oil survey ship stopped

Fanastic effort by the activists in stopping Petrobras today. We will not tolerate drilling and exploitation and the sooner they realise this, and pack up, the better. The government has called for calm - there is no calm and there will be no backing down on this issue - this is a line in the sand that will be defended - with vigour. We know your bogus arguments about money and 'economic benefits' and they are all worthless because we don't believe them - we never will, because we have heard from other peoples about the effects of your polluting, degrading industry and we have seen it here too. As in other countries, the indigenous people of this land are leading the battle to protect the land and sea. They lead because they hold the mana and they are directly affected.

NZH

The Government is calling for calm after Greenpeace protesters today disrupted a Brazilian oil giant from investigating deep sea oil drilling off the East Cape. Greenpeace said swimmers from a protest flotilla of five vessels entered the water today and diverted the oil survey ship the Orient Explorer off course.

The flotilla was supported by East Cape iwi Te Whanau a Apanui, which said the company had no right to be in the waters east of their tribal lands. "This is not a protest," iwi spokesman Rikirangi Gage said. "This is an act of defence of our ancestral lands and waters that have sustained us for generations."

The powers that be will not like this and that is good. Greenpeace are experts in high visability protests that generate publicity and we need these. We also need the deeper understanding of what this is all about and that is - supporting Te Whanau a Apanui in their fight to defend their life. We all want the same result so let's keep up the pressure on Petrobras, Parata, Brownlee and Key. I expect silence from the maori party. The Greens and The Mana Party (just testing the name out) will keep pushing hard.

Make no mistake, any inch they get on this issue will turn into a festering sore - people power will stop them.