Ten peace activists were arrested at the Navy’s submarine transmitter Project ELF during an annual Mother’s Day protest against the U.S. nuclear weapons policy and submarine warfare in the Balkans. It was the 12th Mothers’ Day in a row that women activists and others have demonstrated at the controversial Navy transmitter, Project ELF, which sends one-way orders to submerged British and U.S. submarines around the world. The action was also the 40th in a renewed series of civil disobedience actions begun in 1991 in which over 483 arrests have been made.
About 100 activists from Wisconsin and Minnesota converged on the site near Clam Lake, Wisconsin, after a weekend meeting focused on Julia Ward Howe’s original anti-war Mother’s Day proclamation of 1870.
Maggie Drew, 80, of Minneapolis, a co-chair of the MN Metro Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, celebrated her 80th birthday by leading a group of civil resisters across the property line into the facility.
The ELF transmitter has been said by Navy officials to be in contact with at least two Los Angeles Class or Hunter Killer submarines now in the Adriatic Sea as part of the NATO armada. The USS Miami and the USS Norfolk have fired their $1.3 million Tomahawk Cruise missiles on Yugoslavia.
Those arrested were each issued a $181 forfeiture citation and told to appear June 15 in Ashland County Court for arraignment. All declined to return to court, and face a five year loss of driving privilege if they do not pay.
For more information, contact the Coalition to Stop Project ELF, c/o
Nukewatch, POB 649, Luck, WI 54853, (715)472-4185, email: nukewtch@win.bright.net