Faslane Protest

national | miscellaneous | news report

Friday March 08, 2002 18:20

by Claudia - FoE Ireland

foeeire at iol dot ie

Eyewitness report on the recent protest againts Nuclear Submarine Harbour in Faslane, Scotland.

Three days of Block’n Roll in Faslane

After the Big Blockade last October Trident Ploughshares, the CND and the Faslane Peace Camp put out an open invitation to take part in the Block’n Roll protest from Monday, February 11th, till Wednesday, February 13th, to demonstrate against Britain’s four Trident submarines in Faslane, Scotland.

All of Britains nuclear weapons are based there, thirty miles north of Glasgow. According to the Big Blockade Team

“Trident pollutes the environment with radiation, is poised to kill millions of civilians and is outlawed by humanitarian law.”

The Faslane Peace Camp has existed for 20 years. Trident Ploughshares have been trying in vain to engage the Government in dialogue about the future of the base since 1998, so now the activists have taken action. Over the past three years thousands of people have taken part in sit-down protests:

“...as responsible citizens who have a duty to uphold international law and prevent appalling war crime.” - (Trident Ploughshares)

The same source tells us that there had been over 1,000 arrests, activists have spent over 1,000 days in prison and fines totalling £15,580 have been imposed before the blockade in February:

”We have shown that ordinary people, by completely peaceful and non violent direct action, can actually hold up and disrupt the Trident System.”

Action is ongoing as we go to press.

Many people in Scotland (more than 50%) support non violent direct action against nuclear weapons at Faslane, according to an opinion poll commissioned shortly after the Big Blockade in October 2001.

For the first time the aim was to shut down Trident for more than one day and for the first time as well we were able to keep the gates closed for three ½ hours during the Mass Blockade on Monday morning.

In total around 800 people turned up for the three days of actions, blockades and fun. There was a variety of forms of civil resistance, lock-ons (people locking themselves together with chains hidden in plastic pipes). A woman locked herself to a wheelchair with a D-lock, a group of 15 activists from Sweden tried to make one massive lock on in front of the north gate, others simply lay down on the wet concrete or sat with their arms and legs linked up.
For the Jericho Rumpus on Tuesday two 12 & 14 year olds dressed up as “Alice in Wonderland” and managed to smuggle a lock on pipe inside a plastic flamingo - I certainly wouldn’t have had the courage for anything like that at that age!
Someone managed to climb up onto one of the gates and kept it closed for four hours as the police had to build up scaffolding to get him down.
Before the Valentines Ball on Wednesday there was an Ash Wednesday service in front of the North Gate. A big group of people attending (including two Buddhist nuns, three people in wheelchairs and people I had seen organising the food and places to stay for the visiting protesters) sat down on the road for a prayer - and got arrested soon afterwards.
Once the road was cleared again, two women drove up to the gate in their old car and actually locked on inside.
For the tired and the hungry there were soup and hot drinks at the Scouts Hut in Helensburgh throughout the three days of protest and some people built up little stalls with tea and biscuits close to the main gates.
In total 188 people were arrested, including a mother of a eight months old baby, church ministers, writers, politicians, disabled people and the Buddhist nuns.
New regulations introduced by Scottish police meant that protesters without an address in the UK were detained longer than UK residents. As far as I know nobody was kept longer than 24 hours.
Tommy Sheridan, leader of the Scottish Socialist Party, told The Herald:
” We came here in peace, for peace. The biggest crime is the weapon for mass destruction on the other side of these gates.”

Of the 385 people arrested in February 2001 around 200 have been prosecuted and half of those are still to be dealt with. As people continue being arrested for blocking Trident it will take time for every case to be heard in court.

Joy Michel, a retired head teacher from Berwick who was arrested during the Mass Blockade, told Trident Ploughshares:
”Our continued presence here is a clear message to the British Government that ordinary citizens will not tolerate them possessing and threatening to use a weapon which can only be used to kill innocent people. Trident doesn’t and can’t discriminate between mothers and marines, toddlers and commandoes, the elderly and the military elites!”.

The current nuclear weapon system in Britain consists of four nuclear-powered submarines armed with “trident” nuclear missiles that together have the capability to destroy half the world.

Cd
Friends of the Earth Ireland