Contents:

Aug/97: Personal Statement by Mr. Nathan, from Paremoremo Prison
no date: Newspaper clippings
1995: Text handed out by protestors during victory parade

Taku pono ko taku honore. My loyalty is my honour.

Ti hei mauri ora! Tuatahi, e mihi ana ahau e tu Matua nui i te rangi nana mea katoa. Tuarua, tena koutou i o tatou tini mate haere haere haere. Tuatoru, ki a Papatuanuku te turanga o te iwi tena koe. No reira tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou katoa.

The reason I attacked the America's Cup is because I felt it was my duty to do so, for as someone once wrote... "Let us believe to the very end that right makes might, an in that belief, let us dare to do our duty as we understand it".

I felt it my duty to make a stand against the continued sale of our country (assets) by this government to foreign capitalists. Our lakes, waterways, forests, etc are all slowly being destroyed by foreign capitalist owned firms. This is all being done in direct contravention to Article 2 of the Treaty of Waitangi. However, this is not just an issue for Maori, it concerns all New Zealanders because we are all part of this country and are all affected by what is currently happening. I find it deeply ironic that when I attempted to destroy a mere piece of tin that the vast majority of people in New Zealand acted as if I had dropped a nuclear bomb. Yet, these same people do not seem to care that our country is being slowly but surely sold off and destroyed by foreign capitalists.

That is why I specifically targeted the America's Cup, it is a sacred treasure owned by foreign capitalists, so I thought, why not give them a taste of their own medicine and see how they like it.

What does the Cup symbolise? The rich becoming richer, the poor poorer. Who will benefit from the Cup? The poor? Kao (no). Only the rich will benefit. Already, poor people have been adversely affected by this filthy rich man's Cup. The Auckland Regional Council demolished a section of inner-city flat blocks, in order to make room for new houses (condominiums) for crew members of the America's Cup race. Old people, who had been living in these flats for over 30 years, and regarded them as their own homes, were brutally and callously ordered out of them.

We have two choices. Sit back and do nothing, or get off our butts and make a stand for what we believe in. This doesn't mean a person has to take action as radical as I have. It might involve protesting with placards or writing letters to various officials, etc.

At some later stage, I will like to give a more detailed account about the truth behind the America's Cup and my own actions, political beliefs, etc. I hope this explains, to a certain degree, why I did what I did.

I would finally like to thank all those people who have supported me by writing to me in prison. Your letters were much appreciated.

No reira, Tena no tatou katoa.

Nau pono,

Benjamin Nathan

c/- Unit 5, Paremoremo Prison
Albany, Auckland
New Zealand

A South Auckland man charged with damaging yachting's America's Cup was remanded in custody on Saturday till next month. Benjamin Peri Nathan, 27, a Manurewa student, was charged with wilfully destroying the international sport's oldest trophy on Friday.

He was also charged with unlawfully entering a building, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron's headquarters, with intent to commit a crime.

Defence counsel Lorraine Smith told Auckland District Court on Saturday that Nathan would defend the charges and would elect trial by jury. She said bail was not sought at this stage.

Justice of the peace Barry Hames remanded Nathan till April 18 for a pre-depositions hearing.

He also called for a psychiatric report, a move opposed by Mrs Smith. "This was a political act done for political reasons," she said. "If psychiatric reports are to be asked for political reasons, then half of the politicians would be in serious trouble."

Mr Barnes said he accepted Mrs Smith's comments and changed his decision on the psychiatric report. Nathan was also remanded to the same date over his failure to appear in Dargaville District Court last month on a charge of unlawfully getting into a vehicle.

NZPA

AUCKLAND -- The lawyer for the man accused of smashing the America's Cup says he has been beaten up three times in prison.

The man has now been transferred to a secure unit at New Zealand's toughest jail, Paremoremo Prison in Auckland. The silver cup was damaged in an attack at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron's headquarters in Auckland in March.

Lorraine Smith said Benjamin Peri Nathan had recently been bashed on three occasions in the remand wing at Auckland's Mount Eden Prison by pakeha inmates who told him: "This is for what you did to our cup."

He had needed medical treatment for his injuries. Nathan will defend a vandalism charge at a District Court jury trial in September.

Ms Smith said she had written to Mount Eden Prison management expressing concern about Nathan's safety and he had since been taken to a secure unit at Paremoremo.

A Corrections Department spokeswoman said there were steps that could be taken to protect inmates who were worried about their safety, such as keeping them separate from the general prison population.

CNN broadcast the event to 350 million people in 200 countries, Australia had 850 000 extra tourists in 1987 from hosting it. The tourist industry in New Zealand is already way over the limit that our natural resources and facilities can handle (with one million visitors in 1994 predicted to rise to three million by the year 2000). The same week we won the cup the Department of Conservation had a funding cut - when it actually needs to have it's budget doubled just to cope with the current impact tourists have on our environment.

The major industry winners will be tourism, transport and communications. All three (i.e. hotels, buses, telephones) are dominated by foreign ownership. Overseas interests (direct investment) now own as much of the country as all the state owned enterprises and all the state's physical assets (including roads, buildings, land, forests) at about $28 billion each. Not many New Zealanders care that we're not in control of local resources even if we wanted to be.

TVNZ sponsored the campaign and made sure the logos of advertisers were well paraded on the evening news. This raises serious ethical questions about TVNZ 's role as news broadcaster. How do financial interests compromise the choice of news and it's presentation? TVNZ was simultaneously supporter, journalist and investor. TVNZ used the news to market a product it had invested in. It created an audience for an event to justify it's and others' investment. It manipulated (as TV must) the hearts and minds of New Zealanders to do so. It is also interesting that historically when there is unrest in a society or the political arena, the people are urged to unite in a spirit of patriotic fraternity and celebrate trivial spectacles.

Then there is the enormous waste of resources that go into the technological development, computer analysis, tank and tunnel testing and hundreds of hours fine tuning. Add to these the time, money and alcohol consumed while watching the box and feeling so patriotic about something that seems to me more like a national embarrassment. The fact that in a week we raised $500 000 from red socks sales, while people can't spare a dollar to help local soup kitchens and night shelters, and our overseas aid record is consistently the second worst in the 'developed' world, we also have one of the lowest refugee quotas and the highest teenage suicide rate. In a more honest society it would be called a farce to have pride in such meaningless spectacles.

The connection - is that we create these necessary distractions like recreational sport (international cricket, rugby, motor-racing), entertainment (music, TV, art, fashion, aesthetics):

(a) because we need the celebrities and achievements to justify our own laziness and comfort

(b) as something to spend the resources of time and money on

(c) to cover our neurosis or fear of facing reality and dealing with the mess we've created through ignorance and arrogance.

The $1 billion the Cup brings into NZ we'll spend on buying commodities celebrating the occasion ($2000 tankards and $25000 number plates were already on the market the day 'we' won).