https://themilitant.com/2018/06/30/auckland-protest-demands-protection-of-maori-land/
Auckland protest demands protection of Maori land
By Mike Tucker
Vol. 82/No. 25
July 9, 2018
Spin Off/Qiane Matata-Sipu
AUCKLAND, New Zealand — Over 300 people demonstrated here May 26
protesting moves by Fletcher Building, the country’s largest
construction company, to begin building 480 houses for sale on historic
Maori land at Ihumatao.
“They are trying to steal our land for their economic gain,” Pania
Newton, a leader of the protest, told demonstrators. “Today we are
acting to show them that we are staying on this land.”
“Over the past few years we have been to the United Nations and got
support and have petitioned the government,” Newton said. “But nothing
has been done to stop this. History shows that legal processes are
designed to oppress us.”
The Maori people, the indigenous people, have lived here continuously
for hundreds of years. Ihumatao was one of the first human settlements
in New Zealand. It was confiscated by the New Zealand government in
1863. Government militias, backed by 12,000 British troops, invaded what
is today the southern part of Auckland and much of the neighboring
province of Waikato. This was the biggest military offensive against
Maori in the l9th century New Zealand land wars.
“The New Zealand land wars began right here in 1863 and we are still
fighting,” Haare Williams, a government-decorated artist and
broadcaster, told protesters.
SOUL — Save Our Unique Landscape — was initiated in 2015 to campaign to
preserve the land by residents at Ihumatao. The predominantly Maori
village of 80 households borders the confiscated land near Auckland’s
airport.
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