Updated 2/2/01

As questions, concerns and investigations about depleted uranium weapons are proliferating around the world, three of the four activists imprisoned for hammering and pouring blood on two A-10 Warthogs (the type of warplane which fired nearly 300 tons of depleted uranium bullets in Iraq) in December, 1999, were recently released from Maryland prisons. Liz Walz completed her sentence on December 9, and has returned home to her Philadelphia Catholic Worker community. Susan Crane was released from state custody on January 3, and given over to federal authorities for a preliminary probation violation hearing. At that hearing, she was released to the custody of her housemates on the promise to report to federal court in Maine for the violation hearing. Phil Berrigan took a similar path on January 12, and the two appeared in separate hearings before Federal Judge Gene Carter on February 2. Both were still on probation from an earlier disarmament action in Maine when they hammered on the A-10s.

Both answered to charges of committing a crime, associating with felons, and not paying restitution. They had the opportunity to speak eloquently in turn that the real crime is committed by our government's warmaking, killing, and poisoning. They defined and highlighted U-238 or depleted uranium, explaining its use in Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, and testing in Vieques. They gave descriptions of the effects on people and the Earth. They outlined the massive numbers of rounds dropped on each nation and the deaths of the people including NATO and US military personnel.

Berrigan and Crane also quoted the data recorded and substantiated by Dr. Rosalie Bertell that 1.3 billion people have been killed, sickened or maimed by nuclearism over the past 55 years. They elaborated on the U.S. government's role in all of it. Crane asked the judge at one point how he could justify his position and not uphold the Constitution and the treaties under International Law. The judge responded by saying that he did not accept them. People in the courtroom gasped in disbelief of what he had acknowledged. Berrigan spoke strongly and firmly that he hated to think that anyone on the bench or in the courtroom would be held captive to any law that protected these horrific weapons.

The prosecutor responded coldly with the prepared procedures for revocation and an adherence to the sentencing within the guidelines. The judge reiterated the usual verbal kudos of the two defendants regarding their own living of their beliefs, religious convictions, conscience, etc., and in the same breath sentenced each defendant to 12 more months in prison. They were both immediately taken by federal marshalls to serve the sentence in federal prisons.

Still in a Maryland prison, co-defendant Fr. Stephen Kelly, SJ, has been placed in disciplinary segregation for "refusing conscription in the drug war" (random urinalysis). Kelly, noting that compulsory urinalysis is degrading to both captive and captor, explains his action as "heeding Dorothy Day: 'Our problems stem from our acceptance of this stinking, rotten system.'" Kelly anticipates remaining at the Roxbury Correctional Institution until the end of his state sentence (March, 2002).

For more information, contact Jonah House, 1301 Moreland, Baltimore, MD 21216, (410)233-4067, disarmnow@erols.com.

Letters of support should be sent to Fr. Stephen Kelly, SJ, #292-140, Roxbury Correctional Institution, 18701 Roxbury Rd., Hagerstown, MD, 21746, and individually for forwarding to Philip Berrigan and Susan Crane, c/o Jonah House (address above).