Bomb scares in God’s Own
Bombs scares seem to be a regular inner-city event in Wellington these days. After being caught up in one on 3 March – fortunately, only to the extent that my bus home didn’t arrive because it was marooned further down Lambton Quay with the rest of the fleet – I thought I’d take a quick look at the topic.
There’s been a proliferation of bomb scares in Wellington recently – on 17 February 2010, 11 December 2009 and 9 December 2009. And it’s not just Wellington central – a beeping package was left at headquarters of the New Zealand Racing Board in nearby Petone in July 2009, while Auckland and Christchurch have their fair share too. The provinces are not immune either – a park in Havelock North, Hawke’s Bay, was shut down on 2 March this year when sticks of ‘explosives’ taped to a board were found there.
None of these were real bombs. Most were premeditated hoaxes. The Havelock North scare was traced to a fancy-dress party held nearby the weekend before. At worst, these incidents temporarily disrupt the normal flow of daily events.
Sometimes the bombs are real though.
The most infamous example in New Zealand’s history is the bombing of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior, which was sunk by French spies in Auckland Harbour in 1985.
Less well-known and understood is the bombing of the Trades Hall in Wellington in 1984. A suitcase filled with explosives, designed to go off when the suitcase was moved, was left at the building. Unsuspecting caretaker Ernie Abbott picked it up and was killed instantly. Because Trades Hall was a union building it seems likely that the union movement was being targeted, but because police did not solve the case we’ll never know for sure. In the early 2000s police were given new information about the case by members of the public but they did not go anywhere.
Do you know of any other real cases of bombs in New Zealand?
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