The Nuclear Resister

Cochem District Court
Ravenestrasse 39
56812 Cochem

Re: 2010 Js 60864/18

John Michael La Forge
31 May 2021

Testimony To the Court:

My name is John La Forge. I am 65 years old, am a U.S. citizen, and I’ve worked in the peace and anti-nuclear movement since 1979. I have been employed by the peace organization The Progressive Foundation in the U.S. since 1992 as a researcher, editor of its Nukewatch Quarterly, and co-director. In my first job for Nukewatch, I traveled about 30,000 miles over a 3-month period to visit all 1,000 land-based intercontinental ballistic missile sites then in the United States. The research was for the Nukewatch book Nuclear Heartland which featured the first pubic atlas detailing the exact locations of the giant ICBMs.

Photo from disruptlandforces.org

From late May into June, the seven-day Festival of Resistance outside the Brisbane (Australia) Convention Center was an organizing cauldron. More than 300 participants cooked up public education events and a smorgasbord of nonviolent direct actions to confront Land Forces 2021, the largest international weapons exposition in the Southern Hemisphere.

Over the previous year, community organizing in anticipation of the arms bazaar was led by Wage Peace, a group dedicated to “disturbing war and militarism in Australia.” Organizers brought many diverse constituencies from radical youth, Quaker grannies, Aboriginal leaders, refugees, veterans and more into the action planning. During the six months leading up to the events, protests were held at several Brisbane area weapons manufacturers.