FILM SCREENING - OPERATION 8: Deep in the forest
NZ 'terror raids' documentary shows tonight at the MIFF
In the early hours of October 15th 2007, activists around New Zealand woke to screaming voices and guns in their faces. Masked police in black smashed through doors and gates, dragging families out onto roads and detaining others without food or water. Houses were ransacked and ‘evidence’ confiscated. In the small rural village of Ruatoki, helicopters flew overhead while locals were stopped at roadblocks, their photos taken and their cars searched. Those arrested were interrogated and then imprisoned for four weeks. The War on Terror had arrived in Aotearoa.
Over 300 police raided around 60 houses throughout the country. Operation 8 had involved 18 months of invasive surveillance of Maori sovereignty and peace activists accused of attending terrorist training camps in the Urewera bush – homeland of the Tuhoe people.
Prominent Tuhoe campaigner Tame Iti was said to have lead the planned insurgency. The police and media spoke of napalm bombs and plans to kill the prime minister and George W. Bush. Protests in support of those accused erupted around the country. When the bid to have charges laid under the Terrorism Suppression Act failed, a leak of an anti-terror squad affidavit swung the tide of public opinion back in favour of the police. Once out on bail the ‘Urewera 18’ face a drawn out and heavily taxing court process. Families are broken up and livelihoods destroyed.
'Operation 8' asks why and how the raids took place within the contexts of colonisation, state suppression of dissent, police culture and America’s War on Terror. How did the search for Osama bin Laden become a global witch-hunt of political dissenters - reaching even to the South Pacific?
Made over 3 years the film goes to the front line of resistance against state control in the post-911 era. In this world, those in power conjure the spectre of terrorism at will. What really goes on ‘Deep in the forest’?
https://www.facebook.com/Operation8
http://www.cutcutcut.com/Operation8.html
http://miff.com.au/films/view?film_id=122365