Text Fwd: SIS Spying On Philippines Solidarity Movement

Text fwd from CAFCA, No US Bases, Agatha Haun

SIS Spying On Philippines Solidarity Movement

This was written to be published in the next issue of Kapatiran
(Solidarity), the newsletter of the Philippines Solidarity Network of
Aotearoa. But that won't be for several months and has a tiny circulation.
So we are electronically distributing it now because of its current
newsworthiness (Maire Leadbeater was one of those prominently featured in
very recent media coverage of the release of Security Intelligence Service
files to several individuals and one organisation. Her file revealed that
the SIS had been spying on her for nearly 50 years, since she was 10! In the
case of her brother, Keith Locke, Green MP and former national coordinator
of the Philippines Solidarity Network, his file revealed that the SIS had
been spying on him for more than 50 years - since he was 11 - including for
seven years after he became an MP).

If you have any comments, questions or requests for permission to reprint
this article, please send them directly to Maire Leadbeater at
maire@clear.net.nz


Murray Horton
Editor, Kapatiran & Secretary

PSNA

Philippines Solidarity Network of Aotearoa

Box 2450, Christchurch, New Zealand

cafca@chch.planet.org.nz

www.converge.org.nz/psna





THE SIS AND THE PHILIPPINES SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT IN AOTEAROA

- Maire Leadbeater

For me the most disturbing material in my recently declassified NZ Security
Intelligence Service (SIS) file is that relating to my involvement in the
Philippines Solidarity Movement in the latter half of the 1980s and the
early 1990s. The documents, taken with others such as those released to my
brother Keith Locke, Green MP, and former Philippines Solidarity Network
national coordinator, suggest a high level of SIS infiltration and
surveillance of the movement.

The New Zealand Philippines Solidarity Network was launched at a highly
successful Conference on Philippine Concerns in August 1984. A key driving
force behind the initiative was the late Father John Curnow, a visionary
leader in the Catholic Commission for Evangelisation, Justice and Peace, who
had visited the Philippines many times since 1971. From the start, the
network had roots in the union movement and support from the Labour Party
hierarchy, but many key activists were drawn from the ranks of the (since
disbanded) Workers Communist League (WCL).

Why Were We A Magnet For SIS Attention?

The 1988-89 Peace Brigade was perhaps the most ambitious project of the
Philippines Solidarity Network in that time, and arguably one of the most
effective. There were many other New Zealand delegations visiting the
Philippines and important tours of prominent Filipinos to this country which
also interested the spies, but the Brigade serves as a good case example to
help understand why we were the focus of such close attention.

Keith drew the short straw back then - he organised our 17 strong team and
journalist David Robie to accompany us, but then stayed back to handle the
media response in New Zealand. I made my first unforgettable visit to the
Philippines as the leader of the team. The Peace Brigade (or Peace Caravan
as it was dubbed in the Philippines) was designed to offer international
guests from 18 countries an "exposure" experience to learn more about the
struggle against foreign military bases and other linked campaigns for human
rights, labour rights and land reform. The programme culminated with the
Asia-Pacific Peoples Conference on Peace and Development and a two day peace
caravan to protest at two major US bases: Subic Naval Base and Clark Air
Force Base.

Earlier in 1988 Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials warned Keith of the
safety problems of organising visits to the Philippines and the Labour
government's Associate Foreign Affairs Minister, Fran Wilde, even suggested
that such visits could amount to "foreign intervention in domestic
affairs".[1] It is fair to assume that there was a two way flow of
information of information and intelligence between the two governments
concerning our activities.

To the casual observer we must have seemed an unlikely combination of
people: some of our group were peace activists of long standing but many in
the group were quite new to political activity and our ages ranged from 17
to 73. No matter, we were subjected to Red scare propaganda even before we
arrived. A letter from the Philippines Embassy's Consul-General, Apolinaria
Cancio, received by tour organiser, Keith Locke, just prior to our departure
advised that if we violated any of the terms of our visas we would be
arrested and deported. We were specifically warned not to take part in any
"teach-ins", not to contact any leaders of the banned Communist Party of the
Philippines, or to incite people to commit sedition. Unlike the delegations
from other countries, we were all searched at Manila Airport and some of our
newsletters and documents were seized.

Not long after our arrival in the country, the Manila newspapers carried
stories alleging that the Peace Brigade was interfering in the country's
affairs. The Chief of the Philippines Constabulary, General Montana, said we
would "be treated like common criminals and paedophiles" if we stepped out
of line. But, I think the threats merely served to ensure that we were
especially determined to participate to the full in the Brigade programme
and wear with pride the "Peacenik" name the Philippine media conferred on
us.

The international delegates were allocated to small teams each with its own
Filipino guide. Journalist David Robie was attached to our team. My group
went to militarised Mindanao. We spent the first few days in Cagayan de Oro,
where we took part in peace rallies and seminars, but left for Bukidnon
after military police came knocking on the door of our guest house. In
Bukidnon, we stayed in the simple dwellings of the families inadvertently in
the front line of a counter-insurgency war. One night we camped out with a
large group of displaced people - they had been forced off their land by
military operations and were trying to get the local authorities to take
some responsibility, but in the meantime their children were succumbing to
sickness and their food was running out.

Embarrassing Governments In Philippines & NZ

I had asked to visit Bukidnon, Mindanao, because it was the site of New
Zealand's major aid project to the Philippines at the time, the Bukidnon
Industrial Tree Plantation. The project had attracted criticism locally on
account of the failure of the project managers to consult effectively with
the local Lumad tribal people, the impact of the project on ancestral land
claims and the likelihood that the forestry infrastructure would be used by
the military to tighten their grip in the area. Our hosts arranged meetings
for us from the local Governor, barrio captains, tribal leaders and local
householders. Our visit stirred controversy in the Philippines and anger
back home, especially from then Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs, Fran
Wilde, who later tried to discredit two Lumad tribal leaders while they were
making a speaking tour of New Zealand.

While in Bukidnon we also interviewed a number of people about a secret base
believed by NZ peace researcher Owen Wilkes* to be a "scorekeeper" base
designed to detect and record nuclear explosions. We were not able to visit
the heavily guarded base but later at the Manila Conference the claims about
this base caused a major media stir. *Roland Simbulan's obituary of Owen
Wilkes, focusing on Owen's significance to the Philippine anti-bases and
anti-nuclear movement, is in Kapatiran 25/26, December 2005, online at
http://www.converge.org.nz/psna/Kapatiran/KapNo25n26/Kap25n26Art/art113a.htm
Ed.

After the exposure we all took part in the Manila Conference, and then in a
two day caravan or convoy which ran the gauntlet of heavily armed military
barricades and checkpoints to protest at the giant US Subic Naval Base and
Clark Air Base. We never quite made it to Subic, but took part in an all
night vigil and concert outside Clark. It would be hard to understate the
strategic significance of the Clark and Subic, they were sited to ensure US
control over the choke points between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and
served respectively as headquarters for the US 13th Air Force and a key
port for the US 7th Fleet. The bases had served as springboards to
intervention in South East Asia (Vietnam, Korea and Thailand) and further
afield to Iran and Yemen. At the time their role was seen as essential to
preserving strategic superiority over the former Soviet Union in the region.

For me the brigade was a life changing event, perhaps because it was the
first time I experienced at first hand the power of a mass peoples' movement
of resistance. The comprehensive network of "cause oriented" groups such as
Gabriela and Nuclear Free and Independent Philippines, the workers, peasants
and student coalitions worked in unison to ensure the success of all our
activities. When I look back on it must have been some kind of miracle that
we achieved all that we did, making it through eight military checkpoints to
take up position outside the Clark base. As we prepared to depart we
international delegates took part in a media conference where we condemned
the military repression we had witnessed.

The US bases not only placed the Philippines as a future flashpoint for
nuclear conflict, but they also represented US intervention in the wider
sense. The US declared the Philippines independent in 1946, but the presence
of the bases was seen as a strong signal that colonial control had not
ended. Getting rid of the bases was seen as an essential part of regaining
Filipino sovereignty over an economy dominated by US transnationals.

It Was All A Communist Plot, Apparently

The Cold War was still very much intact and in the Philippines, the dictator
Marcos had fallen but his successor, Cory Aquino, presided over a
military-backed government with only a thin veneer of democracy. Those
calling for genuine social change, land reform, labour rights and an end to
human rights abuses lived daily under threat of arbitrary arrest or worse,
and "Red-baiting" was an essential tool in the regime's armoury.

On the other hand the civil war between the Government backed by vigilante
squads and the Communist New Peoples' Army (NPA) was ongoing in the rural
areas of most provinces, and in some quarters the possibility of a
full-scale revolution, or another "Vietnam" was contemplated. The
Philippines was in the sights of extreme Rightwing groups such as the World
Anti-Communist League (WACL) and it was widely reported that the US Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) was supporting covert actions against the NPA. The
US was determined to retain its bases in the Philippines, beyond the lease
expiry date of September 1991, as an essential element of its ability to
project its power into the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf.

If you were around in the 1980s when New Zealand's nuclear free stand was
under vociferous attack, you would remember that there was a plethora of
Rightwing think tanks, foundations and anti-Communist organisations that
worked closely together. Their agenda was to sow fear of the dire
consequences of the "ANZUS* crisis" which could leave us open to "Soviet
political manipulation". Naturally these institutions, like the Hoover
Institute and Heritage Foundation focused on the Communist threat in the
Philippines, and so it was to be expected that this anti-Communist hysteria
would not spare New Zealand-Philippines links. In December 1988, not long
before our tour began, New Zealand's Ambassador in the Philippines had to
defend a simple aid project about sewing machines because the charity
funded, Samakana, had a connection to the women's organisation Gabriela,
declared by some to be Communist affiliated.[2]

*The 1951 Australia New Zealand United States (ANZUS) Treaty was the bedrock
of NZ's defence alliance with the US. NZ's membership did not survive the
1984-90 Labour government's nuclear free law, which remains in effect today,
despite several changes of NZ government since then. A side effect of NZ's
expulsion was that it ended the use of US military bases in the Philippines
for training purposes by the NZ military. The ANZUS Treaty continues, minus
NZ, between the US and Australia. It was evoked by John Howard, the then
Australian Prime Minister, immediately after the September 11, 2001
terrorist attacks on the US. Ed.

Red-baiting NZ Media Cooperated With SIS

There had also been some rather lurid headlines in the New Zealand Sunday
papers about New Zealanders spending time with the NPA during their
solidarity visits to the Philippines: "Guerrilla Thrill Trips: Kiwis pay to
join Filipino jungle fighters" [3]. When we returned from the Philippines,
journalist Bernard Moran, who was becoming a regular at Rightwing
conferences on the Communist threat, gained some new ammunition to use in
vitriolic articles in the former Catholic paper New Zealand Tablet. He had
previously written of a Communist conspiracy that was driving church aid
projects in the Philippines. The piece he wrote about our Auckland meeting
to report back on the Brigade was a distorted account that zeroed in on the
presence of "Trotskyites" and their subversive literature in the sacred
confines of the St Benedict's Church crypt.[4]

It is clear from the SIS documents that the late John Kennedy, the editor of
the Tablet, passed information to the SIS. One such report included
detailed information about the finances, and the political affiliations of
Philippine Solidarity Group (PSG) members in Auckland and Wellington.[5]
Bernard Moran also submitted an article in early 1987 to the Washington
based journal National Interest in which he wrote (not very accurately)
about me. Flatteringly he dubbed me a "pivotal person in the NZ peace
movement".[6] Fortunately, the "Red-baiting" articles were far outweighed by
key articles by David Robie who was then working freelance and had many
Philippines articles accepted by the mainstream media (nationally and
regionally). He continued to cover the Philippines political situation,
human rights issues and the bases debate over the next few years.

SIS Spies In Meetings In All Main Centres

Hardened activist that I am, I confess to being shocked to discover the
extent to which there were "sources" or SIS spies present at many of the
meetings of the Philippines Solidarity Groups in Christchurch, Wellington
and Auckland. Bear in mind the context that these were generally small,
relatively informal meetings held frequently in the homes of activists.
National meetings which were often held in a relaxed marae setting are also
reported on in detail. To give just one example of SIS penetration of a
Christchurch Philippines Solidarity Group meeting in a private home, Maire's
file included a three page detailed report on a meeting held in May 1990. It
says: "Source borrowed the correspondence folder and copied its contents".
This means that the spy was in a position of trust. Ed.

This of course raises the question about the extent to which our SIS was
passing on information to counterparts in the Philippines, and perhaps using
information gained from the Philippines to refine their surveillance of us.
There is no direct proof of this as communications from or to other
intelligence agencies have all been excluded from the released information.
Every broad social justice movement, such as the anti-nuclear movement or
the anti-apartheid movement, has participants from a range of Left parties.
Most of us are glad to harness everyone's energy for the common cause but
that is not how the SIS sees the situation!

The Left affiliations of those present at meetings and seminars were all
carefully recorded. Tellingly, John Curnow is recorded as warning at a
Christchurch Philippines Solidarity meeting that people should not make
jokes about supporting the New Peoples Army. "He, himself, had been
interviewed a couple of times by the SIS, who tried to tell him he was being
hoodwinked by the WCL". [7]

Tracking Visitors To Both Countries

The SIS also did its best to monitor all visits of New Zealanders to the
Philippines - listing all the full names and dates of birth of members of
the Peace Brigade after they had obtained their visas.[8] My return flight
times are also included in a much later handwritten note[9] with the
comment: "There is no trace of any travel during 1990". SIS Headquarters
also supplied a list of Filipino visitors to New Zealand since 1984. The
names on the list have been withheld but the rationale is interesting: "It
is as comprehensive as our records will allow. It was compiled because of
the frequency of such travel, the number of visitors with National
Democratic Front (NDF*) or New Peoples Army (NPA) traces, and, lastly
because of the growing links between anti-nuclear groups and indigenous
peoples of both countries". * The National Democratic Front is the political
coalition of underground groups waging the armed struggle, including both
the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People's Army. Ed.

"2. We had hoped to carry out a similar study of New Zealanders travelling
to the Philippines but owing to the volume of travel and the difficulty of
keeping track of their movements, this has not proved to be feasible.
Instead we have concentrated on a few individuals who have established good
links with the Philippines and who appear to be regarded as valuable
contacts by the Filipinos themselves". [10] <>

Sometimes the sources were rebuffed: "We were unfortunately unable to have
source coverage of the PSNA hui on 27-28 September 86". So the SIS mounted
surveillance to record some of the comings and goings but only three
vehicles were seen to enter the venue and one female cyclist "aged about 35
with black hair". The only other thing to note was that one of the
participants came out on Sunday morning at 0900 hours "to purchase a
newspaper from the local dairy and walk around the block for about 15 mins".
This man was "sporting a full beard and has had his hair permed. He was
accompanied on his perambulations by a male aged about 25-30, dark hair,
pale complexion". [11] By the time of the 1990 Lumad tribal and Touching the
Bases tours (six Filipinos participated in the latter), it seems that SIS
interest was waning, as reporting is sparse.

The lessons? I don't think any of this covert activity had an adverse effect
on the powerful international anti-nuclear campaign for the US bases in the
Philippines to be closed. In 1991 the Philippines Senate voted against a
treaty allowing the United States forces to remain for a further ten years.
The Mount Pinatubo volcanic eruption that year effectively ended the life of
the Clark Air Force Base and in March 1992 the last carrier group pulled out
of Subic Bay.

The Philippines solidarity movement in this country declined in strength for
a few years, until Murray Horton (who was also a Peace Brigade stalwart) and
the Christchurch group took over the national coordination task. Now, it is
good to see that the network is growing again and focusing on the new US
"integrated global presence and basing strategy"* as well as on the
appalling human rights and poverty situation. * For details see Peace
Researcher 37, November 2008, "Bases Of Empire: the Global Spread Of US
Military And Intelligence Bases", by Cora Fabros, online at

http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/pr37-1721.html Ed.

Lessons For Future Security In Our Movements?

Of course we should not forget the possibility that any movement for social
change can be infiltrated whether by the SIS or possibly the Police (it was
revealed, in December 2008, that "activist" Rob Gilchrist had been a Police
spy and agent provocateur inside various activist groups for a decade,
operating in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland. Ed). But it would be
counterproductive to let this get in the way of free communication or make
us less welcoming to new members. The publicity around the release of SIS
files to many veteran activists has given a new opportunity for a campaign
against all spying on social justice and political activists of all stripes.
The United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees to all
of us the right to "freedom of opinion and expression .and to seek, receive
and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of
frontiers".

1 Dominion Post, 8/5/88

2 Dominion Sunday Times, 21/2/88

3 Sunday Star, 8/5/88

4 Metro, July 1989, "Bernard Moran and Communist Conspiracy"

5 SIS District Office Southern District to Headquarters, 27/5/86, Keith
Locke file

6 SIS District Office Northern District, Original on Bernard Andrew Moran
27/4/87, extracted/copied by (name withheld), on 28/5/87, Maire Leadbeater
file

7 NSIS District Office Southern District to Headquarters, 8/6/90, Maire
Leadbeater file

8 NZSIS 9/1/89, Maire Leadbeater file

9 NZSIS 7/12/90, Maire Leadbeater file

10 Headquarters (Counter-Subversion) to District Office Northern District &
District Office Southern District 10/8/88, Keith Locke file

11 NZSIS District Office Southern District to Headquarters, 9/10/86, Maire