursday.

In August 2006, PM Marurai met with with visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing.

Russian Communists Growing in Numbers, Confidence

On the eve of the 90th anniversary of the glorious 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation has just held its XII (Extraordinary) Congress.

An optimistic affair, the party is enjoying a boost in membership and and is ready to capitalise in next year's Duma and presidential elections on a swing to the left by Russian voters.

The CPRF can confidently expect its best electoral showing since the "fall of communism" in 1991.

From the CPRF website-translated by Babelfish with refinements from Once Upon a Time in the West.


The chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation G.A. Zyuganov opened the congress... Among those invited were veterans of the party, delegations from the other parties belonging to the Union of Communist Parties-Communist Party of the Soviet Union, party and youth activists, representatives of the diplomatic corp...Deputies of the State Duma and the members of Federation Council, and scientific and cultural workers.


In the hall were invited the representatives of the student forces of the CPRF, active membership of the Komsomol, and young Communists who recently entered the party. The first secretary of the Central Committee of the CPRF Komsomol Y.V. Afonin read a report about the summary of the work of the student forces of the CPRF. The chairman of the CPRF CC G.A. Zyuganov entrusted to the most outstanding Komsomol members the medal of the CPRF CC in the honor of the 90th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution.

G. A. Zyugamov noted that in recent years the CPRF recruited 70,000 people, a considerable proportion of them young people. Zyuganov then encouraged the young reinforcements of party.

Aussie Communists Organised Anti APEC Demos

Just confirming what we all suspected.

From the Communist Party of Australia's The Guardian 19 September


The Sydney District Committee of the Communist Party of Australia, with the support of the Central Committee, participated in the anti-APEC actions of the weekend of 7-9 September.

The Party had representatives on both the organising committees for the "Festival" and the "Stop Bush Coalition".

Party members of the Sydney district were then very active over the APEC weekend participating in the Anti-APEC Festival of Friday Sept 7, and the very successful Rally and March of Saturday September 8. A Party stall was set up in Hyde Park for both events.

The District Committee also organised a fund raising dinner called "The Real Story of APEC" with Michael McKinley, political commentator from the ANU. The dinner was well attended and the after dinner speaker and entertainment from a Kurdish performer were warmly received. Banners and placards were prepared well in advance for the rally but was restricted by the Police policy of only allowing one metre poles in the rally.

The District Committee extends its congratulations to all Party members and Guardian readers who participated in the anti-APEC events over the weekend, and warm thanks to those who assisted in organising them.

"National Question" Part 30 The '90s Radicals

The continual radical propaganda from Maori broadcasting helped stir up a new wave of Maori protest activity.


In the mid '90s, occupations at Moutua Gardens, the Rotorua Maori Arts and Crafts Institute in Rotorua, arsons, assaults, courtroom protests and vandalism brought a new wave of Maori activists to the fore.

Ken Mair, Mike Smith, Niko Tangaroa and Tame Iti became the new bogeymen.

This "new wave" however was not so new. It was a direct descendant of '80s activist groups such as Syd Jackson's Te Ahi Kaa, Mat Rata's Mana Motuhake and of course the trade union movement.

Ken Mair, an ex-navy diver, was seven years Maori officer with the socialist controlled Post Primary Teachers Association and an official in Mana Motuhake.


The late Niko (Nick) Tangaroa spent many years as an organiser for the Engineers Union and Mike Smith (Libya 1988)was involved with the Labourers Union.


Tame Iti was a veteran of Nga Tamatoa and the Communist Party, travelled to China and worked through CORSO, the Pulp and Paper Workers Union and Eva Rickard's Mana Maori Party.

Another old time "new waver" was Joe Rickit, Wellington political spokesman for Te Ahi Kaa and a member of Hone Harawira's Te Kawariki. Rickit had been a Labourers Union official, a member of the Porirua branch of the Socialist Unity Party and involved with the Wellington branch of the Communist Party. Rickit is now coordinator for the National Association of Maori Mathematicians, Scientists and Technologists.

Few, if any of the '90s Maori radical leaders did not have Marxist/Leninist and/or trade union connections.

The "New Wavers" also had a dedicated non Maori support network. This web included CORSO, and the Christchurch based group, Action For An Independent Aoteoroa (AFIA), which organised Waitangi Day protests at Okains Bay, near Christchurch, annually for a decade.

AFIA leader, Joe Davies, now an organiser with Matt McCarten's UNITE union is as radical as they come. He has been active in HART, CORSO, the NZ/USSR Friendship Society and other socialist groups. As he wrote in Monthly Review, November 1988., "Pakeha communists must get actively involved in supporting Maori struggles for national independence and self-determination. We have to seek out those issues that will further the aims of nationalism..."


Incidentally Davies probably earned his credibility with the radicals during the 1986 royal tour of New Zealand when he proudly bared his backside to Queen Elizabeth. Davies performance (a traditional Maori insult) was possibly the real inspiration for Her Royal Highness' description of that disastrous year for the Royal Family, 1992.. "Annus Horriblis."

S.A.P. 18 Dr Geraldene Peters

Dr Martin Hirst is far from the only socialist working in the Auckland University of Technology's School of Communication Studies.

Our aspiring journalists have the choice several radicals to teach them how to bend history in the correct direction.

My latest Socialist Academic Profile looks at AUT Media Studies lecturer, Geraldene Peters.


Ms Peters graduated with a PhD from the Department of Film, Television and Media Studies at the Universityof Auckland in 2006, having written a thesis about radical left documentary in New Zealand.

In the 1990 Peters did undergraduate film study under socialist film lecturer Dr Russell Campbell at Victoria University, Wellington

In the 1998, Peters spent a year on the History of Consciousness graduate programme at the University of California, Santa Cruz. On the way back she stopped off in Cuba for a month.

In 2000 Peters was a founder of the NZ's anarchist socialist internet media site, Indymedia.

That led in 2000 to organising, with the S11aotearoaNZ Collective, a series of Global Activism screenings at the UofA? - pretty successful by all accounts - we got numbers, and a range of people. "Showdown in Seattle" was of course the lynchpin screening. After helping organise, and videoing anti-WEF demos in Auckland one thing led to another with a group of us wanting to set up Aotearoa Indymedia. By early 2001 we hooked into a network of people from around the country wanting to do something similar, and the rest is ...

In April 2002 Peters was involved in setting up the radical leftist Global Peace and Justice Auckland, with the likes of leftist priest Terry Dibble, lifelong socialist and activist Maire Leadbetter, former trotskyist Mike Treen, Marxist John Minto, leftist legal academic Jane Kelsey, Socialist Worker member Dave Colyer, Green activist Lynne Serpe, former Trotskyist and Alliance Party co-leader Len Richards and leftist academic Love Chile.

GPJA spawned the leftist journal, Red&Green, to which Peters is an occasional contributor.

In recent years Dr Peters has been teaching and designing courses at universities in New Zealand and the US. She has also written study guides for the NCEA media studies curriculum and written material for university adult education.

Dr Peter's research interests include;

Documentary theory, practice and aesthetics; film, television and media studies in Aotearoa/New Zealand; realism and visual culture; radical/alternative media practices; cultural studies in Britain and Aotearoa/New Zealand; articulations of social power; political economies of production.

In recent years Dr Peters, like her colleague Dr Martin Hirst, has been close to the Trotskyists of Socialist Worker. She is currently an Auckland City Council candidate (Western Bays Ward)for the Socialist Worker front electoral alliance-Residents Action Movement.

Garth George on the Adoption Option

I found this very good article by Garth George, from the NZ Herald of 26th July.

The adoption "market" is simply not working.

There is a huge demand for babies and a huge potential supply, but adoption numbers are at an all time low. All adoptions must be approved by the CYF Adoption Unit. Unfortunately, the Unit is forbidden to recommend adoption as an option for expectant mothers, so most have little idea it is even a possibility.

Consequently most either abort their babies or opt for a life on the Domestic Purposes Benefit.

As George points out however, the Christchurch based Adoption Option Trust are trying to do something about the problem.

From the Herald

It comes as no surprise to learn that Child Youth and Family is discouraging New Zealand couples from adopting Russian children.

After all, that same service, in all its various incarnations, has for the past 30 years or so been discouraging non-family adoptions within New Zealand.

Those adoptions reached a peak here in 1969 when there were 2600-odd; by 1980 the figure had dropped to 500-odd; by 1990 to 225; by 2000 to 125; and last year there were about 90.

The 1977 decriminalisation of abortion no doubt had an effect on the number of babies available for adoption.

But undoubtedly the misguided policies of what is now CYF has had its effect also for it seems to have actively discouraged adoptions, for which it is responsible, by not making their availability widely known.

Far easier, I suppose, to encourage abortion (just on 18,000 last year) and to promote the domestic purposes benefit, which together cost the country scores of millions of dollars a year.

What makes it worse is that since 1991 the number of 11 to 14-year-olds having abortions has increased by 144 per cent and the number of abortions for 15 to 19-year-olds has increased by 74 per cent.

Every week almost 80 teenagers have abortions - almost a quarter of all abortions performed. Yet there was a time when a teenage accidental mother's first choice was to have the child adopted.

All this in spite of the fact that since the passing of the Adult Adoption Information Act in 1985 all the old secrecy and stigma surrounding adoption has disappeared and what is known as "open adoption" has become the norm.

It doesn't seem to matter to CYF that New Zealand's adoption system is considered among the best in the world and that studies both here and overseas show that adoption is not harmful to children.

A long-term Christchurch health and development study, for instance, found that adopted children were advantaged throughout childhood in several ways compared with children in biological single-parent families.

These included childhood experiences, standards of health care, family material conditions and stability, including mother-child interaction.

The study found, too, that adopted children had significantly lower rates of behavioural disorders, substance abuse and juvenile offending.

And an American study comparing open and closed adoptions revealed that openness in adoption reduced the negative impact of grief and loss on birth mothers, that adoptive parents felt more secure in their parental role and that children were better adjusted in their middle childhood years.

Which brings me to the good news. Thanks to the activities of two Christchurch mothers, the adoption option could well become once again as mainstream as it was 30-odd years ago.

A couple of years ago Sue Kinghams and Larena Brown, who became friends in 2003 when they both adopted little girls, discovered that as far as the public were concerned adoption seemed to be shrouded in secrecy to such an extent that most people seemed to think it didn't happen any more.

Mrs Kinghams and her husband, Simon, who have now adopted two children, were dismayed when they went through the adoption process at how few babies were available.

They were also struck by the lack of information on adoptions, all of which are made through CYF, and that the agency did not advertise the service. So Mrs Kinghams and Mrs Brown set up Adoption Option to provide a website (www.adoptionoption.org.nz) full of information about adoption, and to prepare a DVD on which birth parents who have placed their children for adoption share their stories.

The website, too, contains adoption stories, including those of Chiefs rugby player Liam Messam, whose family had three children of their own then adopted five more including him, and chef Jo Seagar, an adoptive mother.

Perhaps the best news of all is that Adoption Option seems to have the blessing of officialdom and health professionals since the minister in charge of CYF, Ruth Dyson, sent a message of support when the website and DVD were launched.

And the director of the Christchurch Youth Health Centre, Dr Sue Bagshaw, told a gathering that the resources being developed by Adoption Option would help young women to make better choices. She said when girls and women came for help with a crisis pregnancy they were offered three options - keep the baby, have her or him adopted or have an abortion.

Up to now, the abortion option always seemed to be relatively easy but no one had been able to give good information on what happened if women adopted out the baby. Adoption Option's brilliant new video, she said, would help women to make choices well.

And you never know. It might even encourage some folk to flag away the idea of importing kids from Russia and choose to adopt a Kiwi instead.

"Getting Real" on Russia

At last, someone in the US government is starting to confront the reality of the new Russia.

From Novosti

WASHINGTON, July 12 (RIA Novosti) - A senior U.S. intelligence analyst said political maneuvering in Russia is intensifying as the country approaches presidential elections in March 2008.

Speaking before U.S. lawmakers, Thomas Fingar, National Intelligence Council deputy director for analysis, gave an analytical assessment of the current situation in Russia as part of a report about global security threats facing the United States.

"As Russia moves toward a presidential election in March 2008, succession maneuvering has intensified and increasingly dominates Russian domestic and foreign policy," he said Wednesday in a prepared testimony before the House of Representatives' Armed Services Committee.

Russia will hold parliamentary elections in December this year and presidential elections in March 2008.

To date, former Central Bank chairman Viktor Gerashchenko, Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, Mikhail Kasyanov, an ex-prime minister and leader of the Russian People's Democratic Union, and Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the liberal Yabloko party, have announced their plans to run for the presidency.

President Vladimir Putin, who has been increasingly criticized in the West for his anti-democratic record, but who remains popular within Russia, has repeatedly denied any possibility of him staying in office for a third term, and is widely expected to name "a successor".

Meanwhile, the U.S. intelligence official reiterated warnings about the alleged clampdown on democracy in Russia and the Kremlin's attempts to assume control over key sectors of the Russian economy.

"The last year has seen expanded Kremlin efforts to stifle political opposition and widen state control over strategic sectors of the economy," Fingar said. "Those trends are likely to deepen as the succession draws closer."

He also warned about the growing political rift in relations between Washington and Moscow as Russia's blossoming aspirations to become an energy superpower continue to bolster the Kremlin's confidence both at home and abroad.

"Russian assertiveness will continue to inject elements of rivalry and antagonism into U.S. dealings with Moscow, particularly our interactions in the former Soviet Union, and will affect our ability to cooperate with Russia on issues ranging from counterterrorism and nonproliferation to energy and democracy promotion in the Middle East," the intelligence analyst said.

How Socialist Extremists Took Over the New Zealand Labour Party Part 13

The New Zealand Council for World Peace

One of the Socialist Unity Party's main avenues for infiltrating and influencing the Labour Party was the New Zealand Council for World Peace.


Founded in 1976 in Auckland, by SUP leaders Bill Andersen and Peter Ritchie, the NZCWP was the local affiliate of the Soviet front World Peace Council.

Its main purpose was to promote the Soviet Union's anti nuclear line through unions, churches, "community groups" and most importantly the Labour Party.

I quote from a Socialist Unity Party Auckland Regional Newsletter of 12/11/80

To date in the region the Peace Council has made good progress among trade unions but more effort must be made to build on this and take the peace question to the factory floor.

Also needed now is to broaden the Peace Council into other areas of the Community, join up prominent personalities including MPs, increase church involvement, university involvement, other peace groups, community clubs etc.

Here branches and comrades can act as catalysts. We must be extremely careful that in building the Peace Council it does not become overburdened with “SUP” people or be labelled just another “SUP” front.

If our Party is working correctly, only a few comrades, reporting back to the Region and Branches and taking forward issues from the same sources, are necessary to ensure effective involvement in the Peace movement. The broadest possible base is needed if we are to make the Council effective.

Note the blatant dishonesty. The SUP is bluntly stating that the Party must be careful to hide SUP presence and guidance of the Peace Council.

Part 12 Here

Part 14 Here

The Political and the Personal

I just found this comment on a profile I did in January 2006 of Canterbury University lecturer David Small.

It raises some interesting questions.

I just came across your profile of me. Amazing how often you add 2 and 2 and get 5. I showed it to my partner who's an independent midwife and she was horrified to discover that you are the person she went to some effort for recently in your desire to have a baby. You must have forgotten to mention that you were a right-wing nutter.

New Zealand is a tiny country. Everyone is connected to virtually everyone else within two or three degrees of seperation.

Here I am busily trying to expose someone I consider to be a dangerous socialist, while the man's partner is trying to help my wife and I adopt a child.

The obvious question is-can one, or should one seperate the personal from the political?

My answer is that it is difficult but possible and that one should try to see people as independent of their politics.

David Small is clearly horrified that his partner tried to help a "right wing nutter" adopt a child.

Would she have still tried to help had she known my politics?

My wife and I recently spoke at an Adoption Unit seminar on fostering and adopting toddler age children. Several couples were in the audience, all eager to draw from our experience.

We were there to help. They all could have been commies or Jim Anderton supporters for all we knew or cared.

All we wanted was to impart some of our knowledge, so that that those couples might have a better chance of experiencing some of the joys that we've had with our kids.

People are people first and political animals second. Political ideas, like all ideas are often temporarily held. While they may highlight character defects in the individual holding them, they do not entirely define a person.

When I profile people like David Small, I do so for several reasons.

Firstly I want to educate people as to how socialists work. I want to show the patterns of destructive behaviour that these people engage in, so that others may better understand the danger they pose. I feel a bit like a crime writer exposing the Mafia or the Triads.

Secondly, I want to use Lenin against the left. Lenin saw that the secret of achieving political power was to deny your opponents the ability to make decisions and take action in private. I want to expose the left and their methods so that it is harder for them to get away with their scams.

Thirdly, I think it is good for ALL of us to be held to account for our actions. If I were a destructive socialist, I would like (deep down) for my actions to be exposed. It might make me think about my ideas and even spark the long process of change for the better. I doubt many will see it that way, but I actually think I am doing socialists a favour by exposing their destructive actions and warped ideas to the sunlight.

All sounds very arrogant and condescending doesn't it?

We're all on this planet to live by our values and by doing so to grow as individuals. The more you put your ideas and values "out there" for people to judge and criticise, the more truthful they may become.

While I will fight the political ideas and values of the David Smalls of this world, I try to bear no malice towards those I oppose.

Maybe one day we will be fighting on the same side. Maybe one day we will even be friends. Maybe one day I will be in a position to return the favour that David's "family" tried to do mine.

Anything is possible when the personal transcends the political.

Maoists Quit Nepali Government

From South Asian Terrorism Portal

The Communist Party of Nepal – Maoist (CPN-M) quit the government as the eight-party leaders failed to create a consensus on its demands on September 18, reports Nepal News. Senior Maoist ministers submitted their resignation letters to the Prime Minister (PM) Girija Prasad Koirala, soon after the meeting ended in a deadlock. The PM has rejected two key demands of the Maoists: the announcement of Republic before the elections and a proportional representation election system.


Addressing a mass rally, the Maoist ‘second-in-command’, Baburam Bhattarai said, "Our efforts to declare republic from the parliament has failed. Now we will declare republic from the streets. Therefore, we have decided to come in the midst of the people," said Bhattarai. He also rejected the code of ethics and election schedule by the Election Commission and said "We will struggle for the purpose of having real election not this hypocritical drama."

China/South Africa "Strategic Partnership"

Neo-communist South Africa is moving ever closer to the Peoples Republic of China.

The two countries now apparently enjoy a "strategic partnership".

Who better to represent the South African side of the equation, than president Mbeki's right hand man, Soviet trained SA Communist Party leader, Essop Pahad?

From the Communist Party of China website


Li Changchun (R), member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, meets with South African Minister in Presidency Essop Pahad in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 18, 2007.


A senior official of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on Tuesday called for stepping up exchanges and cooperation between China and South Africa to further their strategic partnership.

Li Changchun, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, made the remarks when meeting with Essop Pahad, minister in Presidency of South Africa.

Li said the two countries enjoy profound traditional friendship and also share practical common interests. Bilateral relations have developed smoothly since diplomatic ties were forged nearly ten years ago. The two countries have established strategic partnership and witnessed frequent exchanges of high-level visits, rising political mutual trust and rapidly growing economic and trade ties.

He said as the tenth anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties approaches, the two countries should step up exchanges and cooperation in political, economic, cultural and press sectors to further promote their strategic partnership.

Pahad said the government of South Africa is willing to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with the Chinese Government and further push forward exchanges and cooperation in the press sector to enhance mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples.

Chavez Forces Private Schools to Teach Socialism

From Bloomberg September 17

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, after nationalizing the oil and telecommunications industries this year, said private schools that fail to teach a ``socialist'' curriculum will be taken over by the state.

Schools will have until 2010 to implement the new lesson plans, which will include new textbooks that focus more on the country's indigenous history than its European conquest, Chavez said today at a ceremony to inaugurate the school year.

``We can't allow private schools to do whatever they want,'' Chavez said in comments broadcast by state television from the city of El Tigre. ``The state has to intervene. They should be subordinate to the constitution and the national education plan.''

Teachers and academics may see the measure as an attempt to politicize the classroom, speeding up a brain drain that has been underway for years as educated, skilled workers move abroad to escape Chavez's ``Bolivarian'' revolution, said Ercilia Vasquez, director of the school of education at the Universidad Catolica Andres Bello in Caracas.

``This ideology is very strong,'' she said in a phone interview. ``We're going through a process where a lot of people are looking for other alternatives outside the country. This could accelerate it.''

Private schools, which are already subject to price controls, will also be shut down if they are run like for-profit businesses, Chavez said.

The government will finish developing the new curriculum during the current school year, selecting text books that provide a more ``multicultural, pluralistic'' worldview, Chavez said.

Hat Tip Once Upon a Time in the West

Was Larry Sutherland a Secret SUP Member?

Larry Walter Sutherland was elected to the ultra-safe Christchurch Labour seat of Avon in 1987. A trade unionist hinmself, it is not surprising that local unionists worked hard to secure him the Labour nomination.


After a harsh upbringing in Christchurch, Sutherland settled in the Nelson region. where he was active in the union movement and the Labour Party.

By 1982 Sutherland was President of the Nelson Combined Trades Council, a National Councillor of the Federation of Labour, and chairman of former Prime Minister Bill Rowling's Labour Party Tasman Electorate Committee.

According to a formerly prominent trade unionist, Sutherland was at this time, also a covert member of the pro-Soviet, Socialist Unity Party.

The trade unionist in question, told me that a colleague of his had found a wallet in the toilets at the Wellington FOL headquarters. Rummaging through the wallet to identify the owner, the man found a Socialist Unity Party card made out to one Larry Sutherland. I was told that Sutherland happily accepted the lost wallet, with no mention being made of the party card inside.

I know from interviews with a former SUP member that secret party membership was quite common and that many secret SUP members held prominent positions in the Labour Party at that time and later.

Open members usually carried party cards initialled "GJ"-presumably then party president George Jackson.

Secret members cards were initialled by "KD"-possibly then SUP leader, Ken Douglas.

That the SUP, in common with most communist parties, had secret members is beyond doubt. This fact confirmed by prominent party member Jackson Smith in an interview with student paper Salient (issue number 25)in 1983. Smith claimed he "hated every minute" of his own secret party membership, but didn't tell how he was severely chastised after inexplicably letting the "cat out of the bag" during a radio interview.

What evidence is there that Sutherland was a covert SUP member, besides a bit of hearsay?

There is certainly no doubt that Sutherland was a socialist sympathiser.

In early 1982 Sutherland was part of a four man FOL delegation, with Paul Piesse, Gus Ricketts and leader Ken Douglas. The delegation spent a few days in Moscow and Leningrad before heading on to the 10th Congress of the Soviet front World Federation of Trade Unions in Havana, Cuba in February.

On his return to NZ, Sutherland gave an interesting interview to the Nelson Evening Mail, of 13th March 1982

"What I believe in is a form of socialism for every country and that it be determined by the people of that country in accordance with its culture and needs of the people. . . What the capitalist world represents at the moment is exploitation, racism, segregation of people and division of working class people to set them against one another..."

Sutherland "considered the Soviet Union and Cuba to be socialist democracies although he was more impressed with the Government of Cuba ("after New Zealand I'd be quite happy to live there") than the USSR... "Cubans who have left the country for America have only been the criminal element or the bourgeoisie who cannot live in Cuba's new society"

On the "class struggle" in NZ, Sutherland explained "it is adopting these kind of policies (curbing trade union rights, restricting wage levels of workers) and trying to put them into action to fall in line with the wishes of the international monopolies and conglomerates, which are very much at the forefront and backed by the likes of the United Sates Government, exploiting the world and working people and destroying them..."

When Sutherland campaigned for the Avon nomination in 1987, local unionists rallied to his cause. prominent among them was his "Cuba comrade", Paul Piesse.

Sutherland was particularly unspectacular in Parliament, but did become a close ally of Sydenham MP Jim Anderton. The two maintained a hard left line on most issues and both were keen anti-nuclear campaigners

Anderton was very highly regarded by the SUP and also had links to Australian Marxist-Leninists.

When Anderton broke with Labour to form the New Labour Party in 1989, the SUP was livid. Party General Secretary Marilyn Tucker called the breakaway party a "threat to democracy". The SUP feared that the NLP, though more leftist than Labour, would destroy the work the SUP had put into Labour over the past decade and help deliver the 1990 election to National.

Larry Sutherland talked the talk with Anderton and was widely picked to leave Labour for the NLP.

When it came to crunch however, Sutherland stayed true.

In May 1990 Sutherland gave speech at St James Hall, Fendalton, in part justifying his decision to stay with the "right wing" Labour Party. "Some of you will know I am on the left of the party, and will remain there... "I have not shifted my political position. I remain where I have always been but the inside picture is different, the responsibilities profound, the options not easy.

I remember as a trade union official being involved in some negotiations that very occasionally appeared to be sell-outs. The problem was, that the purity of my political position was never as important as union members being able to put food on the table and shoes on the kid's feet. It is because of that, that I believe we should work for the return of the Labour Government...and despite my not infrequent criticism of this government, I believe in its future..."

"In 1984, this government, amoungst all the governments in the world, stood and said "we will not have nuclear armed ships in New Zealand waters. We did it not to win votes, not to be re-elected, but because it was right. And because we were right the public supported us. There can be no greater issue - there is no greater issue, and the Labour government has proven against the odds, that it can be trusted not to flip-flop..."

My suspicion is that Larry Sutherland stayed with Labour, not out of love for Labour, but because his real party, the SUP, told him to.

Sutherland became Labour's junior Whip in 1993 and retired from Parliament in 1999-about the same time the Socialist Unity Party finally folded.

He ran a video store in Christchurch for a few years, until he died in 2005, aged only 54.

A bit of an anti-climax really.

How Socialist Extremists Took Over the New Zealand Labour Party Part 12

The SUP's People in Parliament

The 1984 Labour government was supported by a party shot through with Socialist Unity Party supporters, secret members and sympathisers.

The Labour Party's union affiliate organisations, policy council and executive (up to the level of party president) was thoroughly infiltrated by the SUP and its supporters.

In the 1987 General Election, the SUP used its leverage on Labour to get more "progressive" people into Parliament. This caused considerable controversy as unionists stacked electorate meetings around the country to ensure "suitable" candidates were selected.

An April 30th 1987 report in the Christchurch Star claimed that moderate Labour MPs were worried about "growing infiltration of safe labour seats by trade union candidates." Labour Party's president, Margaret Wilson, "today rejected suggestions of an orchestrated campaign by a Leftist element..." Jim Anderton admitted, however that "in Porirua trade unions had been clearly activist in support of Graeme Kelly."

Liz Tennet, a Clerical Workers Union official won the Island Bay nomination after a bitter fight with moderate Helene Ritchie, who later accused "unionists of stacking the election meeting."

In a speech at Massey university in July 1992 former Finance Minister Roger Douglas claimed that in 1986/87 then Labour President Margaret Wilson had gone "out of her way to pick a string of inadequate left-wing candidates". Douglas had discussed the situation with colleagues in an effort to establish what could be done about it, "the answer was nothing, given the constitution of the Labour Party"

At least three Socialist Unity Party linked Labour candidates were elected to Parliament in 1987.

They were, Sonja Davies in Pencarrow, Graham Kelly in Porirua and Larry Sutherland in Avon.

Part 11 Here

Part 13 Here

Filming the Great Communist Deception

With communism coming back in Russia and on a roll in much of the world, it looks like the predictions of Anatoliy Golitsyn may be vindicated.

Golitsyn claimed that the "collapse of communism" was organised from within and when the time was right, communism would be restored by the intelligence services of the former Eastern Bloc.

US commentatator Jeff Nyquist reports that a film is being made about the grand scam that transformed Russia and Eastern Europe in the late '80s and early'90s.

Filming the Great Deception


Cinematographer Robert Buchar is attempting to put together a documentary feature film about the end of the Cold War and the collapse of Communism in Europe. Its working title is “The Grand Deception – Uncertain History.”

Based on interviews with former Communist Bloc intelligence officers, CIA officials and scholars, the documentary shows that Communism did not collapse spontaneously. The directive for change came from Moscow. “People power” had nothing to do with it.

According to Buchar, “For the last three years I couldn’t find any media interested in this topic.” Pundits and news anchors told us, again and again, that the revolutions in Eastern Europe were caused by popular discontent. According to conservative partisans, the Soviet Union fell because Ronald Reagan pushed it over. Not so, says Buchar: “The version of events presented to the public is very different from what actually happened.”

On this subject, Buchar interviewed various insiders and analysts. Former chief of CIA Soviet Bloc Counterintelligence, Tennant H. “Pete” Bagley told Buchar that an unknown hand was behind the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe. “There was a different truth in this respect,” Bagley said. “and that’s a truth that was so well hidden that I don’t know if it ever will come out….”


According Ludvik Zivcak, a Communist secret police official tasked with organizing the demonstration that triggered the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, “Many people think or believe that in 1989 there was a mass uprising of the nation. From what I did, or where I worked, I am convinced that there was no uprising at all. It’s hard to find out today who wrote the script but it wasn’t written in America. America just jumped on the bandwagon at the end. So the script was most probably written in the East.”

According to the Soviet dissident researcher and former political prisoner Vladimir Bukovsky, “The KGB was an integral part of the whole of Gorbachev’s perestroika.” Bukovsky told Buchar that the West: “never understood the Soviet system as such,” failing to comprehend “why it was inherently aggressive” and dangerous. The West made useless treaties with Russia, “As if a piece of paper could ever stop that monster.”

The West did not understand Stalin, Khrushchev or Brezhnev, and would never grasp the sinister side of Gorbachev’s peace offensive. “So they would all believe nonsense,” noted Bukovsky, “incredible nonsense, to believe that there is a struggle between reformers and conservatives in the Politburo and the leadership.”

So the changes were initiated from Moscow and the United States was told to stay out of it. It was the business of the KGB to manage the collapse of Communism, and now we see – more clearly than we did in 1991 – where this collapse has taken us.

Europe’s attitude has shifted against American foreign policy. To our consternation a KGB officer is president of the Russian Federation. Former agents and officials of the secret police are leading many of the “former” Warsaw Pact countries. The oppression of dissent is carried out by gangland-style assassinations (as in the deaths of Anna Politkovskaya and Paul Klebnikov). The jailing of dissidents is carried on under legal pretexts.

Czech journalist and politician Jan Stetina told Buchar, “After a few years it became clear that the term ‘fall of Communism’ doesn’t reflect reality. The excitement didn’t last for long and I would say that now we are in a state of disillusionment.”


As Czech dissident and former political prisoner Petr Cibulka explained: “I was released from prison ten days after November 17 [1989] and for the first couple of weeks I believed that changes were happening. But after a few weeks I realized that the changes were just cosmetic changes, changing of the scenery; that the power will remain in the hands of the Communists and that the Communists don’t need to worry about losing anything.” Cibulka further stated, “This is not a revolution but another Communist swindle.”

Former Czech political prisoner Vladimir Hucin told Buchar, “I signed Charter 77 after I was released from prison in 1986. When I later got access to documents from the STB [Communist secret police] archives I discovered how many people from Charter 77 were involved with the STB, how many agents the STB had in this group. That was a big disappointment for me.”


As Czech historian Pavel Zacek confirmed to Buchar, “The STB functioned very effectively. They infiltrated all regional opposition groups. They managed to place their agents in the top leadership positions of Civic Forum and recruit new agents within Czechoslovakia’s popular social democratic parties. There were no documents found about how this operation was run….”

Readers may wonder what Buchar thinks about the Western response to the collapse of Communism. “Well,” he said, “There was one thing I learned that I wasn’t aware of before – the level of incompetence in the CIA as far as their knowledge of the Communist system is concerned, the way it operated in Eastern Bloc countries, ignoring the importance of ideology and the level of Soviet infiltration in the agency. Something that Bill Gertz calls the anti-anti-Communist mindset in the agency. That was really shocking for me.”