Thirty B52 Support Vehicles Disabled at RAF Fairford

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday March 14, 2003 19:34 by Eoin Dubsky - Refueling Peace info at refuelingpeace dot org 087-6941060

Lessons for peace movement in Ireland

Last night, Thursday 13th March, at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire two Trident Ploughshares activists disabled no less than thirty vehicles which provide essential support to the US B52 bombers stationed there.

Freelance writer Margaret Jones (53), from Bristol, and Quaker activist Paul Milling (58), from Birmingham, planned to stick labels onto all the vehicles to warn they had been tampered with. They carried with them bags of sugar to contaminate the fuel, grinding paste and treacle to add to the oil systems, spikes to puncture the tyres, and crowbars & hammers to damage the vehicles. They reasoned the bombers would be very closely guarded but guessed the "Achilles Heel" might be the fleet of specialist support vehicles which are used to service, refuel, and load bombs onto the aircraft. The bombers have been recently moved to the Gloucestershire base and in the event of war will be used to "carpet-bomb" Iraq. Last night a group of the aircraft took off from RAF Fairford on an exercise and were refuelled in the air over Northumberland.

In a phone call from Stroud Police Station early this morning Margaret Jones said: "We managed to carry out our planned action very successfully. We evaded the police patrols, cut through the perimeter fence, and got into the garages which were unguarded. We managed to disable some thirty vehicles. With our politicians out of democratic control it is up to ordinary citizens to stop the war machine. I could not bear the thought of these bombers taking off from our country, flying thousands of miles to Iraq, and dropping their cargoes of death on ordinary people. We felt we
personally had to do what we could to stop them."

The spectacular disarmament action comes just three days after Trident Ploughshares activist Ulla Roder inflicted severe damage, estimated in millions of pounds, to a Tornado jet at RAF Leuchars in Fife.

Contacts Roland Dye 07711-214-168
Rachael Milling 0121-471-5016
David Mackenzie 0870 458 3117 (07876593016)
media@tridentploughshares.org
www.tridentploughshares.org

NONVIOLENCE AND SAFETY workshops will be available this weekend at the Grassroots Gathering in Limerick and in Trinity College next Wednesday. Please get in touch if you're interested (email address info@refuelingpeace.org).