Trident Ploughshares

More members of the Scottish and European parliaments have been arrested at Coulport and Faslane, the two bases in southwest Scotland that arm and service Britain's four Trident nuclear missile launching submarines. Hundreds of arrests resulting from actions large and small, earthbound and marine, occupy local courts, where they reveal dissent within the ranks of civil society as different magistrates hearing these cases may levy heavy fines and jail sentences, reluctantly admonish, or simply dismiss the criminal charge while defending such protest as the price of freedom. And in October, Crown prosecutors abandoned their hope of convicting two hammer-wielding Ploughshares women after a second jury could not reach a guilty verdict.

Since last summer, the Trident Ploughshares campaign has held two action camps at the neighboring sub ports, and a handful of activists have been moving through local jails. Helen John was released from jail July 26 when the trial for which she was being held was adjourned due to a faulty warrant. She was charged with painting anti-Trident slogans on the Scottish High Court and parliament visitor center in 1999.

The two-week summer action camp began July 27, with the initial arrests of a man cutting the fence at Faslane and a woman breaching security at Coulport. Over the next few days, fence cuttings and blockades resulted in a couple dozen more arrests at Coulport. At Faslane, a Trident sub's departure was delayed by a raft that sailed into the protected waters around the base, displaying a colorful banner, "There are no hugs with nuclear arms." Rafters Ulla Roder and David Rolstone were arrested.

On the morning of August 3, six swimmers and three activists in canoes spread themselves out across Loch Long to block a departing Trident. As the sub swerved to the edge of the channel around one canoeist, military police boats kept a path clear, then assisted the swimmers back to shore without arrest.

The diplomatic highlight of the August camp came August 4, with the signing on the seafront at nearby Helensburgh of the Helensburgh Treaty, an international agreement among nuclear disarmament campaigns including Trident Ploughshares, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) chapters, For Mother Earth (Belgium), Women for Peace (Denmark) and Onkruit Vergaat Neit! (Netherlands). The treaty commits groups who sign to work in global cooperation for the elimination of nuclear weapons, by pressing governments to abolish these weapons, communicating to those involved that they have a personal responsibility for the criminality of nuclear weapons, and by taking nonviolent direct action against nuclear weapons.

Entering the water at midnight on Hiroshima Day, two activists again swam into the protected zone at Faslane, defying security claims. Marcus Armstrong and Rachel Remnant approached the berths of two Trident submarines, and Armstrong began to paint "ILLEGAL" on the side of one before they were apprehended. Later in the day, several fence-cutters wandered inside the Faslane base for hours before being arrested. A silent vigil at the Coulport gate led to two arrests when some activists blocked the traffic of arriving workers.

Remnant was cited and released, but Armstrong was held overnight. He was released with the added condition that he not go within 25 meters of the base.

Ulla Roder from Denmark, one of the rafters arrested the week before, had had a similar special restriction placed upon her release. When she was arrested again at the Nagasaki Day blockade of Coulport, the presiding sheriff granted bail, but the Crown appealed and Roder was remanded to Cornton Vale prison to await trial.

On the morning of August 11, David Rolstone, the other rafter, set out across the dark waters of the Gare Loch to complete the tagging begun by Marcus Armstrong on Hiroshima Day. He was spotted about 50 yards from one of the Tridents and the alarm was sounded. Rolstone was arrested and cited for being in a prohibited area, then released.

The activists broke camp later that day, after fourteen days of actions and 65 arrests.

The imprisoned Ulla Roder, from Denmark, was convicted in mid-September on a handful of charges, and sentenced on October 5 to three months in prison. She was sentenced one day after the Trident Ploughshares campaign - represented by Roder and co-defendants Ellen Moxley and Angie Zelter - received the "alternative Nobel" Right Livelihood Award. The three women gained notoriety for the campaign in a landmark case that began when the women scuttled thousands of dollars worth of Trident acoustic test equipment in June, 1999. They were eventually found not guilty by a Scottish sheriff at Greenock. Prize or no prize, Roder was jailed until October 29, and released under threat of deportation.

On August 17, Brian Quail, joint secretary of the Scottish CND and long active in the Trident Ploughshares campaign, was sent to prison for a week for unpaid protest fines. In July, the retired teacher from Glasgow was refused entry into Italy, giving rise to concern about British authorities gathering and passing on to foreign police forces lists of peaceful protesters. A few nights later, Peter Quail, Brian's son and a London delivery driver, had just dropped his father off at Victoria Station when he was stopped by police. With automatic weapons drawn, scores of officers surrounded his van and a police helicopter hovered overhead. His van was involuntarily searched under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and he was questioned about political associations. He has none except his father.

"When they went away they gave me a note which thanked me 'for my cooperation' as if I had a choice in the matter. These were young lads, really hyped up. My legs were like jelly," reports Peter Quail.

UNBALANCED JUSTICE

Dozens of cases from the October 2000 and February 2001 action camps have came before magistrates in two local courts since August. Trident Ploughshares court watcher Jane Tallents finds hope in these scenes. "If anyone doubts the strength of the nuclear disarmament movement today they should come down to the local courts here and listen. The approach of the different activists to these ridiculous charges is so rich and varied and yet they are all absolutely clear in their opposition to this crime and their determination to continue to resist it."

Punishments for those found guilty of a breach of the peace at the February Big Blockade and other small group actions have ranged from simple admonishments to fines of £250. There are no identifiable objective factors to explain these variations, such as the perceived relative seriousness of the alleged offense. Some people who simply sat in the road have been more severely punished than some who were tied or chained to each other in complex ways that were difficult for the police to unravel.

Many defendants have challenged the popular "breach of peace" charge that brought them to court. The Crown is obliged to show that the conduct was or could be alarming to people, but the testimony of arresting officers and witnesses consistently reveals no alarm, only a predictable nonviolence and even a laugh at times. Some magistrates accepted the testimony and dismissed charges before them.

Remarks from local jurists since September 11 clearly revealed the split in their ranks. Visiting Sheriff Ronald Jones, fining two Coulport fence-cutters in late October, said "I look upon you so-called peace protesters as parasites, causing untold damage to fences, disrupting the base and wasting this country's money which could be spent elsewhere." The next defendant before Jones, Rona Couper, was bullied when she attempted to argue from the Geneva Protocols.

"We'll not hear about the Geneva Convention. That's got nothing to do with anything," he told her. When Couper said she would not pay the £200 fine, Jones sent her straight to jail for four days.

By contrast, the jurist who found Scottish Socialist Party leader Tommy Sheridan not guilty of breach of peace at the Big Blockade in February declared, "The policy of mass arrests without justification cannot continue without careful consideration of how far the rights of individuals have been extended by the Human Rights Convention."

That ruling by Justice of the Peace Anthony Stirling came on October 8, just days after the Trident Ploughshares' campaign won the Right Livelihood Award and another major courtroom victory in Manchester (see accompanying article).

Commenting later in a court document, Stirling referred to recent large protests on several issues and concluded, "These demonstrations... have all had an element of the obstruction and disruption of traffic and general inconvenience to daily life. It appears that this is accepted as the price of living in a democratic society, provided always that the protest is peaceful."

Ten days later, an Edinburgh Sheriff, hearing Ulla Roder's case from a peaceful April 5 protest in the gallery of the Scottish Parliament, found the charge of breaching the peace had not been proven. "A certain latitude of behavior must be allowed in bona fide political protest."

Tommy Sheridan was among several protesters found not guilty of breaching the peace who were nonetheless again arrested at Faslane during the next mass action October 22. Sheridan has filed suit for wrongful arrest.

One human rights activist said the suit could lead to mass dismissal of charges. "There is now specific European case law which states that protests on a public highway must also be viewed as part of the right to peaceful assembly, and a balance must be struck by police between allowing people to exercise that right, even on the public highway, and the right of other people to go about their business," said Prof. Allan Miller.

Helen Stevens, coordinator of the Scottish Centre for Nonviolence took a different approach at her October 5 trial.

"Of course I'm guilty of a breach of the peace," she declared in her sentencing statement. "What kind of peace is it that can say nothing and do nothing in the face of Trident? I want to disturb the peace of the politicians who threaten annihilation, of those who work for Trident without facing the reality of how deadly it is, of the police who are 'just doing their job' without realizing that that was the defense at Nuremberg, and of the judicial system that is so blinded by petty detail that it loses sight of justice. I want to keep on disturbing my own peace until nuclear weapons are recognized for the total evil they are, and eliminated." She was fined £200.

OCTOBER ACTION CAMP & BLOCKADE

Nearly a thousand people participated in a mass blockade of the Faslane base on October 22. The base was shut down for over five hours while police once again met the challenge with mass arrests. Police took 170 people into custody at the blockade, including two ministers of the Church of Scotland, an Irish member of the European Parliament, and two members of the Scottish Parliament. While the blockade was underway, David Heller cut through the fence and walked unchallenged past many people in uniform until reaching the sentry box at a submarine berth. They waved him on, but guards at a second booth arrested the activist.

Only five people were jailed overnight, four to be released on bail the next day while one, Kreb Dragonrider, was jailed until trials November 14 and November 26 on several charges, for some of which he hadn't attended earlier court dates. Dragonrider was convicted of breaching the peace at two blockades and pleaded guilty to failure to appear. He was then admonished and released from prison on the 26th, having already served five weeks.

LONDON CALLING

The Trident Ploughshares campaign rallied in London November 16-19 for anti-war actions. Member Peter Lanyon ridiculed British participation in the so-called war against terrorism, saying "Any 'war' against terror which does not disarm our own terror weapons is utterly phony."

Fifty campaigners closed Downing Street and blockaded the Prime Minister's home the evening of November 17, to "secure terrorist suspects." They delivered a letter condemning the hypocrisy, but were simply dragged away from the scene and not charged.

Two days later, an international team of citizen weapon inspectors visited Rolls Royce head offices in London, seeking evidence of their involvement in Britain's Trident nuclear weapons program and the bombing of Afghanistan. Again, they occupied the offices for over an hour and were then dragged away.

OTHER TRIDENT PLOUGHSHARES UPDATES

Four Trident Ploughshares who cut through the fence of Aldermaston nuclear weapons establishment in 2000 to conduct a citizen's weapons inspection were convicted October 19 in Newbury Magistrates court of criminal damage. They were given a 12-month conditional discharge, plus a fine for the damage and court costs.

Several people have successfully appealed excessive fines from Helensburgh Justice of the Peace Fraser Gillies, in part by citing his own words to demonstrate his bias. Regarding one appeal, he wrote, "I'm aware that incidents of this type at the naval bases situated on the Clyde are becoming far too common and was of the view that the Court must mark its strong disapproval of such by imposing an appropriate sentence."

On November 20, Helen Harris was sentenced to 28 days in jail for unpaid fines, but was expected to serve only 14 days of the protest penalty.

The next day, police in England served a Scottish court warrant, arresting Roger Oldfield in Stafford for failure to appear at trial in Helensburgh on October 29. He was taken to Scotland for a hearing the next day, then released with an order to return for trial in February. Previously, the Scottish court warrants were only acted upon in this manner in Scotland, so a change in the Crown prosecutor's tactics is suspected.

On November 29, Jenny Gaiawyn was sentenced in Dunbarton Sheriff Court for breach of the peace at the February blockade. She told the court that she found the Scottish court system was "arrogant and petty minded" with its handling of the Trident protests, and the court sent her to jail for three months.

Judicial disapproval of the Trident Ploughshares campaign has to date resulted in at least 1,516 arrests and over 1,450 days spent in jail (not including police cells), plus fines totaling over £30,000.

STOP PRESS:

Sylvia Boyes was sentenced December 4 to one month in prison for refusing to pay compensation and court fees. Boyes and other Trident Ploughshares activists cut their way into the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston last May, where Britain's Trident nuclear warheads are assembled. She was convicted of criminal damage in Newbury Magistrates Court, and is expected to serve half of her sentence.

For more information, contact Trident Ploughshares, 42-46 Bethel St., Norwich, Norfolk NR2 1NR, England UK; phone 0845-4588-366, email: tp2000@gn.apc.org web: www.tridentploughshares.org.

Letters of support should be sent to Jenny Gaiawyn, HMP Cornton Vale, Cornton Road,Stirling FK9 5NY, Scotland, UK, and Sylvia Boyes, HMP Newhall, Dial Wood, Flockton nr. Wakefield, Yorkshire WF4 4AX, England UK.