Silence of the MPs irks Tuhoe
5 November 2007 A Tuhoe spokesperson has lashed out at the silence of politicians over attacks on the civil rights of iwi members. Tamati Kruger, an historian and Ruatoki community leader, says the quasi-military police lockdown of the eastern Bay of Plenty community three weeks was blatantly illegal. He says while the police have had three weeks to fish for evidence to back their alarmist allegations of terrorism, Labour's Maori MPs have abandoned their Tuhoe constituents. "It is really an inadequate response from Maori politicians to say let’s wait. Because while we’re waiting, there continues to be injustice, there continues to be breaches of civil rights. It’s not a good Maori response for one Maori to say to another, ‘we something extraordinary happening here, an event, let's wait,’" Mr Kruger says. What Tuhoe is calling Black Monday injured relations between the iwi and the government, and injured race relations.
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