Nicky Hager has welcomed the announcement today of an independent inquiry into civilian casualties during the August 2010 NZSAS raid in Afghanistan – Operation Burnham – the subject of the 2017 book Hit and Run.
“This is very, very good news for New Zealand,” he said. “It is vital that, as a country, we can face up to incidents where our military does terrible things.”
He said good people have been chosen for the inquiry, the terms of reference are broad and resources have been allocated so it can do a proper job. “It feels like the start of a sound and thorough process.”
“There have been years of cover up by the NZSAS and senior military staff ever since the raid – intended for insurgents – killed and wounded 21 civilians, most of them women and children. Even after we wrote a whole book setting out what had happened, the New Zealand Defence Force continued its denials. It is an intolerable situation when the military tries to cover up its own misdeeds.”
“The obvious answer was an independent inquiry and so we warmly welcome today’s announcement.”
“International law says that countries have a legal obligation to conduct an independent inquiry whenever there are credible allegations of civilian casualties. The New Zealand Defence Force and government refused to do this for seven years. At last another government is doing the right thing.”
Yes I want Nicky and Jon given compensation for all the harm and hurt to self respect.
They both should be given with a public apology by their accussors also.
Dignity is not a price that can be measured but a public apology will help to mend some harm received by these two truth seeking men.
Nicky and Jon deserve a medal and compensation ,- along with a Knighthood for services rendered to humankind… after John Key is first stripped of his bogus ‘knighthood’.
If ever there was a personage that sullied the whole concept of a ‘knighthood ‘ it was that skulking John Key.
That man , more than any others so far outside of Roger Douglas , … has done more to degrade the office of receiving a knighthood than any other.
He along with Jerry Mateparae, and Lieutenant General Keating deserve jail time.
And there’s another character called Wayne Mapp that is a regular poster on The Standard that needs to be looked into as well for what he knew about the whole ordeal. Along with his boss, – Bill ‘the Double Dipper’ English who stonewalled the original calls for an inquiry.
None of these shitters should be able to disappear into the background and go scot free and live the lives of the opulent and avoid the murder charges that they will inevitably face.
Fair sick of the far right wing neo liberal bastards and their bullshit.
Rember that Key brought back Knighthoods etc..after the Clark government ditched and replaced them with NZ orders.
I wonder when we will wake up and realise that all wars throughout history, including those our fathers and grandfathers fought in, also included similar dreadful events. The difference is they were not covered up in the same way, largely because they were not reported or censorship prevented reporting.
The only real way to stop repeating these crimes is to refuse to be involved in armed conflict.
Now we know why Key left Parliament suddenly, without explanation, and without a nominated successor!
The redneck comments on stuff today are truly depressing. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/103000905/govt-makes-call-on-inquiry-into-afghan-raid
Redneckery: no original thought required… *sigh*
100% WK.
Wonderful news! Alleluia for people like Nicki Hager.
Allan watkins
Many thanks to the authors of Hit and Run for shining a light and keeping on keeping on. The inquiry will be interesting if it reveals this all to be true. What then will it mean that both Key and English lied when they said they reviewed the evidence and there was no basis for an inquiry. Will there be an inquiry into that?
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