Via Resistantsoy: Te Papa will be hosting a conference for New Zealand's arms industry (yes, we have one) on the 18th and 19th of October. Peace Action Wellington objects to this, and today is their phone-in day. If you don't like the idea of our local weapons industry peddling their wares in "our place", then please let Te Papa know. The numbers to call are:
Phone:
04 381 7000 (general enquiries)
04 381 7272 (functions team)
04 381 7108 (senior management)
Fax:
04 381 7070
Alternatively, you can email the Te Papa management team here.
11 comments:
I can see the Indonesia Government being right behind Peace Action Wellington. All those nasty weapons our troops had in East Timor were a real nuisance for them. Best not to have them then there would be peace. And the Indonsian occupation. But hey, peace at any price for peaceniks.
Posted by Anonymous : 9/01/2005 11:44:00 AM
Yeah, and if they didn't have access to guns then it wouldn't have happened. Puhlease...
Posted by Anonymous : 9/01/2005 12:45:00 PM
anon- yes you're right, it probably would have still happened even if they didn't have guns, but it would have made it more difficult for them. Thus less people would have been killed
Posted by Anonymous : 9/01/2005 02:25:00 PM
Considering Peace Action Wellington according to one Indonesian journalist is seen as a threat by the Indonesian embassy (rather unfairly I must say), I think this is not the case. We have campaigned since the beginning of martial law for the Indonesian army to get out of Acheh and to help make people in New Zealand aware of the conflict there, and also West Papua.
Peace Action Wellington in this campaign is arguing that there should be no public funding of a weapon's industry in New Zealand. Many of us would go as far as to say that there should be no weapons industry in New Zealand - this of course does not preclude the state purchasing weapons for it's soldiers.
At least read the press release before you mouth off sock thief.
And yes, as resistantsoy points out if the militias had not had access to weaponary (mostly from the TNI anyway) - the attempted genocide is unlikely to have been as devastating.
- John A
Posted by Anonymous : 9/01/2005 03:03:00 PM
Well, given that a few years back, the National govt was instrumental in selling approx 12000 surplus bren guns to the PNG government (which they then used in Bouganville), I'd say there's obvious deeper involvement of the government in the arms industry, and that a display in Te Papa is a drop in the bucket, really.
As a known gun nut, I don't support tightening up the NZ arms industry any further, but some oversight as to who our arms industry (including our own government) sells to would be a good idea.
Posted by Weekend_Viking : 9/01/2005 03:32:00 PM
Somebody might've told me there was going to be an arms expo - I've been in a retail-therapy mood for a while now :-)
Posted by Duncan Bayne : 9/01/2005 04:09:00 PM
So much for freedom of association. I do hope Te Papa listens to these phone calls politely and then tells the callers it's none of their business. Or should Te Papa also cancel gay conferences if Destiny members start overloading the switchboard?
Posted by Anonymous : 9/01/2005 04:57:00 PM
So, the best way to increase freedom in other countries is to attack freedoms in this country? Forgive my lack of enthusiasm. Trying to prevent people from gathering together is an attack on freedom of association. The legitimate targets for such pressure are politicians - if you don't like the arms industry, try and persuade politicians to make it illegal.
For my part, I don't see it as such a big deal. The Rwandans did a pretty good line in genocide with machetes and hammers. The Nazis got along just fine with concrete buildings and some cans of insecticide. If you wreck the world's arms industry, the world's assorted bad guys will get along just fine without us.
Posted by Anonymous : 9/02/2005 04:54:00 AM
Actually Psycho, you're right - the NAZIs didn't need many guns to exterminate the Jews, because they'd already disarmed them. The NAZIs were all in favour of 'gun control', because it meant that only the Government (i.e., the NAZIs) and their supporters had guns.
For details, check out Jews for the Preservation
of Firearms Ownership.
Posted by Duncan Bayne : 9/02/2005 09:35:00 AM
I do think this is a bit of a knee jerk response. If you're a total pacifist, and don't believe even in UN peacekeeping ops or having an armed offenders unit, then fair enough, that's a consistent position.
Otherwise, if you accept that nation states, including NZ, have some requirement for defence and security, then someone logically needs to make and sell weapons.
It just needs to be regulated so we don't sell nerve gas to Mugabe or something.
Posted by Rich : 9/02/2005 10:26:00 AM
I'm not any sort of gun-nut or militarist.
The peace action site advocates "An end to all government support for a weapons industry" and states that "Weapons producers are also called war profiteers because they exist to make money from bloodshed and violence".
It isn't saying that we should only sell weapons to non-belligerent democracies, which is a position that I would agree with.
I don't see how this is consistent with believing that, for instance, that Irish UN peacekeepers are entitled to have weapons, or that NZ companies could supply such weapons or that the government should help facilitate and regulate that process.
Posted by Rich : 9/02/2005 03:29:00 PM
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