Tau Te Mauri - Breath of Peace

There was a sense of horror, of evil, of despair...

– WWll conscientious objector Jack Rogers recalls hearing about the atomic bomb dropping on Hiroshima

The Peace Squadrons involved small, privately-owned vessels blockading New Zealand harbours, swarming around incoming nuclear warships to try to prevent them entering. This produced extensive media coverage — much of it sympathetic. The waterborne protests created iconic, David-vs-Goliath images and video footage of tiny, civil society protest vessels surrounding enormous US nuclear warships.

– Excerpt from an article about New Zealand's Peace Squadrons, Disarmament and Security Centre website

New Zealand spies on countries like Vanuatu every day of the week and on every level and passes that information to countries which are not always sympathetic in their relations to Vanuatu.

– Writer Nicky Hager

It was a a shocking thing for the French Government to do. I don't think they had any idea why Greenpeace was successful at all, or how Greenpeace worked, really, if they thought that was...if that's what they came up with in terms of trying to stop Greenpeace ... it certainly made everyone in Greenpeace feel like we were doing the right thing; we were so doing the right thing. It just confirmed why nuclear weapons had absolutely no place on this planet.

– Rainbow Warrior crew member Bunny McDiarmid on the aftermath of the Warrior bomb attack

The whales are ours at Mahia, they're our Kaitiaki and I just let the karanga go and suddenly the whales just went around in a circle and they just lifted up their babies and it was just an amazing...these are not things you plan eh...

– 'Aunty' Pauline Tangiora from Indigenous Initiative for Peace on her home in Mahia

Suddenly he was seized by an inspiration and he decided he would leap off the launch and onto the submarine. And so he did. So this very mild-mannered, unspectacular kind of guy found himself right on the bow of the submarine, to his own astonishment really, and certainly to the astonishment of the ship's captain — who was looking down at him from the great height of the conning tower and said 'what the ... is he doing here?'. Stephen Sherry turned around and said "turn this bloody thing around!"

– Reverend George Armstrong on the actions of Stephen Sherry during a sea protest against visiting US warships in the late 1970s

Talk about an act of faith to go and take this case to the court, absolutely amazing it was, we ran on adrenaline and courage and perseverance and help from people offering you five dollars to help you go, I mean that was ... Alan used to describe it as a sort of Kiwis fixing it with no.8 wire...

– Kate Dewes on taking a landmark anti-nuclear case to the International Court of Justice in 1996

Well every judge hates losing control of the courtroom and it was bedlam there were sheriffs that came out and dragged us out and the judge was just absolutely furious ... we were sentenced to a year in prison all of us which was a lot less than what were were expecting, we were expecting three to five years.

– Activist Moana Cole on her sentencing in a US court for 'sabotage' and 'conspiracy' after protest action against the US Iraq invasion

My husband would mind the children and I would get on my bike and cycle off to the other side of Christchurch all through the dark and take my typewriter with me in my basket and there we would sit, one on either side of the table typing up what we're going to say to the press for publication the next morning...it had to be in to the office by 11pm so we would work very hard and we would sit arguing about what should go in...

– Mary Woodward from the Society of Friends on making sure their group's message made the papers, in 1950s Christchurch

Nanny sat there, absolutely determined that she was going to go to the court and pay her respects in the Māori tradition, and the lawyers didn't want to move on this — they didn't want to offend anyone in the court. Aunty said 'come on Kate, we're going, we're ringing up and we're just going. We'll take the NGOs the international NGOs with us', because the body was lying in state. And I remember her saying to me 'Kate, there's a proverb or a saying in Māoridom that when something auspicious is about to happen, a chief has to die'.

– ProKate Dewes remembers Pauline Tangiora's actions after a judge died while their landmark anti-nuclear case was being heard