Outside the courthouse in Cochem
by John LaForge, Nukewatch
District Court in Cochem
I’ve told you a little about myself before. I am not a special person. I am just a human being. I don’t own the truth.
I can’t tell if a few years from now I’d do the same thing again.
I don’t regret entering the airbase because I was hoping to create a frustration for a place where death and destruction are being prepared. It was the right step for me. I acted from my conscience and conviction and had the intention to do the right thing and I acted nonviolently.
In recent years, I have become increasingly convinced that all life on earth is connected. Not only do all people form one big human family, we are connected to nature in the same intimate way. Although the living world can do well without people, the other way around is certainly not possible. (Although the human species is the only one who is hardly aware of this, I believe…). In fact, without us, forests, oceans and rivers would probably not be in such a terrible state.
The connection, I think, comes from the fact that we all have the same creator, who creates from an infinite love and enjoys beauty and joy.
That’s why it seems to me that only love can help us forward. Love creates space. Love celebrates diversity. And from this comes that no human being has the right to kill or threaten another human being, whoever this human being may be. And planning to kill people [is] exactly what happens at Büchel Air Base, and that’s why I tried to disrupt the normal course of events there and draw attention to it.
The production, preparation, threat or use of nuclear weapons in any way goes against the power of love from which and for which we were created. Allow me to briefly explain the problem with nuclear weapons.
In the process of producing nuclear weapons, all means are allowed to obtain the necessary minerals. People are being expropriated [expelled] from their land, and their sacred sites dishonoured; drinking water is being seriously polluted, making people sick and disrupting ecosystems. [The process] sows death and destruction, already in the first stage of building these immoral weapons. In the factories where atomic bombs are built, the number of sick workers is exceptionally high. Working with the raw materials and processing them spoils nature AND mankind, even before the weapons are ready and used as weapons. The threat — mentioned as the most important means of having nuclear weapons — sows fear and distrust and builds walls between people. It [the threat] is a major impediment to resolving conflicts without violence or threat of violence. It puts constant pressure on international relations.
Finally, there is the actual deployment of atomic bombs — a weapon that makes no distinction between soldiers and civilians. Everyone is hit in one big blow. And then decades later in smaller big waves of destruction.
On 6 August 1945, the world saw the devastating power of nuclear weapons. Relief is virtually impossible, [unavailable] because of the scale of destruction. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even today, 75 years later, the effects of the nuclear attacks are still being felt. According to the Red Cross, 390,000 people are still struggling daily with the aftermath of the nuclear attacks on Japan.
The atomic bombs lying on Büchel exceed the force of the bombs that fell on Japan many times over.
Not to mention the countless tests in which radiation — with its sickening effect and destruction also — took place and people died. In addition, all released radiation affects ecosystems and people for a long time. A chain of death. Nothing but death.
The oceans of money invested in the development, manufacture, and maintenance of nuclear weapons are taken from things that benefit us as human beings.
How much easier would the road to sustainable, nonviolent peace be if we harnessed these resources for diplomacy, the cultivation of connection and peace, education in nonviolent communication, and a fairer distribution of the good we get from this earth?
These weapons of mass destruction are too big for us humans. They don’t fit us. We can’t oversee the disastrous consequences. None of us, including world leaders who currently control them. They’re inhuman, unmanageable, immoral and illegal, according to human and divine law.
Although you, judge Zimmermann, have heard it several times and this will not be the last time this is said, I would like to mention here for the sake of completeness that the international Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968 is violated by the presence of atomic bombs on Büchel. According to this treaty, the US is not allowed to have nuclear weapons in Germany (Art. II) and Germany is not allowed to receive nuclear weapons from the US (Art. I).
The Geneva Conventions prohibit indiscriminate attacks on non-combatants, attacks on neutral states and damage to the environment that lasts longer than the conflict. The Hague Peace Agreement prohibits any use of poison or poisonous weapons. Both Germany and the US are part of all these treaties.
Finally, humanitarian law of war is violated in many ways when the use of nuclear weapons is considered. These include the principle of military necessity and humanity, the principle of differentiation of purpose, proportionality, humanitarian access and extensive, long-term and serious damage to the natural environment.
Because nuclear weapons cannot be used without violating these binding international treaties and
more importantly, because they violate the deepest being of us as humanity, and because Germany and the U.S. at Büchel Air Base are preparing and planning a war with nuclear weapons that would violate international treaties,
and because the Nuremberg Charter and Principles hold everyone responsible for intervening when war crimes are planned, even if this is done by governments, therefore, I believe that in the case of the illegal conduct at Büchel Air Base, my actions were not civil disobedience but my civic duty, a legal obligation and an attempt to prevent crime.
I want to go back to the love I was talking about before, which is leading for me. It also led me to take action in a way that I did not harm anyone on July 15, 2018.
Someone who is an example to me in the power and scope of love is Jesus Christ, the man who, for his words and acts of nonviolent love, was tried and executed by the state and religious authorities of his time. What he did, he did not do to be disobedient to the law, but because he remained obedient to the God of nonviolent love, justice, and peace — regardless of the consequences for him personally.
He inspired millions of people, including, for example, Dorothy Day, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. People who — like me — didn’t have a fixed this-is-the-right-way in mind, but a vision of where we can go, if we want to get closer to a world where man and nature can live in peace and space.
I don’t dare to compare myself to them, but that’s how I try to live.
It is simple (but not necessarily easy!): Either we choose more love, peace and justice, or we don’t.
Every step we take takes us in a certain direction.
If it turns out later that I shouldn’t have taken this step, I hope to have the courage to adjust my course. In the same way, every person has to make that decision. And later you will make a decision about me, about us.
I don’t have much power or influence. But I have more privileges and freedoms than many others, and I try to use them, for example, for nature, which has no legal status but is a [innocent] merciless victim of the existence of nuclear weapons. Power is very tricky. It changes you before you know it.
It’s hard to resist. And relinquishing power is even harder.
The balance of power in the world is skewed — at every level where we humans relate to each other.
But I don’t agree with the status quo and I refuse to accept it. No state has the right to lay such a huge threat as having an atomic bomb on the rest of the world, superpower or not. And no one has the right to cooperate with such states.
I’m just a human being, and I don’t have much power. But I believe that my actions and the actions of every human being can have great effects. That’s another reason I entered Büchel Air Base: Hoping to draw attention to the suffering being prepared there. And I will not remain silent as long as I believe that things can be done differently. That’s why I went to Büchel Air Base, and that’s why I asked you to hear me today — because I’m hoping that we can do it differently as people, that a world without nuclear weapons and without violence is possible.
And if I can’t anymore, for whatever reason, others will take my place — because we are made to live together in peace, without the threat of violence, to enjoy all the good that is on this earth.
I have no intention of appealing your ruling. Though I’m very happy that others are doing their utmost to take all the possible legal paths to justice. Should you decide to sentence me, I would much rather prefer to not pay the fine.
I realize that it is easy to look at my case from just a regional perspective, with just the facts in mind, and that — you will say – “What is or isn’t on that base doesn’t matter. You had no right to be there.”
As far as I’m concerned, the perspective is global and universal: What I’m allowed to do, trying to prevent evil without hurting anyone else, everyone should be allowed to do. And what I’m not allowed to do, threatening a human life, no one should be allowed to do.
I’m grateful that you listened to me today. And I wish you peace and all the best.
Submission to the criminal trial for trespassing and property damage on and in the Büchel air base, or against the Federal Government’s actions contrary to international law, and their violation of my / our right to life and physical integrity.
Dear Mr. Richter Zimmermann, Mr. Prosecutor XXX ,
Dear process observers
I would like to present here in court my personal background and actions regarding my 40 years of work against nuclear weapons that led to this indictment. You may remember Mr. Richter and Mr. Public Prosecutor how old you were in 1980. In it I will get involved in the following points, submit documents as evidence and also submit requests for evidence.
I explain:
- my personal background
- the legal aspects:
– The fulfillment of justifying an emergency intervention by historical and current threats of nuclear disasters
– The obligation of an individual citizen to comply with international law
– The obligation of state power to protect the inviolable rights to safety, to life, and physical integrity under Article 1 of the Basic Law
- my judgment wishes to the judge
1: My personal background
My “nuclear family”
I was born in 1964 in Hamburg by quite young, 19-year-old parents — a supermarket cashier at the time and a gas station attendant. There followed three brothers, the latter two from my stepfather, who entered our lives in my second year. He studied economics and became an insurance clerk/broker.
My parents were shaped by the traumatization of their own family of origin in World War II and their education, the so-called black pedagogy (black pedagogy means an education in which, for example, the cries of the baby for food and closeness are deliberately ignored and fixed times are set for this in order to break the baby’s will and basic trust from the beginning. This instills obedience in the sub-consciousness, and creates obedient beings/subjects, since the basic trust is destroyed).
– My maternal grandmother experienced the Hamburg fire storm of 1943, while my grandfather served with the Wehrmacht in Austria. My grandmother on the stepfather’s side became a war widow with two small children at a young age, and about 6 million men never came back from the war. She remained single. My stepfather was tormented by the death of his own father — as well as his two uncles, experienced in Russia — as to how this “flock of sheep” obedience became possible in Hitler fascism. Both of my families of origin were perpetrators and victims in the war and were politically strongly anti-Communist Social Democrats in post-war Germany.
My anti-nuclear family
At the high school in the early 1980s, many of the new younger teachers — who were influenced by the extra—parliamentary student movement/opposition to the Vietnam War (APO) in post-war Germany — taught us. When I was 15 I gave two papers in geography:
1) For the disposal of radioactive waste in the North Sea and in the Mediterranean; and 2) the pesticide load in the Baltic Sea (rain washes out the fields and the resulting pesticide discharges through the rivers into the Baltic Sea).
Up to 1993, over 100,000 tons of radioactive was dumped into the world’s oceans, where isotopes — like plutonium — can now be measured in water samples. Germany, for example, loaded over 480 barrels of radioactive waste from the Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center in Emden in May 1967 and disposed of them off the Portuguese coast in the Atlantic:
Evidence attachment article from the uranium atlas of 2019 — nuclear waste in the sea — Sunk and forgotten
My physics and politics teacher informed us about the necessity of civilian use of atomic energy for the construction of atomic bombs. In history, we learned that Hitler was already creating atomic bombs, but the United States was ahead of him, and it was only thanks to the timely end of the war that the first atomic bomb was not dropped on Berlin. According to the fathers of the US atomic bomb, Enrico Fermi and Robert Oppenheimer, in the event that Hitler was faster with atomic bomb construction, the United States intended to poison Germany’s food which would be attacked and contaminated with the radioactive isotope strontium-90, killing at least half a million people in 1943. In other words, before the first atomic bomb was built, the US government was already aware of the dangers of low-level radiation when ingesting fission products with food. Hundreds of radioactive fission products are released in the event of atomic bomb explosions.
Evidence: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Fermi
In the freezing cold of February 1981, I was 16 on my first demonstration against the construction of the Brockdorf nuclear power plant near Hamburg. There I was able to experience that around 100,000 protesters were attacked with tear gas grenades from helicopters.
My youth experiences — and the fact that our environmental degradation through our economic systems and wars will bring us to the global survival limits in the coming decades — made me part of the punk “no-future” youth movement. From my personal point of view, it was a forerunner movement of “Fridays for Future”!
A year later, I moved to a youth institution of the International Confederation for Social Service Work (ICSSW), founded for 60,000 young people in 1946 because there were many internally displaced, unemployed, and homeless orphans after the surrender of the Nazi regime. Here the young people were able to develop freely, shape their own lives, integrate into society, take personal responsibility, and help shape social development. In 1964, this institution created the “International Voluntary Year.” Again, I met progressive educators who invited us to work in groups such as a women’s group and a conscientious objection group. In the women’s group I got to know the books by the world-famous psychotherapist Alice Miller, For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child Rearing and the Roots of Violence, and You Shouldn’t Notice!, about black pedagogy among other things: and also Dr. Johanna Haarer’s book The German Mother And Her First Child. I learned about patriarchy and sexist violence in our society. In the ICSSW’s monthly house plenary meetings, I also learned how to use the principles of nonviolent consensus decision making.
At the same time, the struggle to prevent the construction of so-called “reprocessing plants” was raging in the Federal Republic. These reprocessing plants (WAA) extract plutonium — which is required for atomic bomb construction — from used, irradiated fuel elements of nuclear reactors. The Federal Republic also wanted to produce its own atomic bombs, but these reprocessing facilities could not be sold to the population as a necessary part of civilian nuclear power production. Also here in the Vulkaneifel, in the small town of Kaisersesch, around 5,000 people demonstrated near Hambuch/Illerich in the Pommerbach valley, against plans for a WAA here. The plan was stopped in 1982 and Franz Josef Strauss in Bavaria assured the Wackersdorf location.
In October 1983, at the age of 19, I took part with half a million people in the famous Bonn Hofgarten demonstration against the NATO “double decision”. Nationwide, 1.2 million demonstrated against it.
In April 1986 the Chernobyl catastrophe, the Russian nuclear power plant, which also produced the plutonium for the Soviet atomic bombs, exploded, and dispersed radioactive fallout throughout the Northern Hemisphere. In Germany, children were not allowed to play in their sandboxes. Parents organized themselves by buying radiation measurement monitors through donations and reading the radiation values of the food in the first organic shops. I helped organize the first organic food coop in Hamburg.
At least 100,000 people demonstrated against the WAA Wackersdorf in 1986. In 1987 the NATO “double decision” was reversed and the US nuclear-armed missiles were withdrawn from Germany. Approximately 3,000 atomic bombs were stationed at over 100 military bases in the Federal Republic. The new INF Treaty now stipulated that medium-range missiles could no longer be stationed in Europe. The year 1989 was the final end for the WAA in Wackersdorf.
I got confidence in the future again and decided on a child with the aim of continuing to work together for the future of humanity and for peace: In November 1990 my daughter was born.
In 1994, I visited a friend in Tübingen and learned there that the uranium mining for the Soviet nuclear weapons program in the former GDR was mined in front of the Ore Mountains and that contamination was widespread over a distance of 200 km. Low-level radiation in the quarrying rock was incorporated into the foundation materials of the houses there, was also used in road-building, and consequently the groundwater was contaminated. I ignorantly gave my little daughter the drinking water there. Thousands of uranium miners received financial compensation. After reunification in 1990, the cancer registry that existed in the GDR was abolished.
I became more and more aware of how much the invisible contamination by so-called low-level radiation had already taken place in our environment as a result of the production and testing of nuclear weapons.
In 1995 I took part in the “March for a Nuclear Free Future” peace march from Minsk to Moscow. Over Belarus Russia seeded the Chernobyl plume clouds with chemicals like aluminum oxide, causing them to produce rain and deposit radioactive fallout before the plume reached Moscow. This means that a third of the country was contaminated more radioactively than Ukraine itself. In Belorussia I met Prof. Nesterenko, the director of the independent “Belarussian Institute for Radiation Security” (Belrad): http://belrad.paris-minsk.org.
From 1991 to 1993, more than 500 people there were trained as radioactivity measurement technicians. The population can have their food measured for free. They can also be examined at regular intervals for body exposure to radioactive cesium-137 on a measuring chair, since the beta radiation of the cesium-137 can still be measured at a distance of up to 30 cm.
- People who reach a certain radiation exposure limit should take a two-week detox cure, for example with apple pectin (66% of the cesium-137 could be excreted in this way, so that the development of severe chronic organ diseases can be avoided).
- This is where my international cooperation with Chernobyl initiatives began, which among other things helped children with extremely high radiation loads to go abroad, where advanced medical measures can be carried out.
I also decided on two Belarussian child sponsorships, for which I still support the necessary health examinations and radioactive discharge treatments.
In Belarus, I also met Prof. Bandashewsky, who as a doctor at the “Gomel Medical Institute” discovered the measurable relationship between radioactive doses and various symptoms of the disease: 50 Bq per kg body weight of cesium-137 leads to chronic damage to vital organs. Since the Belarusian government was unable to provide clean food for its population after the Chernobyl accident, doctors and radiologists — who contradicted official government opinion — were arrested. Prof. Bandashevsky was sentenced to eight years of hard labor by a Belarusian military tribunal. The government claims that life in the contaminated areas is safe. I joined the international protests over the release of Prof. Bandashevsky.
Source: www.comite-banda-jevsky.org
EU limit values for radiation exposure using the example of Bavaria
The European Union responded to the Chernobyl accident by first banning the import of agricultural products and then by setting maximum radiation levels for food. The maximum value for cesium-137 exposure in the EU is set at 600 Bq/kg for food, and 370 Bq/kg for milk and baby food. The limit regulation was in effect until March 31, 2010. Although the high levels of contamination, particularly of forest products, are known to date, the EU only managed to make a recommendation in 2003 which also requires compliance with the maximum values for domestic products. According to the Federal Office for Radiation Protection, a mean radiation exposure of 6,700 Bq/kg was measured in 2004 in wild pigs from the Bavarian Forest. The peak in recent years has been around 70,000 Bq / kg, more than a hundred times the EU limit. The Munich Environmental Institute and other independent experts recommend stricter limit values: 30-to-50 Bq/kg for food for adults, and 10-to-20 Bq/kg for children, and breast-feeding or pregnant women, and up to 5 Bq kg cesium for baby food. The cells divide more frequently during growth, and there is often not enough time between radiation impacts for a cell to repair itself. These figures make it clear how much the Chernobyl GAU has damaged us and is still damaging it today.
During the peace march to Moscow, I also learned about global nuclear colonialism on indigenous peoples: 100% of the nuclear tests were carried out on their land, and 80% of the world’s uranium mining still takes place there today. Cancer and the death rate in general, for example in the US on “Native American Reservations,” is about eight times higher than in the rest of the country. We also demonstrated on this peace march, in the French embassies of the capitals Minsk and Moscow, against the then current nuclear tests in the Pacific. Worldwide protests in 1996 helped see that the nuclear test ban treaty was finally signed for the underground nuclear tests. Although it has not been ratified, the major nuclear powers have so far adhered to it.
Subsequently, a worldwide seismic monitoring system was set up so that UN inspectors can check it immediately in the event of earthquakes suspected of being nuclear detonations. In this way, compliance with the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty can be checked and suspects brought to trial by the international community in the event of a violation.
In 1996, on the 10th anniversary of the Chernobyl, as part of “For Mother Earth International”, I organized a two-week peace march over 200 km to the Chernobyl death zone. My saddest memory is of a young couple. The father wanted to give us his baby in tears so that we could take it home with us. He worked at the nuclear power plant, but did not get enough money to buy clean food for his family. The family had to eat the vegetables from their own garden, although this was officially prohibited by the government. They were not allowed to move because they first had to prove that a job was promised.
On the commemoration day, our international peace walk group blocked a checkpoint and workers’ train into the Chernobyl death zone, where employees keep the other Chernobyl reactors running.
Evidence Photos: Visit to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and the action of civil disobedience on the day of remembrance
The following deeper examination of uranium mining and nuclear tests on the land of indigenous peoples made me realize the incredible nature of these war crimes and crimes against humanity:
In 1997, with “For Mother Earth International”, I organized the European tour of indigenous delegates from the uranium mining areas in Namibia, Australia, USA, Canada etc., who spoke in many lectures about the health of their tribes. I now met Renate Domnick, who lives in Hamburg and was elected European representative of the Western Shoshone Indians for the United Nations for 30 years. The large nuclear test area in the US state of Nevada is located on the land of the Western Shoshone Nation. Renate became my closest friend and we worked together until she died of cancer. From now on I was accompanied by a Geiger counter on my travels, which made me see the invisible danger of radioactivity from so-called “hot spots” in many places and saved me a few times.
But here are the hard facts of the nuclear tests: Between 1945 and 1963 — when the nuclear test ban treaty was signed halting above-ground nuclear tests — there were over 500 above-ground nuclear tests by the nuclear powers. See evidence from Uranatlas p. 38/39: atomic bomb test, 2058 – EVERYONE WAS TOO MUCH
The US Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), based on an in-depth analysis of seismic records, estimated that US bomb tests alone from 1945 to 1962 released an amount of radioactivity equivalent to 137,000 kilotons of nuclear explosive. The former Soviet Union, which detonated some heavy H-bombs with an effect of 402,000 kilotons of explosives in 1961 and 1962, accounted for three quarters of the total of 585,000 kilotons (including France …). If you divide this number by the estimated explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb, you come to the conclusion that the superpowers have subjected the world population to a fallout in these 17 years that corresponded to that of 40,000 Hiroshima bombs.
The inventor of the Soviet H-bomb Andrei Sakharov, predicted in 1958 that atomic bomb tests in the atmosphere with an explosive effect of 50,000 kilotons would result in half-a-million to one-million deaths worldwide. Applied to the fission products released during the Soviet H-bomb tests in 1961 and 1962 alone, this estimate would result in four to eight million deaths. He said, “We’re adding to the suffering and deaths in the world … hundreds of thousands more victims, including people in neutral countries and future generations. The suffering that the tests provoke … follows every dropping, relentlessly … the moral consequences of this problem lie in the fact that this crime cannot be punished (because it is impossible to prove that the death of a particular person is caused by radioactive in the fallout), and they lie in the defenselessness of future generations against our actions. Completing the tests directly saves the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.” Given this serious warning, it is not surprising that Sakharov fell out of favor with the Soviet government. Sakharov anticipated with great foresight the discoveries about the fatal effects of fission products ingested with food, that Dr. Abram Petkau, from Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd., made about 10 years later. In 1972, Dr. Petkau in the laboratory discovered that chronic low-level radiation exposure creates highly dangerous charged oxygen molecules called “free radicals” that can destroy cell walls far more effectively—more effectively than radiation in a single high-level dose.
The approx. 500 aboveground nuclear tests alone are responsible for 6-to-11 million deaths. If we include the 1,550 underground nuclear tests, the worldwide production of radioactive waste, and all steps in the production of nuclear weapons, from uranium mining, to uranium enrichment, and uranium weapons, to the atomic bomb, it becomes apparent that even in the absence of nuclear war, these are weapons of mass destruction of unimaginable proportions.
Rachel Carson was one of the first to recognize that the sudden occurrence of such tremendous artificial ionizing radiation can increase the dangerousness of toxic chemicals. Even though Carson was aware of the dangerous interaction of radioactivity and toxic chemicals in the post-war period, radioactivity is more important than toxic chemicals. Total organic chemical production in the United States increased 42-fold from 1945 to 1965 — from 7.5 million to 316 million tons.
The radiant total emissions from the above-ground atomic tests that entered the stratosphere, on the other hand, increased 13,000 times (from 45 kilotons to 587 megatons).
Source and source references in: Deadly Deception: Radioactivity by Jay Gould and Benjamin Goldman
Learn from atomic history
Dr. John Gofman, director of the biomedical division of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and one of the fathers of the atomic bomb, who pondered the effects of later atomic bomb tests in the atmosphere, said: “There is nothing that can excuse my failure to raise the alarm years earlier than I did. I mean, at least a few 100 scientists who know the biomedical side of nuclear energy — including me, of course — are candidates for trial for crimes against humanity, like in Nuremberg, because we were grossly negligent and irresponsible. Now that we know the dangers of low-level radiation, the crime is no longer experimentation — it is murder. ”
His contribution to publicizing the dangers of low-level radiation and demonstrating the deliberately introduced wrong calculation method for this radiation — in the studies on the atomic bombing on Hiroshima and Nagasaki — brought him a lot of recognition. In 1995, Gofman published the book Preventing Breast Cancer. In it, he explains that 75% of breast cancer in the United States is due to medical X-rays. John W. Gofman died on August 15, 2007 at the age of 88.
There is an increasing cancer rate worldwide.
More and more people suffer from chronic illnesses, allergies and immunodeficiency, etc. In Germany alone, one-in-three people will develop cancer at some point in their lives. The World Health Organization (WHO) warns in its 1997 annual report:
- The number of cancers will at least double in the next 25 years,
- Almost half all deaths are caused by chronic diseases every year.
In 2019, there are already around 20 million people who contract cancer worldwide each year, and around 10 million who die of it every year. Cancer has now become the number-one cause of death, ahead of heart disease. Since radioactivity triggers many other serious illnesses, it turns out that the extent of these invisible mass killings must be much larger.
The so-called “natural” radioactive background radiation is at least three times higher than it was in 1945, when the atomic bomb explosions began. Most of this radiation is from man-made radioactive alpha and beta particles that were created by nuclear fission. These particles and their radiation make us sick after being stored in the body when we absorb them internally through breathing and food. Radioactive atmospheric or rock radiation is not a particle, i.e. the radioactive low radiation of the alpha and beta particles is estimated to be 1000 times higher than our limit values allow.
With the dispute over the nuclear tests in 1997, I turned to the resistance against the nuclear weapons. The signing of the nuclear test ban treaty in 1996 meant that our test ban campaign was looking for a new focus. We wondered what had actually become of the nuclear weapons in Germany in the 1980s, and quickly learned about Germany’s “nuclear sharing” and about the 20 atomic bombs at the Büchel air base. As free-fall gravity bombs, these nuclear weapons were excluded from the INF (Intermediate Nuclear Forces) contract because they were not on missiles.
Since 1997 (for 23 years now), our group “Nonviolent Action to Abolish Nuclear Weapons” has been doing go-in actions of civil disobedience in the Büchel Air Base.
The first two constitutional complaints were filed in 2000, the first by Eberhard Mitzlaff for the civil inspection on April 20, 1997, the second by Elisa Kauffeld for the civil inspection on August 9, 1997. The third constitutional complaint against convictions for Büchel “inspections” was filed on July 6, 2001 by Erika Drees and Wolfgang Sternstein, who had received suspended sentences for the action on August 7, 1999. In the summer of 2003, the Federal Constitutional Court — 1st Chamber of the 2nd Senate — issued decisions not to hear the three appeals because of what it said was the unlikelihood of success. Attorney Karl-Joachim Hemeyer, who had presented the constitutional complaint of Erika Drees and Wolfgang Sternstein, in a 43-page brief, said: “After all, the Federal Constitutional Court has taken years to avoid hearing the legal arguments and finally to close the case with an unfounded decision not to accept. The international, constitutional and criminal arguments have not been wiped out.”
Evidence source: Martin Otto for the GAAA
In 2002, I also devoted myself to uranium weapons and traveled to Iraq with a European delegation, where I headed the DU-depleted uranium working group. In the children’s hospital in Basra I could see serious genetic malformations and measure the radiation of the shelled tanks on the “Highway of Death”. Bedouins told us about the leukemia diseases of their camels. This topic ultimately shows what humans are capable of today in warfare. In 2003, I initiated the World Uranium Weapons Conference in Hamburg with my then US partner Dave Kraft from the Chicago-based “Nuclear Energy Information Service”. The conference Reader is in English, however, it contains all important studies on the effects of radioactive “low-level” radiation from depleted uranium, which has a radioactive half-life of 4.5 billion years. Doctors, scientists, affected soldiers and civilians from civilian production sites have their say in the Reader. I have recently compiled a current report for the Uranium Atlas, which was also co-published by “Le Monde Diplomatique” (see evidence). Uranium bombs, such as the GBU 24, are also stored at the Büchel air base. In addition, there are approx. 500 bunker-busting, earth-penetrating Taurus cruise missiles, which are the most modern “stand-off” weapons in the world. They were produced by EADS and SAAB and specialize in destroying government and weapons bunkers underground. This means that in the event of an attack from Russia provoked by the United States, Büchel will be an obvious target due to all of these weapons. The regional contamination is then forever! I give the Reader as evidence of the file, since there are other illegal weapons in Büchel that justify an emergency intervention. The public prosecutor’s office must set up an investigation team to carry out extensive criminal investigations.
Proof: Source <ProofUranatlasMarionArticle>
All of the examples from my life that have been mentioned so far are intended to serve as evidence that any further production of nuclear weapons — whether to maintain the status quo or for the development of new nuclear weapons systems — must be prevented under international law. All nuclear powers continue to upgrade their nuclear arms systems. The United States is at the forefront, having budgeted $ 1.7 trillion over the next 30 years. The United States today accounts for 60% of global military spending, meaning that as the largest (nuclear) power, it is US responsibility to develop constructive proposals for global disarmament. Also, because this is not to be expected under the current US President Trump, it is the responsibility of the world’s states to get together and to refrain from participating in nuclear weapons development.
Actions of civil disobedience at nuclear weapons sites are acts of self-defense, and in defense of other’s health and survival, with the aim of obeying, applying and strengthening international law.
Regarding international law, I name the US legal expert Anabel Dwyer, the retired German judge Ulf Panzer, and the Scottish judgment as a source of evidence.
I am a member of the nationwide networking organization “Abolish nuclear weapons – start with us!” which has now grown to over 70 peace organizations/groups. The first campaign “Don’t Be Blind” ensured that over 500 (now 650) mayors joined the “Mayors for Peace”. This number puts Germany in third place worldwide: Japan is first and Iran is second.
Our second campaign led the then Free Democratic Party chief Guido Westerwelle in 2009 to negotiate for the removal of the US hydrogen bombs in a coalition agreement with the CDU/CSU. On March 26, 2010, there was the non-partisan decision of the Bundestag for the first time. I have participated in the United Nations’ Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Negotiations (NPT) in New York every five years for the past 20 years. (Proof: Accreditation admission tickets.) I took part in breakfast for members of the Bundestag to discuss the withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Büchel, as well as with the Federal Foreign Office and Ms. Merkel’s adviser, Ms. Baumann. I have been invited several times to speak at the Japanese World Conference Against the A and H Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. My international networking work has led to three “international weeks”, each time involving more than 10 anti-nuclear weapons activists from the US, including two US nuns in 2017, each of whom spent over 8-1/2 years were in prison because of their nuclear weapons protests in the US. They personally handed the (2017) nuclear weapons ban treaty to Georg Schlemmer, commander of Büchel’s fighter-bomber squadron 33, soon after the UN treaty was accepted by 122 countries on July 7. In 2017, our campaign sponsor received the Nobel Peace Prize as part of the ICAN network consisting of 500 groups. In 2018 I was honored to receive the Offenbach Church Prize for our “Büchel is everywhere – Nuclear Weapons-free Now!” campaign. And together with Ms. Elke Koller, our campaign also received last year the Aachen Peace Prize. In the meantime, over 88 mayors have signed the “city appeal” in just two years and thus representing a quarter of the population of Germany calling for the abandonment of “nuclear participation” and the withdrawal of US nuclear weapons, as well as the signing of the nuclear weapons ban treaty by our government. Over 600 MPs have signed the “MPs appeal”.
Evidence source: my resume showing that I have done everything in my power to point out this emergency
The non-violent and announced penetration of anti-nuclear weapons activists into the Büchel nuclear weapons base cannot be viewed as a trespass and damage to property, as this is a justifying emergency.
I would like to make a comparison here: If a judge or prosecutor held children on his heavily fenced and armed property (garden) and I became aware of it and, despite intensive disclosure of this illegal activity, the responsible state organs could not be persuaded to intervene, I would. I would have no concern about cutting open their fences and entering this garden together with others. If the courts then view this intrusion only as trespassing and property damage, they become accomplices and henchmen of kidnappers. Even if I find gardens without fences more beautiful, I would only be interested in intervening in the event of such a justifying emergency.
Nuclear weapons hold hostage all people on earth. The nuclear powers need nuclear weapons to deter each other if they get too close in the global struggle for division that they wage over the markets and resources of the countries of the so-called global south. The economy of the non-nuclear-weapon states is to be subjected to the dictates of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which will ruthlessly loot its inhabitants. The governments of non-nuclear weapons states and those that do not belong to NATO do not want wars against themselves, and today they are extremely afraid that these radioactive uranium bombs and uranium ammunition will destroy their land forever. This invisible radioactive war has already been waged against former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria and many other countries.
Source: Uranatlas: Uranium weapons DU abbreviation for the war without end
Judgment request to the judge:
- Time is running out: A “judge’s submission” from you to the Federal Constitutional Court would speed up the process of checking whether international law is being complied with here (evidence: Declaration by Anabel Dwyer). At the same time, it would attract public attention and more people would be interested in nuclear disarmament. Mr. Richter: You would go down in the history of jurisprudence!
- Acquittal because international law is broken (see evidence Scottish judgment); or acquittal purely out of self-defense, right to protection, and/or right to physical integrity
I name every one of my sources to prove the fact that the storage of the approx. 20 nuclear weapons in Büchel and the practice and preparation of their use by German pilots — and in the NATO alliance — violate the human right to health. These Büchel atomic bombs enable the practical continuation of ‘nuclear participation’ in Germany. For this illegal nuclear weapons deployment in Germany, the production of atomic bombs was necessary, which has caused and continues to cause serious health damage to all people in our world. We are all invisibly exposed to radioactivity that has increased several times.
The maintenance and deployment of nuclear weapons, and the production of new atomic bombs of the B61-12 type in the US atomic bomb production facilities which is necessary for this purpose, continue this invisible progressive genocide, or rather omnicide, and not only endanger the health of many future generations oflLiving beings (and captured me personally), but they actually endanger creation as a whole. There can be no greater crime in peacetime, or in war.
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NOTE: After the prosecutor’s witness was released, Marion noted her wish to call as expert witnesses law school instructor Anabel Dwyer, retired German judge Ulf Panzer, and weapons and military policy expert Otfried Nassauer. Judge Andre Zimmermann denied her request and imposed his sentences on the three defendants.
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Peace activists fined again
PHOTO CUTLINE: Vor Beginn des Prozesses am Amtsgericht in Cochem hielten die Angeklagen gemeinsam mit anderen Friedensaktivisten eine Mahnwache vor dem Gerichtsgebäude.
Cochem. Erneut sind vom Cochemer Amtsgericht drei Friedensakivisten, die auf das Gelände des Fliegerhorstes Büchel eingedrugnen waren, wegen Hausfriedensbruchs und Sacheschädigung zu Geldstrafen zwischen 1200 und 300 Euro verurteilt worden. Die drei Frauen waren im Juli 2018 im Rahmen einer internationalen Protestwoche in Buchel zusammen mit insgesamt 18 Personen in den Luftwäffenstützpunkt eingedrungen um so gegen die dort gelagerten Atomwaffen zu protestieren.
“Wir wollten damit die Aufmerksamkeit auf die illegale Lagerung von Atomwaffen in Büchel lenken”, meinte die Niederländerin Margriet Bos. Angesichts des Unrechts, dass durch die Drohung mit Nuklearwaffen geschehe, sei ihrer Meinung nach Widerstand Pflicht. Auch die Mitangeklagte Stefanie Augustin aus Dortmund verwies darauf, dass mit der Lagerung von Atomwaffen Deutschland gegen den Zwei-plus-Vier-Vertrag wie auch den Nichtverbreitungsvertrag verstoẞe. Darum sei das Betreten des Fliegerhorestes gerechtfertigt. “Was ist der dabei entstandene Schaden im Vergleich zu den Folgen eines Atomwaffeneinsatzes?”, fragt sie.
Marion Küpker aus Hamburg, aktuelle Aachener Friedenspreisträgerin und ebenfalls angeklagt, sah in der Aktion einen rechtfertigenden Notstand angesichts der Illegalität der Atomwaffen. Sie verwies auf ein Gutachten der amerikanischen Rechtswissenschaftlerin Anabel Dwyer, das für diesen Prozess erstellt wurde, wonach aufgrund der illegalen Lagerung von Nuklearwaffen ein Widerstand verpflichtend sei.
Das Amtsgericht konnte diesen Ausführungen allerdings nicht folgen. “Sie haben hier viele Ausführungen gemacht, aber strafrechtlich Relevantes wenig gesagt”, meinte Richter Andre Zimmermann, sicher auch im Blick auf doch einige langatmige und ausschweifende Einlassungen der Angeklagten während der Beweisaufnahme. Die Aussagen der drei Friedensaktivistinnen hätten sich aber weitgehend mit der Motivlage, nicht aber mit dem strafrechtlichen Vorwurf beschäftigt. “Der Tatbestand der Sachbeschädigung wie auch des Hausfriedensbruchs ist erfüllt”, machte der Richter deutlich. Zu prüfen sei, ob es hierfür rechtfertigende Gründe gebe, die er allerdings nicht erkennen könne. “Rechtfertigend sei eine solche Tat, wenn die potenzielle Gefahr dadurch zu besietigen wäre. Das wäre die unbedingte Voraussetzung, und das ist hier nicht der Fall. Und da ist das Gestez sehr eindeutig”, unterstrich Richter Zimmermann mit Nachdruck.
Er folgte damit auch der Argumentation der Koblenzer Staatsanwaltschaft. Deren Vertreter hatte in seinem Plädoyer darauf hingewiesen, dass ein rechtfertigender Notstand dann gegeben sei, wenn die Tat zeitnah eine Gefahr abwenden könne. “Das ist hier nicht festzustellen”, meinte er an die Angeklagten gewandt. Um dieses Ziel, eine atomwaffenfreie Welt, zu erreichen, seien Demonstrationen oder die Einflussnahme auf politische Entscheidungsträger besser geeignet. Ein Notstand sei jedenfalls nicht erfüllt. Und hier könne die Justiz auch nicht anders entscheiden als wegen Sachbeschädigung und Hausfriedenbruchs zu verurteilen.
Beim Strafmass folgte das Gericht auch dem Antrag der Staatsanwaltschaft, die 30 Tagessätze für angemessen hielt. Die Angeklagten hatten einen Freispruch, eine Einstellung des Verfahrens oder eine Richtervorlage an das Bundesverfassungsgericht beantragt. Richter Zimmermann: “Wir haben hier keine Entscheidung über Motive zu treffen, sondern über das Handeln der Angeklagten.”
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Page A1 Prompt, Friday 12 June 2020
The judge made it clear that “the facts of the case of damage to property and breach of privacy have been established”. It is to be examined whether there are justifying Grūnde for this, which he could not recognize however. “Such an act is justified if the potential danger can be eliminated by it. That would be the absolute prerequisite, and that is not the case here. And here the gesture is very clear”, emphasized Judge Zimmermann emphatically.
In doing so, he also followed the argumentation of the Koblenz public prosecutor’s office. In his plea, the representative of the prosecutor’s office had pointed out that a legal state of emergency existed if the act could promptly avert danger. “This cannot be established here”, he said to the defendants. In order to achieve this goal, a nuclear weapons-free world, to or the decision-makers more suitable. In any case, an emergency has not been fulfilled. And here the justice system could not decide otherwise than to condemn for damage to property and trespass.
In doing so, he also followed the argumentation of the Koblenz public prosecutor’s office. In his plea, the representative of the prosecutor’s office had pointed out that a legal state of emergency existed if the act could promptly avert danger. “This cannot be established here”, he said to the defendants. In order to achieve this goal, a nuclear weapons-free world, or [go] to influence political decision-makers better suited. In any case, an emergency has not been fulfilled. And here the justice system could not decide otherwise than to condemn for damage to property and trespass.
In sentencing, the court also followed the request of the public prosecutor’s office, which considers 30 daily rates to be adequate. The defendants had applied for an acquittal, a stay of proceedings or a judge’s referral to the binding constitutional court. Judge Zimmermann: “We have no decision about motives here, but about the hand of the accused.”
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Cochem-Zell, June 12, 2020
Peace activists fined again
District court Cochem does not recognize a “justifying emergency” for go-in action in July 2018 at the air force base in Büchel
From our employee, Dieter Junker
“I don’t understand that the cutting of a fence plays a role here, but not international law.” —Stefanie Augustin before the district court.
PHOTO CUTLINE: Before the trial at the district court in Cochem, the accused, along with other peace activists, held a vigil in front of the courthouse.
Cochem . Once again, three peace activists at Cochem District Court, who had intruded on the site of the Büchel air base, were fined between 1,200 and 300 euros for trespassing and damage to property. In July 2018, the three women, during an annual international protest week in Büchel, entered the air force base together with a total of 18 people in order to protest against the nuclear weapons stored there.
“We wanted to draw attention to the illegal storage of nuclear weapons in Büchel,” said Dutchwoman Margriet Bos. Given the injustice that the threat of nuclear weapons creates, resistance was a must in her opinion. The co-accused Stefanie Augustin from Dortmund also pointed out that the prolonged deployment of nuclear weapons in Germany violated the Two-Plus-Four [German reunification] Treaty and the non-proliferation treaty. That is why entering the air base is justified. “What is the resulting damage compared to the consequences of using a nuclear weapon?” she asked.
Marion Küpker from Hamburg, current Aachen Peace Prize holder and also accused, saw the action as a justifying emergency in view of the illegality of the nuclear warriors. She referred to an opinion by the American lawyer Anagel Dwyer, which was created for this process, according to which resistance was mandatory due to the illegal storage of nuclear weapons.
However, the district court was unable to follow these statements. “You made a lot of statements here, but said little relevant under criminal law,” said Judge Andre Zimmermann, no doubt also in view of some lengthy and digressive statements by the defendants during the taking of evidence. The statements of the three peace activists, however, largely dealt with the motives, but not with the criminal accusation. “The fact of property damage as well as the break from the house is fulfilled,” the judge made clear. It should be checked whether there are justifying reasons for this, which he cannot, however, recognize. “Such an act would be justified if the potential danger could be remedied. That would be the absolute prerequisite and that’s not the case here. And the gesture is very clear there,” emphasized Richter Zimmermann.
He also followed the argument of the Koblenz public prosecutor. In his plea, their representative had pointed out that a justifying emergency would exist if the act could quickly avert the danger. “This is not to be ascertained here,” he said to the accused. To achieve this goal, a world free of nuclear weapons, [go] to the decision-makers more suitable. In any case, an emergency was not fulfilled. And here the judiciary can make no other decision than to convict for property damage and breach of the peace.
With regard to the sentence, the court also followed the request of the public prosecutor, who said 30 daily rates were appropriate/adequate. [This translates to 30 times the defendant’s daily wage.) The defendants had requested an acquittal, a termination of the proceedings or a judge’s submission to the binding constitutional court. Judge Zimmermann: “We have no decision about motives here, but about the hand of the accused.”