Trident Ploughshares and XR Peace
Trident Ploughshares is one of several peace groups that have come together to form Extinction Rebellion Peace and resist the twin existential threats of militarism & climate emergency.
The other groups in the coalition are Nukewatch, CND, Scottish CND, CND Cymru, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Stop the War, Edinburgh Peace & Justice Centre and War Resisters International.
TP at the OCTOBER 2019 Rebellion
Members of Trident Ploughshares took a leading role in coordinating and organising XR Peace and in carrying out a series of Nonviolent Direct Actions making the links between militarism and the climate emergency.
At 6 a.m. on 7th October 2019 XR Peace rebels gathered and blockaded the Victoria Embankment outside the Ministry of Defense. Two people locked on to their car, another 3 locked onto a mock Trident missile on a trailer. Around 75 people held the road for 6 hours. 23 arrests were made amid calls for the UK to redirect resources from the military and to address the climate and ecological crisis. Five of the 23 people arrested were members of Trident Ploughshares.
The actions featured prominently in national media coverage of the start of the rebellion.
The following day four TP activists did a die-in at the Whitehall gate of the MoD lying for hours in heavy rain after pouring fake blood onto the ground to represent the planet dying from the twin existential threats of climate change and militarism. They were not arrested. Meanwhile 2 XR Peace Rebels, one of whom was a TP member, were arrested outside Downing St and the MoD whilst blocking the police lines clearing Whitehall.
Early Wednesday morning, the 9th of October, one TP member was arrested while occupying Whitehall. Later that day about a dozen people took part in another die-in on the front steps and obstructed the entrance to the MoD. As a crowd gathered and the band Seize the Day arrived four TP members were arrested. It took around 40 police officers and more than an hour to clear the entrance.
On Thursday 10th October 2019 four members of Trident Ploughshares locked-on in Trafalgar Square in support of other XR Rebels making sure they could retain occupation of the road. The three grandparents and 1 great grandfather held their ground for several hours before voluntarily releasing themselves in order to plan more actions. Another TPer was arrested in Whitehall while supporting Extinction Rebellion rebels there.
Several TP members set up an XR Peace base camp in Trafalgar Square with a gazebo and banners. The main focus was on explaining that militarism is a central pillar of the exploitative forces that are destroying our precious earth. Several TPers spent the night in the gazebo to guard the space.
On the 14th October 2019 XR Peace blockaded the main entrance to the HQ of BAe Systems at 6 Carlton Gardens making the links between UK arms sales to Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the climate and ecological emergency. Six people were arrested, most of whom were TP members.
Later that evening two TP members were among a group of five people arrested in the XR Peace gazebo when the police ‘cleared’ Trafalgar Square under the revised Section 14 Order prohibiting all XR protests in London. The police only gave XR rebels half an hour warning. Deciding not to leave without protest the four in the gazebo quickly got into lock-on tubes to defy the theft of their property that was taken with no receipts given.
On the morning of the 17th of October eight XR Peace Rebels glued together at the Supreme Court entrance in defiance of the Section 14 order. They called on the court to uphold the laws in relation to human rights and earth rights, for the protection of the rights to freedom of assembly, the recognition of the crime of ecocide, and for the recognition that Trident was criminally illegal. Six of the eight people arrested were TPers. These arrests, along with hundreds of others have since been ruled to be unlawful. The government is appealing this ruling.
Simultaneously rebels from XR Peace affinity group XR Against the Arms Trade glued and locked themselves onto the doors of Leonardo UK’s HQ in Great George Street to protest the company’s involvement in the arms trade by providing guidance systems for missiles used in Yemen and Syria, as well as other media technology and telecommunications. Later that morning four more Peace Rebels glued or locked themselves onto the door at Lockheed Martin’s London HQ one of the biggest arm companies in the world, supplying weapons in Yemen and Syria.
On 18th October, the final day of the October rebellion two XR Peace activists, one of whom was TP member Angie Zelter glued onto a bamboo structure to support rebels retaking Oxford Circus. This was the fifth arrest for Angie during the October rebellion.
Over the 2 weeks of rebellion, XR Peace totalled 57 arrests for breaches of section 14 orders, public nuisance, highway obstruction, aggravated trespass and criminal damage. Most arrestees were released under investigation.
A few of those who were arrested repeatedly were taken to court.
Angie Zelter pled guilty on a charge of failing to comply with the public assembly condition (Section 14) and, due to breach of a previously imposed conditional discharge from the April rebellion and her long arrest record was fined £460 plus a victim surcharge of £46 and costs of £85. At a second court appearance following blocking of Oxford Circus Angie was given a total of £1250 in fines, surcharge and court costs. She is appealing the sentence for breach of the Section 14 Order because of the subsequent High Court ruling that the conditions of the Order were unlawful.
Angie has a case before the courts arising from the arrest in Trafalgar Square and another for Criminal Damage arising from her arrest at the Supreme Court. She appeared in Westminster Magistrate Court 12 November. The cases were adjourned and she has yet to appear for trial.
Willemiene Hoogendoorn is due to appear in Westminster Magistrate Court on a charge of Obstruction of the Highway and breach of the Section 14 order on 6 December.
Why XR Peace?
As long as our states and societies remain militarised we will not be able to achieve climate justice. Let us join the forces of peace with the climate movement and join the October rebellion.
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Militarism is one of the central pillars of the exploitative, carbon-intensive industrial system that is driving the climate crisis.
Getting to net zero by 2025 will require a radical social transformation. Challenging the militarism that underpins the fossil fuel industry will be an essential part of this process.
We need to redirect resources from the military to address climate change.
• The military are huge carbon emitters. The US military alone emits more greenhouse gases than each of 142 countries. Yet military carbon emissions are exempt from the Kyoto agreement.
• Many 21st Century conflicts are about controlling access to dwindling oil supplies.
• Migration, the refugee crisis and conflicts are already being driven by climate change. Extreme weather and resource scarcity caused by climate change will increasingly lead to conflict.
• Conflicts often lead to environmental destruction – and reconstruction often carried out by profiteering corporations – depleting scarce resources.
• Indigenous people – at the sharp end of the climate crisis – are routinely intimidated and murdered by states or corporations who prioritise power and profits over the environment and human life.
• States often turn to militarised solutions to sustain extractivist projects.
• The use or threat of military power backs up the political and corporate self- interest that is resisting the changes needed to address the climate crisis.
• Nuclear weapons – the pinnacle of militarism and materialism – pose an existential threat as great as that of the climate emergency. The use of just 50 nuclear weapons would destroy global ecosystems, devastate the climate and lead to global famine and the death of more than a billion people. The world contains nearly 14,000 nuclear weapons in total. The UK has 200.
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