Ihumātao: London street artists show solidarity with protesters

Wednesday, 21 August 2019

There is 'no logical reason' why private land like Ihumātao cannot be returned to Māori under treaty settlement processes, a treaty expert says.

London-based street artists have shown support for the controversial Ihumātao protest.

Protest Stencil placed hand-made posters around London Transport bus stops and other advertising spaces on August 19.

Mackenzie Valgre, from Protest Stencil, said the campaign was intended to demonstrate solidarity with those occupying the land.

Protest Stencil, a London-based group, has shown support for Ihumātao by placing hand-drawn posters in bus stops around the city.

'We [in London] are in the heart of the former British empire, and so we also want to emphasise the legacy of colonialism in ongoing dispossession,' Valgre said.

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'We admire and support the land protectors at Ihumātao and all communities resisting dispossession, occupation and colonialism globally.'

Protest Stencil said it wanted to show the people at Ihumātao the world was with them.

The posters say: 'I riro whenua atu, me hoki whenua mai. As land was taken, so land must be returned. Protect Ihumātao.'

Tautoko all the way from London! 😍#protectIhumatao #protectIhumātao https://t.co/iFdrXypFgS

— Protect Ihumātao (@protectihumatao) August 18, 2019

Protest Stencil also shared a link to donate to the protesters, as well as a petition to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to visit the site, on its social media channels.

The Ihumātao protest is an occupation of the land near the protected Ōtuataua Stonefields in Māngere, in opposition to a housing development planned by Fletcher Building.

The Crown confiscated the land in the 1860s. Fletcher Building bought the land and got permission to build 480 homes in 2016.

Since late July, numbers of protesters at the site have surged and Ardern has announced no construction work will begin until a solution is reached.

This is not the first international support the protesters have received.

Earlier in the year, the United Nations questioned how Māori heritage would be protected when the development went ahead.

Dr Claire Charters, co-director of the Aotearoa New Zealand Centre for Indigenous Peoples and the Law, said Ihumātao had been repeatedly addressed by UN human rights tribunals.

Charters said, in an opinion piece published by the University of Auckland, the last time the UN was so engaged in an indigenous peoples' rights issue with respect to New Zealand was in relation to the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004.