Thousands of Maori demonstrated outside parliament yesterday to protest government plans to nationalize New Zealand's shoreline -- which indigenous tribes say belongs to them.
A sea of people, banners and Maori sovereignty flags engulfed the grounds in front of parliament as marchers demanded the Labor-led coalition government dump its plans to "confiscate" Maori land.
As marchers crammed the grounds, Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen and several Maori lawmakers came out to greet the protesters in line with Maori tribal tradition.
PHOTO: EPA
Their presence sparked a fierce Maori haka war dance by 40 bare-chested warriors armed with clubs and spears.
"No Raupatu" (confiscation) and "Legalized Theft" read banners as the crowd shouted for the Labor government's seven Maori lawmakers to vote against the law.
Faced with the defection of two Maori women Labor lawmakers who oppose the law, center-left Prime Minister Helen Clark has enlisted the support of anti-migrant New Zealand First Party to help pass the law, which was due to be voted on for the first time today. The government needs a minimum 61 votes in the 120-member house. It has currently marshaled 65 votes.
The government says that the legislation is intended to protect public access to beaches while granting Maori "customary use" of their ancestral areas on the coast.
Maori say the plan will strip tribes of their customary ownership of coastal areas, contravening the Treaty of Waitangi. Signed in 1840, the treaty made indigenous Maori into citizens under British rule and guaranteed their rights to their lands, forests, fisheries, culture and language.
Maori, who make up 530,000 of New Zealand's 4 million people, are among the poorest, least healthy, worst educated and poorest housed -- and suffer high unemployment.
The crowd chanted that "Maori own the foreshore" and warned government "don't you ... confiscate" Maori land.
The government should not use "its brutal power to take something that belongs to someone else," said Ngapuhi tribal elder Rima Edwards.
Police estimated the crowd at 15,000 while local media reported at least 20,000 had joined the protest.
Former national Maori Council chairman and tribal elder Sir Graeme Latimer urged Clark to take heed of the protest.
"You can't ignore ... 20,000 people gathered on a cold day," he said, adding "it could do them a lot of harm" in next year's election if they ignore Maori opposition to the law.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing