BY PATRICK BROWN
CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand - Anzac Day celebrations here on April 25 were seized on by capitalist politicians and media commentators to glorify the past military adventures of New Zealand imperialism, and to gain support for the government's push to refurbish the country's armed forces in preparation for future conflicts.

Anzac Day is named after the Australia New Zealand Army Corps and commemorates the two regimes' Gallipoli campaign, a bloody eight-month conflict in Turkey during World War I.

At the War Memorial in the capital city of Wellington, Prime Minister James Bolger struck a common theme, saying "Our young people are aware the life we enjoy today owes much to the sacrifice of those who risked their lives."

Joining the chorus, Col. Timothy Brewer, a senior officer in the part-time Territorial Forces, bemoaned in a speech delivered in New Plymouth, "The regular army has been run down to the point where it is barely capable of carrying out the day-to-day activities required of it... We will shortly sing the national anthem: `God Defend New Zealand.' Well, let us hope that he will, because nobody else will." Brewer was censured for his remarks by Chief of General Staff Major General Piers Reid.

Since the Coalition Agreement between the National and New Zealand First parties was reached in December 1996, discussion of the alleged vulnerability of the military has occupied many news column inches.

An editorial in the February 19 Christchurch Press, for instance, stated, "Reports surfaced last year of soldiers buying some of their own equipment; the Air Force does not have sufficient crews for the six Orions; its Boeings break down; and there are other deficiencies. This is morale- sapping."

In an April 15 speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, Lieutenant-colonel Antony Hayward reported on his command of Kilo 2 Company, the second contingent of New Zealand's Bosnian forces. Hayward complained, "The army's 30-year-old armored personnel carriers, fitted with extra protective armor, were too lightly armed and too slow."

Defense Minister Paul East said, "It's the view of the government that there should be no further reductions in the defense force and we can see in the future at least modest increases."

Much of Wellington's military equipment dates to the 1960s and 1970s. The New Zealand government has recently purchased two frigates from Australia, each costing more than NZ$500 million (NZ$1.44 = US$1). The regime is under increasing pressure from its Australian counterpart to take up its option to buy two more.

New Zealand's armed forces, numbering around 10,000 service personnel, are designed to operate in partnership with those of Australian imperialism. This relationship is spelled out in the Closer Defense Relations agreement, signed in 1991.

While the discussion over military spending and priorities continued, the government announced a decision to buy four U.S.-manufactured Kaman Seasprite naval helicopters at a cost of NZ$274 million. Secretary of Defense Gerald Hensley, reportedly said Wellington had deferred making a "decision last year on which helicopter to buy, to ensure both governments in New Zealand and Australia chose the same type."

Minister of Foreign Affairs Don McKinnon told Wellington's diplomatic corps in March, "a preparedness to be engaged and involved internationally in security issues" was a long-standing New Zealand characteristic, but that adopting such policy imperatives required "taking the people with us."

New Zealand's armed forces have been "involved internationally" in many of the imperialist interventions that have taken place under the banner of the United Nations since the Gulf War, just as they were involved in the aggression against Korea and Vietnam in previous decades.

Some of the military operations New Zealand forces around the world are involved in include Cambodia, Sinai, Angola, Mozambique, Macedonia, Iraq, Syria, Israel and Lebanon. Three successive contingents of 250 soldiers served under the United Nations in Bosnia. A small group of officers is now serving there in the British forces under NATO command.

The commitment of New Zealand forces to these recent imperialist military interventions is particularly important for the rulers here as they try to rebuild their alliance with U. S. imperialism.

In 1985 previously close military ties between Wellington and Washington were cut by the U.S. administration after the New Zealand Labour government, elected on an antinuclear platform, sought to prevent visits by U.S., British and other nuclear-armed or propelled naval vessels. The move followed a decade of union and street protests against nuclear ship visits. Support for the antinuclear policy remains widespread.

Member of Parliament Rodney Hide, the finance spokesperson for the right-wing party ACT New Zealand, wrote in the Autumn 1997 Defence Quarterly, a publication of the Ministry of Defence, "I detect a greater willingness to commit New Zealand troops to hot spots to reprove a friendship that was once taken for granted. That may be no bad thing... We need powerful friends, and who more logical an ally than the United States, to whom we are linked by blood, history, trade, and the traditions of democratic government."

Prime Minister Bolger implored Washington to resume joint exercises and training involving U.S. and New Zealand Defense forces during his speech to American Chamber of Commerce officials visiting Wellington in early April.

A sense of frustration is seeping into discussion of this issue among ruling class circles here. The March 15 New Zealand Herald referred to praise by the United States Fifth Fleet commander, Admiral Thomas Fargo, for the performance of the frigate Canterbury in the naval force intercepting vessels suspected of trading with Iraq in violation of the inhuman United Nations Security Council sanctions. The article complained that "glowing praise for New Zealand naval patrols in the Gulf has not cracked American opposition to resuming military exercises with this country."

In addition, the defense attaché at the U.S. embassy in Wellington, Captain Robert Houser, pointed to the increased dialogue with Washington since Bolger's meeting with U.S. president William Clinton two years ago. Bolger's visit to the White House was the first such invitation in more than 10 years, an event that was taken as a hopeful sign by the New Zealand rulers.

Houser noted, however, that the New Zealand imperialists "still have a stumbling block" from the antinuclear policy.

Serious differences have marked relations between Wellington and Paris over the French nuclear testing in the Pacific for the past two decades, and especially since the French secret police's sinking of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbor in 1985.

Paris, Canberra, Wellington, and Washington are the dominant imperialist powers in the South Pacific.

For the New Zealand ruling class, joining with Washington in major conflicts remains the lodestar of its foreign and military policy. Similarly, they are dependent on their military partnership with their stronger Australian counterparts, despite sharpening competition between the two imperialist powers.

Meanwhile, New Zealand Skyhawk and Orion aircraft and the Canterbury took part in a major sea and air exercise around the Malay Peninsula at the end of April. Dubbed the "Flying Fish," the exercise was staged under the aegis of the Five Power Defence Arrangement, whose other members include the governments of Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and the United Kingdom.

Supposedly one of the scenarios for "Flying Fish" involved a hypothetical power using force to annex a hypothetical island. To the north of where "Flying Fish" took place, lie the Spratly Islands. Explorations have revealed the area to be rich in hydrocarbons.

In a press release on Anzac Day, Defense Minister East alluded to the disputes over the islands and the "increasing tensions in the South China Sea: The contenders -China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei; the chances of a major Asian war over the Spratlys in the next 10-20 years - moderate to low."

In the lengthy statement, East painted a picture of an increasingly unstable Asia-Pacific region. "What would be the response to an Asian war?" he asks. "It would probably be an international one - initiated by the UN Security Council - and possibly led by the Americans, as in the Gulf War. New Zealand could be asked to contribute ships and/or aircraft to a multinational force tasked to deter threats to the vital sea lanes of the South China sea."

Patrick Brown is a member of the Engineers Union in Christchurch.  
 
 
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