
KIWI   TROOPS   IN    BOSNIA           -by     Ciaron    O'Reilly
---------------------             Christchurch Catholic Worker

Yesterday, 200 New Zealand troops left for specialist training in
the U.K. in preparation for deployment to Bosnia.  A total of 250
Kiwi troops will be Bosnia-bound by the end of  the  month  as  a
result  of  a deal struck between John Major and Jim Bulger.  The
deal done at Downing Street guaranteed the troops in exchange for
the first British warship visit to New Zealand in frequenting New
Zealand shores in response to the anti-nuclear  weapons  ban  and
legislation  in  the  mid-80's.   Bulger  is  hoping this "cannon
fodder for ship visit" swap will be the beginning of the  end  of
New  Zealand's  isolation  in  matters  of  global  death-dealing
imposed since the nuclear warship ban and subsequent collapse  of
Anzus.   He  is  hopeful  that Clinton will follow suit, begin to
send warships and normalise military relationships.

The New Zealand peace movement got much more than  it  asked  for
when  the  Lange  government embraced the anti-nuke ship ban as a
path to power in 1984.  The over reaction by the "neither confirm
nor  deny"  Americans  ended  Anzus and imposed neutrality on New
Zealand.  The Anti-Nuke position  became  so  entrenched  in  the
electorate that Lange was able to pull its legislation out of the
hat to win a second election.  The National  Party  conservatives
were forced to embrace the legislation to win back power in 1990.
All these governments have made  every  effort  to  sidestep  its
consequences - this has included voting patterns in the U.N., the
weekly USAF Starlifter flights through Christchurch to  Nurrungar
& Pine Gap and sending a token contingent of Kiwis off to support
nuclear armed forces in the Gulf Massacre.

The New Zealand  peace  movement  has  failed  to  celebrate  and
support neutrality as a valid way to be in the world.  It remains
largely uncritical of the United Nations, now more  than  ever  a
Post  Cold  War  arm  of  American  foreign policy.  Lessons from
Vietnam; & World War I (let alone Somalia, Cambodia and The Gulf)
seem  ignored  as everybody from Ministers to Labor Opposition to
Barry Humphries sidekick cheers on the training  of  these  young
men.   The  national  vibe  is  as though they are training for a
Rugby test on some distant playing field, rather than heading for
the  minefields of potentially the prelude to World War III.  The
240 Kiwis will be under the tutelage  of  the  commander  of  the
British  SAS  -  responsible  for  their  fair  share  of  ethnic
cleansing in the Catholic ghettoes  of  Northern  Ireland.   They
will  also  be  joined  by 2500 Turkish troops who have been busy
slaying Kurds for the last 20 years.

The first Kiwi contingent are being drawn mainly from the Linton-
based  "Whiskey  Company"  and  will  arrive  in  Bosnia  at  the
beginning of August.  They will be replaced after six months by a
contingent  from  the  infantry  battalion  at Burnham Camp, just
outside  of  Christchurch.   We  have  recently  begun  vigilling
against  the deployment - at both Burnham and the city's military
recruitment centre.  It always shocks me how young these guys are
and  the  real  possibility  that they may step on one of the two
million mines laid over there or be shot  down  by  weapons  that
some  guy  in  a  suit  &  tie has made a profit from.  It always
amazes how principled the politicians rhetoric sounds  -  whether
they  be  Croatian, Serb, Muslim, US or Kiwi - when sending young
men and women to the slaughter.  When one of  these  Kiwis  comes
home in a body bag, you can ask the question was it worth a visit
from the imperial navy, because stripped of the empty rhetoric -
 and in the absence of addressing the root causes of this  latest
war -that is what this deployment is all about.


