01/06/2023
SIS SPIED ON GLOBALLY RENOWNED PEACE RESEARCHER FOR DECADES
OWEN WILKES DEAD SINCE 2005 BUT SIS STILL WON'T RELEASE HIS FILE
NOW SAYS HE WAS "NEVER CONSIDERED TO BE A THREAT TO SECURITY"
& STILL LYING ABOUT NZ PEACE MOVEMENT
NZ's globally renowned peace researcher Owen Wilkes has been dead since 2005, but he's still very much in the news.
He is the subject of a new book of essays, "Peacemonger", which was published in late 2022
https://asiapacificreport.nz/2022/11/16/peacemonger-a-tribute-to-peace-researcher-owen-wilkes-out-soon/
Throughout his decades of peace research, both in NZ and overseas, Owen was the subject of intense interest by spy agencies, none more so than the NZ Security Intelligence Service (SIS).
Despite having retired from his peace work many years before he died, the SIS still won't release his full file to family or researchers, only the odd sliver of it. The SIS admits to holding six volumes on Owen. Among the reasons given for continuing to withhold it is that releasing it "would be likely to prejudice the security or defence of New Zealand or the international relations of the Government of New Zealand".
There has been a very recent development in this stalemate. Owen's former wife (named as a "relative of interest" in the little of Owen's file to have been released) asked the SIS for what it has on file about her. And she has duly received a small amount of material, in May 2023.
The accompanying letter to her (15/5/23) from new SIS Director, Andrew Hampton, says that she was never the subject of an SIS Personal File. Any material it held on her was in Owen's file.
There is one paragraph in Hampton's letter that cannot pass without challenge, in fact it is breathtaking.
"As a high-profile peace activist during a period when the USSR sought to use the legitimate peace movement to further its own geo-political objectives, Owen Wilkes came to NZSIS attention (as did you, purely by association). Mr Wilkes was never, however, considered to be a threat to security".
1/ If "Mr Wilkes was never considered to be a threat to security", why did the SIS spy on him for decades (and on people close to him, such as his then wife)? Why does the SIS still refuse to release the bulk of its file on him?
2/ Then there is the not so subtle smear of the "legitimate peace movement" being used by the USSR to "further its own geo-political objectives". That was an outrageous lie then and even more so in a letter written in May 2023. What is Director Hampton implying here? For example, is the suggestion that those who successfully campaigned for NZ to become nuclear free (something that is so much part of the cultural furniture that it is used in beer commercials) were puppets of the Kremlin?
The SIS needs to explain why it spied on someone for decades who was "never considered a threat to security". And release his full file forthwith.
And the SIS needs to apologise to the peace movement (not just the "legitimate" one. Was there an illegitimate one?) for still spouting tired old Cold War libels.
Owen Wilkes was a founder of CAFCA (and of the Anti-Bases Campaign).
CAFCA and ABC say the SIS is not fit for purpose and should be abolished.
Civil SocietyEditor's PicksEnvironmentGlobalHuman RightsJusticeMilitaryPacific ReportNew ZealandPoliticsResearchSyndicate Peacemonger – a tribute to peace researcher Owen Wilkes out soon By APR editor - November 16, 2022 0 406 SHARE Facebook Twitter tweet Revered New Zealand peace researcher and a...
