Green foreign policy addresses the main problem of our time, and that is the huge differences in wealth and power between countries, and within countries. Flowing from this inequality we have widespread poverty, major health problems, inadequate schooling, the ongoing destruction of the planetary environment, and the political marginalisation of much of the world’s population.
The governments of the richer countries, with New Zealand among them, have not effectively addressed these problems. In fact, they have led a drive for free trade and investment arrangements which allow multinational companies to dominate more of the global market.
The policies of most OECD countries are geared toward this corporate globalisation. The rich countries have their own spheres of influence, maintained through political and cultural pressure, economic rewards, and sometimes military intervention. For all its recent antiwar position, the French state sends troops into its former African colonies when it deems its interests to be threatened.
However, the invasion of Iraq has highlighted differences between the dominant power, America, and a second tier of rich countries, particularly France and Germany. Despite substantial common interests, some European powers are worried that European multinationals are losing out to their American competitors, who have strong support from the White House and the Pentagon. There is also concern about American cultural dominance, which seems a particular worry to the French.
European politics reflects a stronger social democratic and Green tradition which means two things. European governments oppose the more purely New Right American policies, which belittle social and environmental concerns. And secondly, the Europeans have a more progressive internationalism, recognising the need to address global problems of peace, human rights, poverty and the environment. There is also a greater recognition of the need for multilateral agencies, particularly the UN, to deal with these problems.
Now, New Zealand’s problem is this. It is politically closer to the European perspective, but many of our institutions, particularly defence and intelligence, but also in foreign affairs, are very close to their American, Australian and British counterparts.
It is hard to justify such close ties in the light of the Iraq crisis. The America, British and Australian invasion was the most serious and flagrant aggression since World War II, so clearly against international law, and a big blow to the United Nations. It came on top of America and Australia declaring a doctrine of “pre-emptive strike”, America sinking the ABM treaty, pushing ahead with Star Wars, developing new types of nuclear weapons, advocating a first strike policy against non-nuclear counties, and opposing both the Kyoto Treaty and the International Criminal Court.
It is simply not credible for Labour to treat the Iraq crisis, against this background, as some hiccup in relationship with traditional friends, allies, or partners — and arguing that it will still be business as usual after the dust settles.
If we don’t want to keep helping America implement its global agenda then we are going to have to cut some ties.
I think it appropriate to start with intelligence gathering ties, because this is the area where we are of most help to the US, in helping spy on other governments, and identifying things like targets to attack — which is disturbing now American intelligence agencies are back in the assassination business. A recent US Congressional paper identified the Waihopai station near Blenheim as an integral part of the Echelon electronic spying network, and listed Waihopai as one of New Zealand’s two contributions to the war on Afghanistan. The other contribution was our SAS unit. Unquestionably Echelon was also used in the war against Iraq. Through Waihopai we have been part of that war.
You might also have read about the memo from a US National Security Agency section head, Frank Koza, directing units to “mount a surge” of electronic spying against wavering UN Security Council members prior to a possible vote in the Council on Iraq. Echelon would have been used for this.
It is also clear from the evidence that a prime focus of Echelon, a five-nation network of Anglo countries, is to spy on the Japanese and European governments and firms, advantaging, in the main, America corporates. This has already created a serious and public diplomatic problem for New Zealand as other governments and politicians rightly criticise us for being part of the Echelon.
Militarily, we are also closely bound into this five Anglo nation network of the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The “tight five” as I call them. Those five nations are the bedrock of American defence strategy. Every year New Zealand defence people attend dozens of seminars, colleges, technical workshops, and war-gaming exercises with the other four countries.
There is a great reluctance to break from that Anglo framework, but we must. But I first should explain that of course this doesn’t mean breaking all military relations with America, Australia, or Britain. We must continue to have strong relations in peacekeeping, particularly with Australia in the Pacific. We must cooperate closely in resource protection work, disaster relief, countering smuggling, and similar things. We will work with any nation in these areas. Just because we don’t like the French military presence in the Pacific, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work the French military on fisheries monitoring and other matters of joint concern.
What we Greens are talking about is not continuing to be a part, and we have always been a subordinate part, of the five nation strategic alliance — which only leads us from disaster to disaster, as we have seen in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.
The extent of the damage to New Zealand’s reputation is not always obvious because the government doesn’t always tell the people what our military is doing. We simply don’t know how deeply our SAS was involved in the raids that killed a lot of civilians in Afghanistan, or what our intelligence officers are doing now at Bagram airbase, in the light of the Americans admitting they killed two prisoners at the same base.
There is also rightly a huge amount of public concern about our frigate helping escort US warships through the Strait of Hormuz before during and after the recent war. It was helping America in the war, even though the ostensible reason for the frigate being there was to fight terrorism.
Pressure from the four other Anglo nations have got us significantly involved in this so-called “war against terrorism”, not just in terms of a military contribution, but also through introducing legislation and practices which undermine our civil liberties. Last year’s Terrorism Suppression Act has been followed by a Counter-Terrorism Bill.
September 11 was very real. But many people are now seeing that Bush’s “war against terrorism” is an excuse for a darker agenda. “Terrorism” has been projected as the worldwide enemy, replacing “communism” as the excuse for massive arms spending and military intervention.
For the Greens small group terrorism of the type seen in the Islamic world should not be seen as a problem in and of itself. It is a consequence of chronic social and political problems. You just need to look at the Israel/Palestine situation to see that. Dealing with terrorism militarily is in practice a legitimation of state terrorism — which you can again see in Sharon’s treatment of Palestinians, or Putin’s attacks of the Chechens, or the thousands killed by American bombing in Afghanistan.
This military response to terrorism is also undermining the UN and international law. It is absurd that our government justifies the ship boarding actions of the frigate Te Mana, acting like a pirate on the high seas, under Article 51 of the UN Charter, the article on self-defence.
It is unfortunately true that European states have also bought into this so-called “war on terrorism”, albeit in a less extreme form than the Americans.
So the Green critique is directed at them too. Which points to the fact that the Green approach is not just one of siding with Europe against America.
What we are advocating is “best practice” associations with countries (wherever they are in the world), which is something we are already doing with some success in the anti-nuclear area — through the New Agenda coalition involving such countries as South Africa, Mexico and Ireland.
We need to consciously develop close associations with best practice countries in a range of areas: human rights, mediating peace settlements, and aid and development. Norway has done, and is still doing, great work in mediation, in relation to Palestine, Sri Lanka and southern Sudan. On West Papua we should be working closely with Vanuatu, which is now hosting a West Papuan diplomatic mission. We should have close relations with the Arab League to get New Zealand more involved in the Palestine issue. We can learn from our past mistakes, such as in East Timor, when we went with the “worst practice” countries, Australia and America, and legitimised an Indonesian occupation.
We must be seen as a champion of the United Nations as a counter to big power unilateralism, and push for its reform so that it is less beholden to the interests of big powers, particularly the United States.
We should also be more of a model in aid for development, increasing our contribution to the international standard of 0.7% of GNI.
There is a huge amount we can do in the world, turning our small size, geographical isolation and the lack of threat we are to anyone, into an advantage. We have already showed this in our anti-nuclear campaigning, the Bougainville peace settlement, and in peacekeeping in places like East Timor.
Particularly in the age of American dominance, the world needs strong independent peacemaking countries and the Green Party thinks it is New Zealand’s duty and destiny to be one of them. But to become truly independent, we have got to stop seeing Australia, or America or Britain as our first point of reference. It is hard because in becoming independent we are rubbing against the cultural similarities we have with those countries, we are running against a long-standing colonial mindset. I could see that mindset so vividly in Parliament last week, with all the idiocy about New Zealand having to bow before George Bush about a correct aside about an Al Gore presidency not invading Iraq. The demands on Clark had a very strong “defer to the Emperor” feel about them.
And of course, National and Act justified it all in terms of the necessity of a free trade deal with America, which the Greens don’t accept at all. In fact, rather than going under the economic wing of America, as we were once under the economic wing of Britain, we should continually broaden our trading base. The American government is looking after the interests of its own farmers and business people, not ours.
None of what I have said can be taken as anti-American, or anti-Australian or anti-British, because in all those countries there are growing movements, and growing Green Parties, that are advocating the same sort of policies I have explained today.
We live in dark times, but in another sense very hopeful times. The millions of people who have been out on the streets in New York and San Francisco, London and Edinburgh, Melbourne and Sydney represent the hope for our future, for a world where there is peace, an ecologically sustainable economy and social justice.
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