INVERCARGILL - TAKE BACK YOUR TOWN

We took to cooking and stuff over the weekend so left the heady debates on the middle east to Lambcut who likes writing and talking about it - a lot.

However, we have been musing over a story that we saw in the Southland Times late last week about self styled gang leader Shaun Te Kahu writing a letter to property developer and entrepreneur Louis Crimp about their gang headquarters which was torched.

Crimp owned it and in a curious oversight didn't realise that there had been no mortgage payments on the property for a decade.

He took back the property but in less that 48 hours it was burnt to the ground.

Te Kahu - who is not Ngai Tahu's finest son, shows some literacy skills but little else.

The letter is a mixture of whinging about the sentimental attachment he and his brother Chaz had to the place, and not so veiled threats about rebuilding the gang presence back in Invercargill.

Te Kahu's letter in full

Koe Louis,

Shaun Te Kahu here. I writing to you concerning what I just witnessed on TV. I'm in total disbelief. Shocked and totally gutted. As well as my brother. We are original founders of mongrel mob Invercargill.

That place held sentimental value to us. I wasn't aware of that mortgage loan back from 89. When I become president I honestly wasn't aware of that bill. Otherwise, I would've paid it. To find out 20 years later was a slap in the face. I received your correspondence like December just gone.

I couldn't do much from my cell. I was told you approached others down there. I honestly believe you weren't talking to the backbone at all. I'm the backbone. Me and my brother. I was in Springhill Prison when I got your notice.

So I wasn't in a position to do anything positive. I'm back in Chch now. I'm due to come back Invercargill ways anytime next year. I'm a local from Invercargill just like everyone else in the town. I've made the wrong choices, no ones perfect. I won't deny the mob are a bunch of thugs. I accept we've mucked it all up. But I am prepared to make a change for the better of us and the community. We have given back to the community as well. My contribution was AK47s and shotguns and other weapons. That was something no other gang has done ever in Invercargill. Just politics in the gang scene got in the way. The town has been quiet since I've been in jail. I'm in a better frame of mind now. What I like to know is where do we go from here? I got the impression you and the city council was trying to crush the mob by taking way my headquarters. The bill was unrealistic aye. Why would the mob pay you that amount of money when the mob could go and buy another house and rebuild right in the town. We chose Severn cause it was the right location for us. And there's another headquarters in Mataura.

I'm prepared to make amends to you when I get out. I'll compensate you on the condition you give what's left back 2 us which is nothing now. But ashes. Otherwise you give me no choice but to rebuild in town.

Til I hear from you.

Yours sincerely SHAUN TE KAHU

Paparua Prison

It is astounding that he admits to introducing AK47's to the town and to fuelling the gang warfare that has dogged the southern town for years.

Invercargill doesnt need arsewipes like the Te Kahus . They are wreckers and haters and just stupid enough to be dangerous to innocent people.

Even the Mongrel Mob never held these guys in high regard until they managed to torch the historic headquarters of the Road Knights which had been a symbol of the pasty white racist underbelly of Invercargill.

Sadly this gross play in the gang sandpit gained them some misplaced creds.

When Te Kahu does get out of prison there is no way he should be allowed back inside the town boundary.

What we would like to see on the big sign that welcomes people to Invercargill is - Proud to be Gang Free.

INVERCARGILL SLOWLY SHEDDING GANGS

In the 70's 80's and 90's gang activity in Invercargill was high. There were the Road Knights, the Damned, Mongrel Mob and Black Power all taking positions of dominance at some time. Now its down to 1. The Road Knights - although they are just a shadow of their former strength. In fact you could liken them now to balanced challenged kids trotting on donkeys - instead of murderous thugs riding around on Harleys.

This particular branch of the Mob were never held in very high regard by the mob further north. They were considered by the old guard as particularly stupid try hards.

However they gained some creedence when they managed to burn down the Road Knights headquarters .

So today we see that the Mob has moved out of Invercargill - almost. They have been squatting because the city's eccentric property developer Lou Crimp finally worked out that the buggers hadn't been paying any rent. So he put the hard word on them.

We have had very close associations with Lou in the past. He owned whole streets of houses he bought from Housing Corp that the Black Power once lay siege to. So he knows a thing or too about gangs and he hates them.

So it is pleasing to see that Invercargill is cleaning out their rats nests.

THE PALE WHITE FACE OF PURE EVIL

We have been mulling over the creepy familiarity we felt every time the face of Malcolm Chaston appeared in the media.

His brutal murder of Vanessa Pickering has shocked our Nation which, sadly is becoming numb to the sickening violence and brutality of far too many murders.

We have a deep loathing of White Power gangs. Theirs is a creed based purely on hate.

We knew some of Chastons associates well. They were a group of sullen, unbelieveably angry, insular boys to whom white power was a religion and they worshipped at the alter with all the fanaticism of suicide bombers.

One of the group mentioned in the article was Neihana Foster, yes a young angular faced Maori with a bigwhite chip on his shoulder who did time in Invercargill jail. And there is nothing that hates more than a young Maori who follows the religion of the Fourth Reich.

This group did the bidding of the white power gang which held dominance over the South Island at the time - The Road Knights.

But there was another young man who was in the thrall of Foster, and the white power rag tag bunch of haters , while he served time.

His name was Scott Watson.