Justice for Afghanistan?

Ben Roberts-Smith is a war criminal. While serving in the Australian SAS in Afghanistan, he murdered four unarmed Afghan civilians and committed other war crimes. He kicked an elderly handcuffed man over a cliff. He machine-gunned a prisoner with a prosthetic leg, then stole the leg as a trophy and used it in drinking games. He ordered soldiers under his command to murder unarmed civilians. He assaulted prisoners in his care, and ordered other assaults. These are not allegations; they are findings of fact by an Australian judge (though under a civil burden of proof, and sadly not in a criminal trial).

That judge said that Roberts-Smith had "disgraced his country" by his conduct. The Australian government gave him a Victoria Cross for it. But now, he is finally being prosecuted for it:

Ben Roberts-Smith has been arrested in relation to multiple counts of murdering unarmed Afghan civilians and prisoners in what looms as the most significant war crimes prosecution in Australian history.

Roberts-Smith is expected to be charged on Tuesday with five counts of war crime - murder following a joint investigation between the Office of Special Investigator and the Australian Federal Police. The maximum penalty for the offence of war crime - murder is life imprisonment.

Good. And hopefully the same will happen to the rest of Australia's war criminals. Because the Brereton Report found 39 murders, not just four, with 25 war criminals responsible. And they all need to be held to account.

Making the world a more dangerous place

Like much of the rest of the world, I've been watching in horror for the last week as nuclear-armed, genocidal Israel started a war of choice against Iran, bombing its military facilities and cities, then screaming like a Russian when its victim hit back. And now they've dragged the nuclear-armed US into their little war, making things even more dangerous.

Firstly, the war is clearly an illegal act of aggression under international law. Iran had taken no aggressive action against Israel, let alone the US, and there was not a clear and imminent threat of it doing so which would justify a pre-emptive strike. Instead, its just Israel kicking over another neighbour in an effort to distract from its ongoing genocide in Gaza. It is a clear international crime - the supreme international crime, even - and its architects should be facing trial in The Hague for it. Which makes the New Zealand government's refusal to condemn the attacks pure cowardice, a betrayal of our long-standing support for peace and international law.

The ostensible purpose of the war is to "stop Iran getting a nuclear weapon". Which is ridiculous on a number of levels. Most obviously because Iran has been a member of the non-proliferation treaty for over 50 years, and had renounced weapons of mass destruction in 2003. Israel and the US didn't believe them, so they signed an anti-nuclear deal in 2015, which subjected them to enhanced monitoring in exchange for a relaxation of sanctions. The first Trump administration tore it up, simply out of hostility to anything done by his predecessor. In response, Iran began to gradually do the things it was no longer forbidden to do, to remind the US of why it had signed the deal in the first place, and the US finally seems to have figured out that withdrawal was a mistake. They were due to restart negotiations to restore it a week ago - the day before Israel started bombing. And then, when Iran was about to start talking to the EU (who were also partners to the deal), the US started bombing. You'd almost get the impression certain countries had simply renounced diplomacy entirely...

But even taking the supposed goal seriously, it seems unlikely to succeed - and more likely to have the opposite effect. On the immediate level, the US has now admitted that it has no idea where Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium is anymore, while Israeli bombing means the IAEA has lost track of all sorts of stuff. Nuclear material and equipment may have been destroyed, or it may have been moved to be used in secret later, so any future monitoring effort is basically doomed. But given that the bombing has destroyed all trust between Iran and the IAEA, that's pretty much moot.

In the longer term, if Iran didn't already have a Bomb, it now has a very strong incentive to get as many as possible as soon as possible, to deter future bullshit. And apparently a bunch of countries are willing to help them with that. Along with the invasion of Ukraine, its basically the death of the NPT, and the birth of a more dangerous, nuclear-armed world. Oh joy.

And that's the real tragedy here. Nuclear weapons were invented 80 years ago, and are now well-understood technology. There are now nine nuclear-armed states, a bunch of countries like Japan, Germany, and South Korea who can build them at the drop of a hat, and a much larger group who could build them if they set their mind to it. Iran is one of those countries. Its a large, modern state, with universities, research institutes, and a nuclear power program. The interesting question isn't whether it has nuclear weapons, it's why it doesn't. And the answer to that is the same as for other large, modern states: because it didn't want them. Because weapons are wasteful, and it didn't feel the need - even when its spent the last 20 years being constantly threatened by Israel and the US. The Israeli-US bombing campaign has almost certainly destroyed that, both for Iran and a bunch of other countries who feel threatened (or might feel threatened) by the hegemon or their neighbours. It is stupid, counterproductive, and dangerous. But its the world Netenyahu and Trump have given us. And we should curse them forever for it.

(As for the Iranian regime, fuck ‘em, they’re tyrants. But that’s a problem the Iranians will deal with in their own time and in their own way. And again, its hard to see how Israel or the US are helping to do anything other than keep the tyrants in power...)

Justice for Gaza!

It finally happened: the International Criminal Court prosecutor is seeking an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes in Gaza:

The chief prosecutor of the international criminal court has said he is seeking arrest warrants for senior Hamas and Israeli officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant.

Karim Khan said his office had applied to the world court’s pre-trial chamber for arrest warrants for the military and political leaders on both sides for crimes committed during Hamas’s 7 October attack and the ensuing war in Gaza.

[...]

In an extraordinary rebuke of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and its conduct in the war in Gaza, Netanyahu and Gallant are accused of extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, the denial of humanitarian relief supplies and deliberately targeting civilians. Monday’s statement notably does not include any Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officials, such as its chief of staff, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, focusing instead on political decision-making.

The latter seems like a significant omission, since they're the people actually doing the war crimes. But maybe they're next in the queue?

Meanwhile, the question for Aotearoa: when are we sanctioning Netanyahu and his criminal regime? We have rightly sanctioned Putin and his cronies for their illegal war in Ukraine. We can hardly do less to a genocidal war criminal.

Australia jails another whistleblower

In 2014 former Australian army lawyer David McBride leaked classified military documents about Australian war crimes to the ABC. Dubbed "The Afghan Files", the documents led to an explosive report on Australian war crimes, the disbanding of an entire SAS unit, and multiple ongoing prosecutions. The journalist who wrote the stories, Dan Oakes, was later awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for "service to journalism" for the work.

Today, in revenge, the Australian government jailed McBride for almost six years - a longer sentence than any Australian war criminal has so far received for the offences he uncovered.

The message is clear: when the Australian government commits crimes, the witnesses should keep quiet. Otherwise they will be victimised and persecuted. Its hard to see this as anything other than official government support for war crimes and war criminals. Provided they're committed by Australians, of course.

(And, lest we feel too superior, John Key passed a similar anti-whistleblowing law here, allowing the punishment of those who blow the whistle on the defence - spy deep state, which is yet to be repealed).

Finally

Henry Kissinger is finally dead. Good fucking riddance. While Americans loved him, he was a war criminal, responsible for most of the atrocities of the final quarter of the twentieth century. Cambodia. Bangladesh. Chile. East Timor. All Kissinger. Because of these crimes, Americans revere him as a "statesman" (which says rather a lot about Americans). I prefer Anthony Bourdain's view: Kissinger deserved to face trial in The Hague, just like Milošević. Now he's dead, well, Milošević's corpse was staked. I wonder how Kissinger's victims will finally take revenge?

Still chickenshits

After a month of watching Israel bomb hospitals and murder children and threaten starvation, ethnic cleansing, and nuclear strikes in revenge for a terrorist attack, Chris Hipkins finally seems to have discovered his conscience:

Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins has called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, saying "the violence and the killing has to stop".

He has stressed that he has made the announcement as Labour leader, not caretaker Prime Minister.

But Hipkins said it had become "untenable" for him to remain silent.

"It runs against Labour Party values to see the horrific scenes we are witnessing without calling for a ceasefire," he said.

Its good to see - better late than never – and likely to be popular. But at the same time it was rather undercut by (incorrect) reports yesterday that the US had brokered the ceasefire Hipkins was calling for. Leading to the suspicion that rather than actually standing up for "Labour Party values", Hipkins was just being a spineless little yes-man, going with the international flow, as usual.

Once upon a time the Labour Party had leaders who didn't have to wait for a month to do the right thing. We wouldn't have had this craven bullshit under David Lange, or Helen Clark (or, for the Boomers, Norman Kirk). But those days are clearly long gone. And Labour wonders why no-one believes in them anymore? Its because these days, they don't seem to believe in anything other than their own careers. They're chickenshits all the way down.

Britain's SAS hosted a serial killer

In 2020, the Brereton report found that the Australian SAS had murdered 39 Afghan civilians and committed war crimes. The British government is finally reviewing the actions of its own special forces in Afghanistan, and it looks like the death toll is at least twice as high:

Eighty Afghans may have been victim of summary killings by three separate British SAS units operating in the country between 2010 and 2013, lawyers representing the bereaved families have told a public inquiry.

[...]

Afghans were often killed after allegedly producing weapons when separated from their wider family by SAS soldiers, but there were five incidents where the number shot dead exceeded the number of weapons found.

The fresh claims are cited in a document submitted by the law firm Leigh Day, based on previous Ministry of Defence court disclosures, to a new public inquiry into allegations of war crimes committed by SAS soldiers in Afghanistan.

And these are the murders they have admitted to. There'll be a lot more they've covered up and kept secret.

Appallingly, nearly half the admitted death toll is due to a single soldier, who had a policy of murdering all "fighting-age males", regardless of whether they posed any threat. Which seems both genocidal, and the actions of a straight-up serial killer.

In Australia, the Brereton report got to the truth, and led to consequences. An entire SAS unit was disbanded for its crimes, and criminal trials are imminent. In the UK, with its long history of official coverups, and with politicians trying to "draw a line" under historic crimes to prevent embarrassment to the power structure, I don't think we can have any confidence that anything will be done. Britain will not provide justice for its crimes. Instead, these war criminals and their political accessories and co-conspirators will have to be sent to The Hague.

Australia's most-decorated war-criminal

Ben Roberts-Smith is apparently "Australia’s most decorated living soldier", having won a Victoria Cross for killing people in Afghanistan. But today, after a stupendous self-own defamation case, he's also been proven to be a war criminal who committed multiple murders:

Ben Roberts-Smith VC, Australia’s most decorated living soldier, has lost a defamation case in which he was accused of multiple murders of unarmed civilians in Afghanistan, a federal court judge has found.

Justice Anthony Besanko found that, on the balance of probabilities, Roberts-Smith kicked a handcuffed prisoner off a cliff in Darwan in 2012, before ordering a subordinate Australian soldier to shoot the injured man dead.

And in 2009, Roberts-Smith ordered the execution an elderly man found hiding in a tunnel in a bombed-out compound, as well as murdering a disabled man with a prosthetic leg during the same mission, using a para minimi machine gun.

It's only a civil finding rather than a criminal one, but it still raises the obvious question: when will this war criminal be prosecuted for his crimes? And when will he be stripped of his VC? Or is that now a medal Australia gives to murdering war criminals?

Justice for Ukraine?

Overnight, Russia launched more missiles against Ukraine, targeting apartment blocks and electricity facilities in an effort to terrise civilians and freeze them to death over winter. And there are more photos of Russian war crimes in occupied areas doing the rounds. So I'm glad to see some progress at the UN towards holding Russia's leadership to account for their crimes:

A draft resolution is circulating at the United Nations in New York for a Nuremberg-style tribunal to hold the Russian leadership accountable for crimes of aggression in Ukraine amid signs that US opposition to the proposal may be softening in the face of lobbying by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

[...]

The international criminal court has already started investigating war crimes in Ukraine, but Ukraine’s leadership argues that the ICC is hampered in that while it can try those charged with individual war crimes, it cannot prosecute the Kremlin leadership over the broader crime of aggression since Russia is not a signatory to the relevant statute.

Van Schaack, speaking in London at a Lawyers for Justice in Libya event, said the US had not taken a firm position on a special tribunal. However, she believed there was merit in holding trials in absentia of Russians accused of war crimes if it was not possible to extradite them.

The EU has already expressed support for such a tribunal, so the question here is whether its done by them or the UN. The latter obviously has more moral weight, and will be a stronger condemnation by the international community of Russia's crimes. And its in the interests of the international community to do it: non-aggression and human rights are the cornerstones of the modern international order (even if they are observed in the breach), and allowing aggression and war crimes to go unpunished will encourage them. Whereas trying aggressors and criminals protects everyone.

Whether Putin and his cronies actually end up before such a tribunal obviously depends on how the war ends (and what happens inside Russia in response). But at the least, this will make sure they can never set foot outside Russia or its tiny club of fellow tyrannies ever again. And that they'll never be able to enjoy their stolen wealth ever again.

More British war crimes

Back in 2017, the ABC revealed that Australia's SAS committed war crimes in Afghanistan, murdering prisoners and civilians, and taking body-parts as trophies. Now, the BBC has exposed the same behaviour in the British SAS:

SAS operatives in Afghanistan repeatedly killed detainees and unarmed men in suspicious circumstances, according to a BBC investigation.

Newly obtained military reports suggest that one unit may have unlawfully killed 54 people in one six-month tour.

The BBC found evidence suggesting the former head of special forces failed to pass on evidence to a murder inquiry.

The ABC story led to a full government inquiry, which found Australian troops had committed at least 39 murders. The most guilty unit was disbanded, and prosecutions are in process. So far, the British government's response has been to accuse the BBC of putting soldiers at risk. But given their past history of obstructing investigations, while pushing for amnesty legislation to outlaw domestic prosecutions of English war criminals, an Australian-style response seems unlikely. But if Westminster won't hold its own to account, then we'll just have to rely on the International Criminal Court to do it for them.

More Australian war crimes

Last week, Australia's ABC broke a major story about Australian SAS troops committing war crimes in Timor-Leste, murdering wounded people and brutalising their corpses. This week, they've got more, about an Australian-run torture centre:

During the widely celebrated peace-making mission in East Timor, Australian soldiers held 14 men and boys in a secret interrogation facility.

The detainees, suspected of being pro-Indonesian militia, say they were stripped, assaulted, deprived of food, water and sleep and forcibly shown the mangled bodies of two dead militiamen.

Their ordeal led to Australian military investigators recommending charges of torture.

Of course, the Australian military refused to prosecute its own. And of course, it refuses to say why. Meanwhile, the rest of us are left wondering why Australia lets its soldiers violate Australian and international law, and whether the failure to prosecute in Timor allowed and encouraged Australian soldiers to commit further crimes in Afghanistan.

Send Putin to The Hague

The International Criminal Court has formally opened an investigation into war crimes in Ukraine, after being asked to by 39 countries:

The prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague has announced that he will launch an investigation into possible war crimes or crimes against humanity in Ukraine.

Karim Khan said that although Ukraine was not a member of the ICC, it had awarded jurisdiction to the court. He said that there was grounds to open an investigation based on a previous preliminary investigation on Crimea and the Donbas published last year, and on current events in Ukraine.

“I have already tasked my team to explore all evidence preservation opportunities,” Khan, a British lawyer, said.

Which is good, because war crimes and crimes against humanity are undoubtedly being committed by Russian forces in Ukraine, and they need to be prosecuted. But thanks to a quirk of the Rome Statute, the real crime here - the crime of aggression ( "the supreme international crime" which "contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole") - will not be part of the investigation. Neither Ukraine or Russia is a party to the Rome Statute (though Ukraine has accepted jurisdiction), so the ICC cannot prosecute for aggression. Which means firstly, that we need to reform the Rome Statute so that it can; and secondly, that until that happens, we will need a special-purpose tribunal to prosecute this crime and hold Putin accountable.

UK plans amnesty for war criminals

England's massacres in Northern Ireland during "the Troubles" are just another in its long list of colonial crimes. And like their other colonial crimes, they plan to sweep them under the carpet, with an effective amnesty for their colonial criminals:

All criminal prosecutions relating to the Troubles and future attempts to take civil actions would be blocked under UK government plans that have united Northern Ireland’s parties in opposition.

The proposals, which are also opposed by the Irish government, were announced by Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland secretary, who told MPs it was a “painful truth” that criminal investigations were unlikely to deliver successful outcomes.

Instead, the plan envisages the establishment of a new independent body, likened to South Africa’s truth and reconciliation commission and intended to help families find the truth about what happened to their loved ones.

...and conveniently avoid providing any justice for the crimes committed, or any liability for the British military and state for their role in those crimes. And of course allow the latter to pretend that they weren't crimes at all, because a court was never allowed to say so. Its about impunity, not justice. And because of that, its not going to provide a lasting settlement. Anything less than full criminal prosecutions of all the murderers on both sides, regardless of whether they wore a uniform or not, is going to allow this issue to fester.

Even Northern Ireland's politicians can see this (or at least part of it), and are united in opposition to the plan. But I guess the real problem here is that Westminster doesn't really care what they think, and never has. Officially, their colonial project is over. But the colonial mindset persists.

NZDF gives the finger to the Burnham inquiry

Last year, the inquiry into Operation Burnham reported back, finding (among other things) that SAS and NZDF officers had deceived Ministers and the public, and that NZ soldiers had assaulted a prisoner. So will anyone ever be held accountable for that? Of course not:

Two soldiers at the centre of the Operation Burnham inquiry have escaped punishment by the Defence Force, including a Special Air Service soldier who assaulted an Afghan detainee.

Former SAS commander Brigadier Chris Parsons would not face disciplinary action after he had committed an “administrative failing” in a report, Chief of Defence Air Marshall Kevin Short said in a statement.

The SAS soldier that was found to have punched a detainee, who was not named throughout the inquiry, would not be censured because the matter was not properly investigated at the time, he said.

[That "administrative failing" was deliberately misleading the Defence Minister about whether the Operation Burnham raid had killed civilians, and then doctoring records to cover it up].

This is basicly NZDF saying "fuck you" to the entire inquiry, and to the public concern which led to it. They've been clear throughout this entire debacle that they don't think anyone did anything wrong, and now they're using their own coverup and years of delay as an excuse to ensure that those responsible are never held accountable. Rather than being dishonourably discharged and stripped of their honours as they deserve, the criminals at the heart of this will continue to serve, and by their presence continue to corrupt our defence force. And NZDF's senior leadership is perfectly happy with that.

That being the case, I think we need to admit that NZDF as an institution is unsalvageable. They are committed to unaccountability and deceit. And since all they actually do in practice is drag us into other people's wars, maybe we should just do away with the entire organisation, and replace it with a civilian civil defence and foreign aid corps, freeing it up to focus on its core - and valued - competencies: rescuing lost trampers, sandbagging stopbanks to limit flooding, and rebuilding schools after tropical cyclones.

Another English war crime

Fifty years ago, the British army murdered ten people in the Ballymurphy massacre in Northern Ireland. In what has become a common tactic for the British establishment, they immediately tried to cover up their crime by smearing the victims as IRA members. Now, a UK coroner has ruled the killings unjustified:

Ten people killed in Belfast during a British army operation in 1971 were unarmed, innocent civilians and posed no threat to soldiers, an inquest in Northern Ireland has found.

The damning findings in a long-awaited coroner’s report implicated the army in an atrocity to rival Bloody Sunday, potentially galvanising a new push to prosecute army veterans.

Nine of the dead were killed by soldiers using unjustified force but the inquest could not establish who killed the 10th victim, John McKerr, during a blood-soaked incursion in Ballymurphy, a west Belfast Catholic neighbourhood, in August 1971.

“All of the deceased in the series of inquests were entirely innocent of wrongdoing on the day in question,” said the coroner, Mrs Justice Keegan, dismissing claims by soldiers that some of the victims had been armed and shooting.

The next step must be to identify and prosecute those responsible for these crimes. And if the UK refuses to do it, then the international community must do it for them.

Peter Dutton supports war crimes

During their time in Afghanistan Australian special forces committed war crimes, murdering 39 Afghan civilians and prisoners of war and working together to cover it up. This was not a case of a few sociopaths killing in secret, but of utterly corrupt units who knew of, tolerated, and in some cases celebrated war crimes. As a result, when the Australian Defence Force finally acknowledged this last year, they stripped the relevant units of uit citations for their complicity. Now Australia's Defence Minister Peter Dutton wants them to be given back:

Today, Dutton told Nine Radio the decision would be reversed given the vast majority of ADF personnel did nothing wrong.

"Those people deserve our recognition, our praise, our honour, because many of them have lost mates," he said.

"Families this Anzac Day should proudly wear that medal in honour of their loved one who passed away in the service of this country."

But as the Brereton report makes clear, these people helped cover up war crimes, either actively or passively. And that should not be acceptable. By restoring these medals, Dutton - a man who has run concentration camps where torture, murder and rapes happened, and who is due his own trip to The Hague over them - is saying that it is acceptable. Which sounds an awful lot like war criminals covering for each other - just like they did in Afghanistan.

MFAT's blocked nose

Last week, the public was appalled to learn that our national airline had been helping saudi Arabia commit war crimes in Yemen by servicing their military equipment. Jacinda Ardern was right that this sort of deal doesn't pass the sniff test. Meanwhile, her own Ministry of Foreign Affairs was approving weapons exports to Saudi Arabia:

New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Ministry granted export permits for military equipment that was sent to Saudi Arabia's forces in 2016 and 2018, raising concerns the government may have breached its human rights obligations.

[...]

[Documents obtained under the Official Information Act] showed that in May 2016, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) approved a permit for military simulation training equipment to be sent to Saudi ground forces. In December that year, sign-off was also given for hand-held computers, radios and range-finding binoculars bound for the Saudi Navy.

The exporter, whose identity has been kept secret by MFAT, applied for an extension to its December permit after that shipment was delayed, the documents showed. This was granted in May 2018. The quantity and value of the equipment exported was also withheld.

While there are no specific international prohibitions on exporting weapons to Saudi Arabia, when MFAT considers an export permit it must assess whether there are any serious violations of humanitarian law. Waikato University international law professor Al Gillespie said officials may have breached this obligation.

I guess MFAT must just have a blocked nose - probably from constantly inhaling bullshit from promoting dairy exports. But this is just as unacceptable to the public as Air New Zealand's support for war criminals. Hopefully rather than making excuses the Minister will immediately put a stop to it (and if the weapons industry doesn't like that, they're welcome to fuck off to the UK, where they'd clearly fit in much better).

Deceit or incompetence?

Former Air New Zealand CEO (and now National MP) Chris Luxon has said he doesn't remember anything about his company's war-crimes contract. Its a convenient memory loss, and strongly reminiscent of John Key's tactics when confronted with wrongdoing (first, implausibly deny knowledge; then, claim to be "relaxed" about it...), and pretty obviously we should be suspicious of such a self-serving claim, and about the integrity of the man making it. But if we take it seriously, then Luxon is in fact admitting something else: that he wasn't doing his job as CEO. Because avoiding involvement in war crimes is something any decent CEO should be keeping an eye on, and if this slipped past him, it means he simply wasn't doing his job properly. And either way, having demonstrated either deceit or incompetence, he's not someone who can ever be trusted in a Ministerial role. Or as a party leader.

A victory for international justice

Back in 2015, Palestine became a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. In 2018, it complained to them about war crimes carried out on their territory by occupying Israeli forces. And now, the ICC has ruled that it has jurisdiction and can investigate:

The international criminal court has announced that it has jurisdiction in Palestine, clearing its chief prosecutor to investigate alleged atrocities despite fierce Israeli objections.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, condemned the ruling and said the country would “protect our citizens and soldiers in every way from legal persecution”.

[...]

Bensouda, a Gambian lawyer, has said she would investigate both the Israeli military as well as Palestinian armed groups, including the Gaza-based Hamas faction, which has been accused of “intentionally directing attacks against civilians”, according to her office.

Good. Both Israel and Hamas have carried out indiscriminate attacks against civilians. In addition, Israeli blockades deprive palestinians of the necessities of life, while its legal structure is essentially an apartheid regime. The only way these crimes against humanity will end is when their perpetrators are prosecuted and held to account. And the fact that the Israeli government is fighting so hard to stop that from happening tells us everything we need to know: they're guilty, and they know it.

Our national airline should not be complicit in war crimes

Since 2015 Saudi Arabia has been waging war on the people of Yemen. A key part of their war is a naval blockade, which has restricted food supplies, leading to the worst famine in a century. Its a war crime - and our national airline is helping them do it:

A 1 NEWS investigation has revealed that Air New Zealand's business unit, Gas Turbines, which specialises in servicing military marine engines and turbines, has been supporting the Saudi Navy.

The Saudi Navy has been blockading Yemen - stopping food and medicine getting through to the country.

[...]

Last week [Air New Zealand] finally issued a short statement saying Air New Zealand Gas Turbines had been carrying out work for the Saudi Navy through a third party contract.

"It is through a third party contract that work has recently been carried out on two engines and one power turbine module from vessels belonging to the Royal Saudi Navy.

"The Gas Turbines business has not contracted directly with the Royal Saudi Navy and will not be carrying out any further work of this nature."

While its good that they've stopped, this isn't good enough. It shouldn't need to be said, but: corporations should not help governments commit war crimes. And that especially goes for our part government-owned airline. We bailed them out to help them get through Covid. That's now looking like a mistake. At the least, it looks like the government should just make a formal takeover and bring Air New Zealand back under full public control. Because we clearly cannot trust the values of the private sector for our national airline.