In some ways, it sounds exactly like a typical Al Qaeda attack, with multiple, near-simultaneous bombing targeting public transport:

Stuff, “Bombs spark city chaos”Four explosions plunged Christchurch into commuter chaos yesterday. A bomb exploded in the Bus Exchange about 3.10pm, forcing hundreds of passengers, many of them schoolchildren, onto surrounding streets. Inner-city traffic came to a standstill, with buses backing up along Colombo Street, and Lichfield Street cordoned while police specialist searchers scanned the terminal for more bombs. Three other bombs – in a rubbish bin in Colombo Street near the City Mall, at the Shell Carlton Mill service station and at The Palms Shopping Centre in Shirley – caused minor damage and disruption.

But on the other hand, the tiny plastic-bottle bombs caused a loud bang and not much else, and the bombers are described as “three youths in a white Holden Commodore.” A youthful prank with sinister overtones, it seems, rather than a terrorist attack.

The real danger is the proliferation of the tactics of disruption. It doesn’t matter how small the devices are, the response to it – and the location of one bomb in a public transport hub – guarantees disruption with costs far outweighing either the direct damage or the cost of making the bombs. Maybe that was deliberate, maybe not, but it illustrates just how easy it would be for a small, determined group to paralyse a major city.

There is at least one Christchurch-based group which has used terrorist-style tactics in the past. I refer, of course, to the racist National Front, whose ex-leader Kyle Chapman was convicted on several counts of arson against local marae. As I’ve said a number of times, particularly in “Violence in New Zealand’s Future: Some Pessimistic Predictions,” NZ hasn’t always been peaceful, and will probably not always be peaceful in the future. And we do have a threat – not large, but ever-present – from terrorists, whether imported or home-grown.

Previous bombings in New Zealand

• 1913 – Bombs found in Wellington during the waterfront strike and subsequent riots, probably intended to be used for sabotage.
• 1937 – Dick Singer, barrister, injured by bomb.
• 1962 – James Patrick Ward, prominent Dunedin lawyer, killed by a sophisticated and powerful parcel bomb. Murder remains unsolved.
• 1973 – “The office of the U.S. Consular Agency in Christchurch was damaged by a bomb thrown from a speeding car. There were no injuries” (MIPT-TKB)
• 1982 – Neil Roberts, anarchist punk, blows himself up in lobby of the new police computer centre in Wanganui, after writing “WE HAVE MAINTAINED A SILENCE CLOSELY RESEMBLING STUPIDITY” on nearby public toilets.
• 1984 – Caretaker Ernie Abbott killed at Wellington’s Trades Hall on Vivian Street after a meeting of top union officials, after picking up a suitcase containing a powerful incendiary device. Murder remains unsolved.
• 1985 – One Greenpeace activist killed after French DGSE agents plant limpet mines on the Rainbow Warrior protest vessel, sinking it, in Auckland Harbour. Presidential candidate Segolene Royal’s brother was involved, but never punished, while two agents who were captured were later handed over to the French who had them serve a brief “prison sentence” on a tropical Pacific island.

NB: This is a list of bombings, not terrorist attacks. It does not include shootings, arson, kidnapping or poison threats with political motives, and includes bombings with no obvious political motive.

Other related incidents include anti-abortion arson in the 1970s and 1980s, and a couple of 1970s incidents where members of the Ananda Marga sect plotted to blow up Indian diplomatic posts. Also, two Hare Krishna extremists were killed in an accidental explosion in Auckland after making a bomb which they apparently intended to use against an abortion clinic. I have found published sources for these events, but not online. Tim Shadbolt’s autobiography, Bullshit and Jellybeans, describes a dozen or so attempted bombings of NZ military installations, with no casualties and evidently little damage, in protest at NZ involvement in the Vietnam War. Again, I have found no online sources.

Posted by Phil on Saturday, August 18th, 2007 at 12:51 pm.