Media Release: Key admits role in illegal
drone wars
From: OASIS - Organising Against State
Intelligence & Surveillance
Date: 20 May 2014
"John Key must be held responsible for
New Zealand´s involvement in the US´s illegal secret drone war that is
murdering thousands of people," says OASIS member Valerie Morse. "His
proud admission that the GCSB has been providing information used by the US in drone
wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere shows what a sycophant he is."
John Key today admitted that the GCSB is
supporting the US state sanctioned assassination programme. He said that the GCSB
provided information to the United States that was used to conduct drone
strikes in Afghanistan and possibly elsewhere.
"Under the continued guise of
`fighting terrorism´ or `bringing stability´, the US has simply replaced the
heavy tanks with which it invaded Iraq and Afghanistan with drones that strike
in any country where it suspects `enemies´," said Ms Morse. "New
Zealand and the Five Eyes signals intelligence partners are complicit in this
assassination programme."
"The US drone war has no legal basis
under international law. The UN´s Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary
or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston, has said that the use of drones is not
combat as much as `targeted killing´. He has repeatedly tried to get the US to
explain how it justifies the use of drones to target and kill individuals under
international law. The 2011 murder of US
citizen Anwar al-Awlaki and his son in Yemen caused serious debate in the US,
and the murder of Daryl Jones should do the very same here."
"John Key obviously thinks the US
government has the right to decide who - including NZ citizens - is allowed to
live and who has to die."
"On June 14, we are calling for NZ actions as part of the international day against
the drone wars and against the surveillance state. If the National or Labour
parties imagine that being part of the US´s `Dirty Wars´ is perfectly OK, they
clearly need a little education. Thousands of New Zealanders took the streets
last year to protest the extension of GCSB powers of surveillance. People are totally opposed to the involvement of the GCSB
with the NSA and their mass surveillance
programmes."
ENDS
