By Xinhua,
Wellington : New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark condemned an attack on Wednesday morning on the Waihopai spy base as a “senseless act of vandalism.”
Her comments came as three men were reportedly arrested for the sabotage attack, in which one of two inflatable globes covering satellite interception dishes at the Marlborough base was deflated, the New Zealand Press Association reported on Wednesday.
In a statement, a group called Anzac Ploughshares, whose aim is to spread the message of disarmament by disabling warplanes and military equipment, said it entered the base at 0600 a.m. local time (1800 GMT Tuesday) and used sickles to deflate one of the 30-meter domes, the NZPA said.
Members then “built a shrine and knelt in prayer to remember the people killed by United States military activity.”
Waihopai is operated by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB).
Described as a satellite communications monitoring facility, its opponents believe it is part of Echelon, the worldwide network of signals interception facilities run by American and British intelligence agencies.
The group said it was responding to the administration of U.S. President George Bush, who said intelligence gathering was the most important tool in the war on global terrorism.
Ploughshares accused Clark and the Government of privately supporting the war in Iraq, while publicly condemning it.