There will be a noise protest outside of Parliament on
Friday, 31 October at 8:30am against the meeting of major
weapons companies including Lockheed Martin, Pratt &
Whitney and Bell Textron in the Beehive. The protest is
organised by Peace Action Wellington, Justice for Palestine
and the Falastin Tea Collective.
“On Halloween, we
can imagine nothing scarier than arms dealers freely roaming
the halls of Parliament. These are the people delivering
immense death and destruction to the people of Gaza right
now. In particular, Lockheed jets have been delivery drivers
for the thousands of bombs dropped on civilians, schools,
hospitals and homes, ” said Valerie Morse, member of Peace
Action Wellington.
“As Israel breaks the ceasefire
and resumes murdering Palestinians, and the NZDF is
deploying a ‘liaison officer’ to Israel to shore up the
occupation’s shredded global legitimacy, the aerospace
industry is meeting at Parliament to push their agenda of
weapons sales to a government hungry for
war.”
“The former Chief of Defence Force, Kevin
Short, is now Lockheed’s Director of Strategy &
Business Development. He is giving the keynote address, and
his message will be ‘buy more weapons.’ Minister of War
Judith Collins will be only too happy to oblige as she
pushes forward with an aggressive pro-war, pro-genocide
stance.’”
“The $12 billion weapons and military
spending promised by this government is money to support US
wars and by extension, Israel’s wars. These weapons
companies keep us enthralled by the idea that we need to
keep buying more and more weapons. Meanwhile these are the
very companies making a killing, and doing a lot of killing,
across the
globe.
Advertisement – scroll to continue reading
