CONTENT
- Drake’s Island a “Nuclear-Free State”
- Make Poverty History – Make War History
- Hiroshima Walk 2005
- After G8 … Coulport Camp 2005
- Tackling the Trident Chain
- Block the Builders: laser about to land
- Targeting communications – 3-day mast occupation
- Roll On Rolls Royce Rid of Reactors
- Faslane 365 – a continuous blockade
- Call the Shots Campaign
- Pit Stop Ploughshares
- Festive Blockaders Not Guilty
- Diary Dates
- Peace Library / Archive
Drake’s Island a “Nuclear-Free State”
Twelve campaigners declared Drake’s Island in Plymouth Sound a nuclear free state after establishing a peace camp there on 13th May.
The week long protest highlighted the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) while it was under its five-yearly review in New York – and how the British government fails to comply with its treaty obligations to work in good faith towards disarmament.
Instead, the government maintains and refits its WMD carriers all happening in Plymouth, among 270,000 people. The cyclical refit of the Trident submarines takes place at Devonport Dockyard in Plymouth, and is one of several activities that clearly demonstrates that the government is not even considering disarming.
HMS Vanguard arrived at Devonport on 3 February 2002 for a two year refit and refuelling. However, HMS Victorious came in for its refit on 17 January 2005, only a month after Vanguard had left the dockyard, one year behind schedule. The refits, which are designed to give Trident another 20 years of lifetime, therefore take almost 3 years to complete. This means that we will see refits of the other subs – Vigilant and Vengeance – throughout the rest of this decade and a fair bit into the next one. Unless, of course, the Tamarians get their way.
The Plymouth-based affinity group Tamarians (named after the river Tamar) had been planning the May-action together with other non-TP peace activists for some time, and decided to occupy the historic military landmark Drake’s Island a few hundred yards from mainland Plymouth as part of the run-up to the annual Devonport Disarmament Camp. By declaring the island a nuclear-free state, the settlers wanted to challenge their next door neighbour, the City of Plymouth, to become a nuclear free zone too; to refuse to host the refit of the nuclear submarines; and to push for the scrapping of Trident.
News of this nuclear-free state spread quickly to NGOs attending the NPT review conference in New York, as well as to the local media who, despite the rough seas, landed on the island for interviews on the first afternoon of the action. The occupation was the main feature in the local South West TV news that evening, and radio interviews were given over the phone throughout the week.
The spot chosen for the action could not have been more appropriate: facing Plymouth Hoe, with all the naval and commercial ships passing through the narrow sound between the island and the mainland, the nuclear-free state was very much in the public eye. The display of two huge banners on one of the tall empty buildings, reading “Scrap Trident” and “Ban the Bomb”, together with countless rainbow-coloured peace flags scattered around the island, made a very clear and colourful presence.
The settlers made a very clear point about leaving the island in a better condition than they found it in, and not doing any criminal damage while there so the mast, which the MoD has planted on the top of the island, was left for the seagulls to poo on.
The settlers were evicted from Drake’s Island on Thursday 19 May, one week after they had landed, leaving the island tidier than they had found it. The two action-boats were loaded with all the camping equipment and were promptly navigated to the other side of the Sound, where another peace camp was immediately established in an old dry reservoir at Devil’s Point. The same evening about 30 anti-nuclear activists arrived and filled the site with tents and banners, marking the start of the 2005 Devonport Disarmament Camp.
Around 6.45am the following day an attempt was made to blockade the main gate of Devonport Dockyard, but activists were penned in by the police, a few hundred yards away from the outer gates of the base. One member of the Muriel Lesters immediately lay down in the road as a protest and was arrested for Obstruction of the Highway – the day’s only arrest. Not even the Totnes Regiment of the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army could clown their way through the police line.
However, a smaller group set off to check the other gates around the base and ended up successfully blockading Albert Gate, which they held for three hours. The blockade, which had a theme of colourful carnival, certainly drew a fair bit of attention from all the people on the busy motorway in and out from Plymouth, a sight unavailable had the protesters actually got to the gate. However, (for note taking, dear MoD) someone told me that next time the base will be taken by surprise.
On the Sunday of the camp, protesters joined the Lord Mayors Parade through the city, handing out 2000 leaflets, and were occasionally applauded as they walked behind the Royal Naval Float with a banner reading “Trident is terrorism”. The weeks of protest in Plymouth this year were generally considered a success, and have sparked more actions over the summer, including use of the TP sponsored action boat which has since been out on several occasions, peacefully pottering about in the Tamar, with anti-nuclear messages on display.
Anna Linnea Rundberg
Make Poverty History – Make War History
The Faslane G8 day of action took place on 4th July, just a few days before the start of the G8 summit. While the leaders of the eight most industrialised nations gathered at Gleneagles, Trident Ploughshares, the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and British CND gathered with many hundreds of peace, anti-globalisation, and anti-nuclear activists at Faslane submarine base, and shut the home of Britain’s Trident nuclear weapon system for the day.
With the world’s media attention focused on the demands of the “Make Poverty History” coalition, we used nonviolent direct action to bring home the message that “you can’t end poverty unless you end war.”
From early in the morning to about five in the afternoon, hundreds of protesters from around the world gathered in front of the four gates to the base. They came playing music, on bikes, with lock-on tubes, dressed as clowns or just as themselves to prevent work at the base. A very positive step forwards was the development of a system of non-hierarchical communication and decision-making during the blockade.
In a change from usual policing tactics, which in the past have led to hundreds of arrests, the police decided not to arrest anyone at the blockade. This made the action the most successful yet, with all the gates of the base shut for the whole day. It is hard to tell whether this tactic represents a permanent change in direction for the police, or whether their softly-softly approach was adopted to keep the issue out of the news or to avoid provoking a violent reaction from the large and diverse crowd of activists.
It was one of the most ambitious mass actions that the anti-nuclear movement in Scotland has attempted for many years. The preparations were made all the more challenging because the action took place in the middle of a week of actions against the G8 summit, including counter conferences, street protests, autonomous affinity group actions, and community projects.
We aimed to use the presence of large numbers of activists, media and decision makers in Scotland to draw attention to the issue of nuclear weapons and militarism. However, it was a real challenge to be heard amongst the range of groups campaigning on issues from climate change and refugees to corporate social responsibility and precarious working conditions.
In practical terms, the action was the most successful of the blockades ever organised by Trident Ploughshares and SCND. We showed that we have the power to force the state to stop work on its number one WMD base, (even if it was only for just day this time…) and we made many links with activists and groups from around the world that we hope will get involved in anti-nuclear campaigns.
Of course Trident Ploughshares involvement with the G8 did not end with the blockade. Although we had decided not to take part in the other actions as an organisation TP activists were extremely busy, not just during the week of action but for months beforehand in contributing to the set-up and maintenance of the Stirling Eco Village, in legal support at the end of phones or in the courts, taking part in road blockades, in training and in mobilisation and networking.
Dave Heller
Hiroshima Walk 2005
The Hiroshima Peace Walk covered 250km from Ypres in the west of Flanders to Kleine Brogel NATO nuclear base in Limburg (26 July – 9 August). Jane Tallents and Sam Jones from Scotland went to join them.
It was great to take part in the walk. The distance was long but there was good company. Hearing Yoshio Sato speak about his experience of the Hiroshima bomb when we were received by Mayors for Peace in the places we passed through was very humbling. In Brussels we visited NATO HQ and when the police reneged on an agreement to let us do a short symbolic blockade of the main gate eleven of us decided to try getting there anyway. On Hiroshima Day we attended a commemorative ceremony in Peer and then walked the last leg of our journey to Kleine Brogel where Belgian pilots train to use American nuclear weapons. Five of us returned there a couple of days later and were arrested on the runway. The walk then met up again in Gent to commemorate Nagasaki Day with lantern floating on the canal.
After G8 … Coulport Camp 2005
When the camp dates were set last August we had no idea how things would be post G8, but we hoped the camp would give us an opportunity to get together, do a bit of planning, relax a little and maybe do the odd action.
Numbers not surprisingly were smaller than usual as many people had used all their spare time and money coming to the anti G8 protests, but even so 40 people registered over the fortnight.
We spent the first four days busy with our affinity groups reps meeting, and settling in. We were going to start actions in our own good time, but the threat to arrest Sylvia for repainting ’her’ rocks by the Faslane fence couldn’t go unchallenged so she went back with Olivia and Sue and more paint to finish the job and got the Faslane processing centre warmed up. Morag, Barbara and Jean did a spectacular paint job at Faslane North gate, including the fancy big signs. The MoD – never keen to have the truth told – were very quick at removing paint by the end of the fortnight.
Other traditions were observed when Sylvia and Olivia headed for the Coulport fence one evening but were arrested before getting in … and of course we had to have a blockade of Coulport. Having got used to our presence at 7am shift change they weren’t too worried when a group of us appeared one morning. So six of us managed to lock on through tubes cunningly disguised by placards before they had time to blink. We managed to block the road for two hours as workers had to get off buses and walk past us. At Construction Gate a wooden tripod with Andy at the top went up in seven seconds flat. The MoD Support Unit took three hours to construct a scaffolding tower to get him down.
The MoD were using a new ’5 step appeal’ to try and persuade us to get up off the road which included “think of your reputations, think of your families, think of your future!” Even some of the police who know us well could see the funny side of that.
Next year’s camp is 29 July – 12 August. Book your holidays now!
Jane Tallents
Tackling the Trident Chain
Think global – act local – against companies contributing to Trident
The latest reps meeting in August agreed that Trident Ploughshares should encourage actions targeting the nuclear weapons supply chain.
Examples of this include the Muriel Lester affinity group’s focus on Lockheed Martin’s office in London and the recent weekend of action at Rolls Royce in Derby. Rolls Royce supplies and maintains the nuclear propulsion system for Trident subs, including providing new long-life reactor cores as part of the current Devonport refitting programme.
Block the Builders, an initiative of Aldermaston Women’s Peace Campaign supported by TP, also aims to target a wider circle of companies and contractors involved in the construction work of the new developments at Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment (see below).
Block the Builders: laser about to land
The closing date for objections to the proposed ORION laser facility at AWE Aldermaston has now passed. West Berkshire Eastern Area Planning Committee has been besieged with over 150 letters of objection and petitions signed by 100 people ranging from travelers living opposite the proposed facility at Aldermaston to Swedish women raging against new nukes. The request to the local council could not have been clearer: Refer all new developments at AWE Aldermaston back to the Secretary of State.
We know for sure that the preparatory work on the ORION site at AWE has already begun. According to the Environmental Agency the piles of earth on the site are not foundation preparations as such but soil samples – an awful lot of soil sampling seems to be taking place. Another load of modular office buildings will soon appear inside the fences too, manufactured by Interlink Building Systems Ltd and Premier Transline Group – both modular building companies with depots in East Yorkshire among other places.
Two digital camera equipped activists visited one of the contractors in October, displaying banners saying “Block the Builders” across the entrance. The activists were escorted back to their car by a slightly nervous person in a fluorescent jacket who wondered what they were doing. “We’re doing promotion for the companies involved in the development of the next generation of British nuclear weapons” was the answer. If asked what kind of promotion it was, the answer would have been: “We promote your company so it can receive some Nonviolent Direct Action!”
The announced blockades at AWE Aldermaston organised by Block the Builders have been heavily policed, highlighting the need for unannounced and creative actions by self-organised affinity groups. Blockading the base is of great symbolic value and might also prove disruptive. However, if we are to become serious about what the name of the campaign suggests, we need to start to disrupt the contractors not only as they enter the base but also when leaving their own yards.
There are important differences between companies such as Lockheed Martin and contractors like BW Industries, which provides the metal frames for modular office buildings at Aldermaston. Firstly, people who are not usually connected to the nuclear chain through their daily work are now part of it. Some perhaps might be more open to dialogue than those who routinely work on weapons.
Secondly, BW Industries will feel our presence in their wallet a lot faster than Lockheed ever will. Building contractors whose main business is not military might be more easily persuaded to distance themselves from manufacturing items which will enable AWE to come up with the next generation of nukes.
Is this all a hopelessly naïve aspiration? Maybe, but this way of thinking just follows the simple rule of capitalism: if it will cost companies more to keep all those protesters away from their yards than the contracts are worth (and that includes bad publicity) then the companies won’t take on more contracts from the Atomic Weapons Establishment. Together with spokes in the wheels of planning applications; letters to newspapers and MPs; leaflets and awareness raising about the issue, it might just prevent the laser from landing. There is still time, but not much. Block the Builders urges affinity groups to take action NOW. The new nuke-developments we are looking at AWE Aldermaston will be much harder to get rid of once they are there.
Anna Linnea Rundberg
Think global – act local!
For more information on contractors local to you involved with Trident and the next nuclear weapons generation: http://www.blockthebuilders.org.uk anna-linnea@aldermaston.net
Targeting communications – 3-day mast occupation
Communications and fuel supplies are a vital part of the nuclear supply chain. Sabotaging fuel storage facilities or supply pipelines carries risks making such an action impractical, but communications systems are more vulnerable. With this in mind we spent the weekend up a communications mast in the middle of the main compound at Padworth Fuel Depot, known to the US who pay the MoD for their fuel storage and supply as DFSP (Defense Fuel Support Point) Aldermaston.
The UK is covered by several underground fuel pipeline networks, including the Government Pipeline & Storage System. The GPSS supplies all fuels to the UK and US military in the UK. The two main depots involved in the storage and supply of these fuels are at West Moors near Wimbourne in Dorset and Padworth Common between the Aldermaston and Burghfield nuclear warhead factories. Fuel is stored in huge underground bunkers covering hundreds of acres.
At midnight on Friday 16 September we were taken to the edge of the forest at Padworth Common for a hike to the base with a week’s food and water, assorted equipment and 20 metre banners: “Nukes Out”, “US bases out of UK”, “How many lives to the litre”.
At about 1.00am we entered the base and following a trek through the pipelines and around a couple of huge above ground tanks, at 3.00am we started to climb. The job was tricky with the weight of locks, chains, grids to seal the internal mast ladder, all of our other stuff and the other little matter – we are both scared of heights – but once over the problem of the barbed wire at the base and a locked safety hatch a few metres up the mast we spent several hours hanging banners before being noticed.
Mod Plod eventually arrived, followed by Thames Valley Police and the MD of Babcock, the company running the site with Serco on behalf of the MoD. Mod Plod borrowed one of our walkie talkie radios to tell us they hadn’t any climbers available who were willing and/or licensed to climb up and get us down.
We camped above them and gave them all stiff necks until the early hours of Monday morning when in response to efforts made by the base to secure the situation on Saturday night – a metal security fence was erected around the mast and private security guards brought in – we were inspired to change our plan of a lengthy occupation and escape, just because we could!
On Monday afternoon we handed ourselves in to the MoD and were told they didn’t intend to take any action against us at this time.
An extract from Ludd’s signed statement left at the mast:
I accuse the US government of conspiring with the UK government to knowingly and willingly deceive the UK population and the international community into believing that the Iraq war was justified, as is shown in the Downing Street Memo.
Furthermore: The United States has laid down in its Project for a New American Century and its Joint Vision for 2020 that it wants full spectrum dominance over Land, Sea, Air, Space and Cyberspace. The US is currently waging illegal war in pursuit of those goals and using bases in the UK to do so. It is obvious that Iraq is not the end goal. The US, with help from the UK, is planning further illegal invasions and attacks, including nuclear strike(s) as their “Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations” predicts.
Roll On Rolls Royce Rid of Reactors
At 6am the flashing lights of Operation Columbia turned the heavy rain into drops of glittering blue tinsel around the entrance to Rolls Royce Raynesway. On the ground lay four figures closely bonded by hoola hoops as a large number of police struggled to keep others from reaching the roadway to join them. The blockade was on.
We had got there thanks to skilful and determined driving and are sure that a number of feebly gesturing police officers will be charged with Failing to Stop a Peace Protesters’ Minibus When Ordered To Do So. After half an hour the special cutting team managed to remove the blockaders but they still had to deal with two extremely stubborn women who insisted that they stayed with the banner right in the middle of the road entrance.
Once they too had ended up in the paddy wagon the others were led or manhandled towards the officially approved and defined protest area which, as the daylight came, raised a colourful and unmissable question mark about the factory for all passers by. It seems the workers had been given an extra day off so it was mission accomplished – RRR shut down. Perhaps it was pique that led some zealous police to stop and search one car on its way to the approved area at the approved time and charge the occupants with Going Equipped because they found an innocent hacksaw. By 6 p.m. all ten of those arrested had been set free.
The Rolls Royce Raynesway unit is well camouflaged in the sprawl of Derby’s industrial area. Even local people seem unaware of the nuclear reactor in there and that the plant is a key part of Britain’s WMD programme, having made the propulsion reactors for the Trident submarines and now replacing the reactor fuel plates during refit. The usual rules about having publicly known safety and evacuation plans do not appear to apply. In the police station my processing officer from nearby Chesterfield did not know about these tentacles of organised crime. Given the media attention the weekend achieved and the action’s context of continuing public education and garnering of local support there is no doubt that this situation is beginning to change.
Personally it was a treat for me to take a relatively carefree part in a blockade after being part of the organisation of similar events. Preparations had been carried out with tremendous care, thoroughness and aplomb by the Sowsiders, Leicester Arrows, Meals not Missiles and friends. Thanks!
David Mackenzie
Faslane 365 – a continuous blockade
Faslane 365 is a new civil resistance project focused in Scotland to apply critical public pressure for the disarmament of Britain’s nuclear weapons by a continuous peaceful blockade of the Trident base at Faslane.
The aim is for anti-nuclear activists with experience of blockades at Faslane to identify and contact over 400 groups, mainly within Scotland but also from the rest of the UK and internationally, asking whether each of them would be willing to blockade the base over a 48 hour period, so that the blockade can be continuous for a year.
Trident Ploughshares, Scottish CND and Faslane Peace Camp as well as other groups have already raised the profile and brought in some hundreds of people willing to be engaged in civil resistance. The ground-work has already been laid for larger and more inclusive resistance. Trident Ploughshares has good experience of the logistics, training and legal support required.
Concentrating on Scottish groups is to acknowledge that it is only by local ’agreement’ that such a base can continue to exist, and that the withdrawal of this tacit support into street level action can undermine the base’s existence. The aim is to be as inclusive as possible, drawing on the inspiration from the Gorleben protests when whole communities in Germany supported the resistance to the nuclear transports going through their areas.
Each group will be encouraged to make the links between their own core work, mandate and interests and the Trident issue, on the understanding that the deployment and threat to use nuclear weapons undermines their vision of a better society. No one organisation would ’own’ the years blockade but it should be seen as a diverse community attempt to call a halt to the legitimisation of state terror.
The blockade will not begin until at least 100 groups are fully committed and the first 100 days of the rota filled. Most of the work and the political pressure will arise before the blockade even starts. We aim to begin the blockades on 1st October 2006.
Each group will be as self-sufficient as possible and will be responsible for its own mobilisation, transport, practical arrangements, police liaison, press work and costs but would have access to joint resources including nonviolence trainers, legal support training and advice on press work.
All groups will commit to a basic set of nonviolent guidelines (the same as the Trident Ploughshares Guidelines) that stress openness, accountability, and respect for all. All groups must also commit to the main demand of the blockade which is: Trident is to be taken off patrol and a clear timetable for dismantling the UK’s nuclear weapons to be made plus a commitment not to develop new nuclear weapons. Note that the demand is not for the closure of Faslane but for the nuclear component of the base to be taken out. This is to ensure that there is the widest possible alliance of people joining in the blockade.
A Steering Group has been set up and has begun contacting potential blockading groups, preparing a Resource Pack for blockading groups, seeking the active support of key organisations and setting up a training programme. Positive contact has already been made with a number of organisations and groups
For more information e-mail info@faslane365.org or call Angie Zelter on 01263 512049
Call the Shots Campaign
Take the Arms Companies out of government?
Every year around £900 million of public money is spent subsidising the sale of UK weaponry around the world.
Why? Because the arms companies wield immense political power and influence within government.
It’s time to stop arms companies calling the shots.
For a free Call the Shots campaign pack please call 0207 281 0297 or email enquiries@caat.organisation.uk
Campaign Against the Arms Trade http://www.caat.organisation.uk
F16 disarmer on trial in Netherlands
On 10th August 2005, Turi Vaccaro entered Woensdrecht airbase in Holland. Using a hammer from Assisi, the home of St. Francis, he disarmed two nuclear capable F16 fighter planes of the Dutch Air Force, which could have been used to carry the nuclear weapons based at nearby Volkel airbase. He is currently in prison in Breda, often in solitary confinement, awaiting the verdict in his trial. The action is thought to have delayed a test programme for many months. The damage is estimated at several million Euro.
Turi stated that his action, shortly after the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was done out of the concern that he has for his daughter and all the other children in the world. Turi has appeared in court several times, always entertaining supporters in the public gallerywith pantomimeantics, songs and dance. When informed that the prosecution was demanding six months imprisonment, Turi began to applaud and called for a sentence of one year imprisonment, stating “The current time in prison has been the best in my life. I have enough time and space to meditate, and I would like to thank the Dutch government for this”.
His defence team have put up a strong legal defence, based on the illegality of nuclear weapons, the incompetence of the judge to try this case, and the role of the state in promoting mass murder. The verdict is expected at the end of October.
Please write to Turi (in Dutch, English or Italian):
Turi Vaccaro, HvB De Boschpoort, Nassausingel 26, 4811 DG Breda, Netherlands
For more details of the case, check out: http://www.motherearth.org/prisoner…
Pit Stop Ploughshares
As Speed The Plough goes to print the trial of the Pitstop Ploughshares Five continues in Dublin. On 3rd February 2003, as part of ongoing resistance at Shannon Airport, the Pitstop Ploughshares disarmed a US warplane. Within the month, three of the four companies contracted to ferry US troops and weapons had left Ireland.
The five went to trial in March 2005 on two counts of Criminal Damage -?100 and $U.S.2.5million.
For trial news and other updates see http://www.peaceontrial.com/
Festive Blockaders Not Guilty
Four activists were found not guilty in September 2005 of a breach of the peace at Faslane. Morag Balfour, Jean Oliver, Barbara Dowling, and David Nicholson disrupted the arrival of the morning shift last December during a blockade which included Santa Claus. The verdict was apparently due to the weakness of the police evidence.
Barbara said: “When we spoke from the witness stand it was Trident which was on trial. We spelled out just how illegal and immoral it is. We were delighted to be acquitted – after all, we had done nothing wrong.”
Diary Dates
May 18-21 2006 Plymouth Devonport Camp
July 29 – August 12 2006 Coulport Coulport Camp
Ongoing Affinity group actions and Block the Builders campaign at Aldermaston. http://www.blockthebuilders.org.uk/
Peace Library / Archive
Bob is building up a peace library/archive so if anyone has any books or videos on peace which they do not want he would be very pleased to take them.
If so please phone him on 01273 477829 or mail him: Bob Sprocket 21C Southway, Lewes BN7 1LX