Keepers Of The Flame
p. 24 · Read in the full issue
THE SMALL radical Maori nationalist froup Te Ahi Kaa “Keepers of the ire” gained a high public profile in New Zealand last year with statements
supporting Major-General Sitiveni
Raouka and the coups in Fiji. News paper headlines trumpeted the group’s plea to the coup leader to help them in what they called their
fight for ‘independence’.
Te Ahi Kaa leaders have played a key role in the Maori health con troversy. Titewhai Harawira, 54, then a member of the Waitangi Action Committee and Te Kotahitanga (a national group of Maori rights activ ists), was appointed Maori liaison officer for Auckland’s Carrington and
Oaklay psychiatric hospitals m 1985.
When Oakley closed, she established Whare Paia . . . where untrained com
munity workers, including Harawira’s
son Arthur and daughter Hinewhare, staffed the unit as well as a handful of
professional psychiatric staff.
Chairman of the Maori Regional Health Board and a fellow Te Ahi Kaa leader is Dr Pal Hohepa, a senior lecturer in the Auckland University Maori Studies department.
Hohepa’s wife Atareta Poananga, a former diplomat who upset New Zea land’s foreign Affairs Ministry with
her outspoken views, is secretary of the board. Her denunciations of New Zealand race relations while on trips abroad sparked angry Pakeha attacks at home. Other at Ahi Kaa members involved in the Maori health furore include trade union official Syd Jack son and his partner Deidre Nehua, who is related to Harawira. □
Te Ahi Kaa leader Atareta Poananga: a keen exploiter of media attention.
Photograph by Phil Fogle, courtesy of Auckland Metro.