On October 30, nine military veterans and peace activists were arrested at Beale Air Force Base in Marysville, California. The group – Barry Binks, Toby Blome, Fr. Louie Vitale, MacGregor Eddy, David Hartsough, Jan Hartsough, Sharon Delgado, Janie Kesselman and Shirley Osgood – was charged with trespass after blocking two different gates of the base. The front gate was closed for four hours.
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the Nuclear Resister October, 2012 IN THIS E-BULLETIN: 1) BACKCOUNTRY ARRESTS AT VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE 2) 71 ACTIVISTS ARRESTED ON THEIR WAY TO ANTI-NUCLEAR PROTEST IN INDIA 3) JEJU NAVAL BASE CONSTRUCTION IS STEPPED UP – RESISTANCE CONTINUES 4) VETERANS ARRESTED IN NYC ON AFGHANISTAN WAR ANNIVERSARY 5) SIX ANTI-NUCLEAR ACTIVISTS ARRESTED AT […]
Construction gate blockade with street art by Jang Joonhu. Photo via savejejunow.org
Construction of the controversial navy base on Jeju Island, South Korea, is accelerating. In the last week, after months of delays due to local protest, a 24/7 operation has begun. Two hundred low-wage Vietnamese laborers are now housed on site, producing 80 3,000-ton concrete caissons that will create the first breakwater and mooring docks. Round-the-clock resistance in Gangjeong village has followed with dozens of people sustaining a blockade at the construction gate, sometimes in pouring rain and at night under the glare of broad banks of bright lighting installed to illuminate the work yard.
The police battalions brought in from the mainland have doubled in size to 500 riot-equipped officers suppressing the nonviolent demonstrators. Every two hours for the last four days, demonstrators are pushed, roughly dragged and carried from the road, then surrounded by multiple lines of police. A few more cement mixers enter the site, police fall back, and the blockade resumes. Sometimes arrests are made and activists have been taken into custody. One man, Catholic Fr. Lee Young-Chan, remains jailed on multiple charges
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from The Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and Stop the Wars
On the morning of October 25, forty concerned citizens created a blockade of Hancock Air National Guard Base outside Syracuse, NY. MQ-9 Reaper drones are operated by remote control from the base, and are used to carry out attacks in Afghanistan and possibly other countries. The activists say this use of drones violates international and domestic law, and amounts to war crimes.
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David Omondi, Theo Kayser, Fr. Louis Vitale
NONVIOLENT BACKCOUNTRY RESISTERS CAUSE DISRUPTIVE BREACH OF VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE SECURITY ZONES
from tierralinda@live.com
For the first time in nearly a decade, nonviolent civil resisters caused a disruptive breach of the backcountry security zones at Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) on October 20 and 21, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. VAFB enforces a sweeping global pattern of violent high-tech military abuse.
Three participants were arrested for federal trespass and others eluded base security patrols. One participant, Theo Kayser, was hand-cuffed face down on the ground with an M-16 automatic rifle trained on his back during his 2 a.m. arrest, while search lights swept the surrounding hills. He was then held under armed guard for nine hours at a special security command post which VAFB had set up to deal with the backcountry occupation. Vandenberg security stated that they believed at least 15 individuals were spotted in base security zones between 0ctober 20th and 21st.
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“Unless God guards the city, in vain do the guards keep watch.” One of the four guard towers at the corner of the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility, storehouse for nuclear weapons HEU, is inscribed with the words “Plowshares Please Isaiah.” The Transform Now Plowshares action reveals the illusory nature of the quest for security—the only true security is to abolish nuclear weapons.
PHOTOS OF PLOWSHARES PROTEST AGAINST NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND NEW BOMB PLANT PROPOSED FOR Y-12 COMPLEX IN OAK RIDGE ARE RELEASED
The Transform Now Plowshares resisters, Michael Walli, Megan Rice and Greg Boertje-Obed, today release to the public photographs from their July 28, 2012, entry into the Y12 Nuclear Weapons Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The Transform Now Plowshares action focuses attention on the ongoing production of nuclear weapons of mass destruction in Oak Ridge and the plans for a new $7.5 billion weapon production facility, the Uranium Processing Facility, at Y12.
Three high security fences enclose the facilities that engage in ongoing crimes against humanity—the production of thermonuclear weapons of mass destruction—at the Y12 Nuclear Weapons Complex in Oak Ridge, TN. These fences enclose the “deadly force” zone; motion sensors and cameras failed to alert guards to the presence of the Transform Now Plowshares resisters; the National Nuclear Security Administration notes guards were desensitized to the alarms by the natural activity of animals. “These fences are on land entrusted by the Creator for life-giving purposes,” said Greg Boertje-Obed. “Should we be grateful to nature for helping to raise awareness of false ‘security’ and impending global destruction?” The fences bear banners hung by the Plowshares resisters including the citation from the prophet Isaiah, “They shall beat swords into plowshares.”
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[Editor’s note: We are trying to find out the names and prison addresses of all of the anti-nuclear protesters in prison in India. Here is a conversation with some of the women in Trichy Central Prison.]
from dianuke/org
The two year old Trichy Central Prison for women wears an old colonial look. It houses more than 600 women charged with various acts of violence and law- breaking. But never would it have seen the like of the 7 women from Koodankulam. Since September 9, 2012 when the people from several villages like Idinthakarai, Koodankulam, Kootapulli and Kuthankuzhi got together to say No to the Nuclear Power Plant, there has been news about the struggle headed by the People’s movement against Nuclear Energy. As the name of the movement implies, this struggle is not just against one nuclear power plant. But it is for a world free from Nuclear Energy.
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Beth Brockman on July 5, 2010, taken shortly before she participated in a blockade of the road into the Y-12 nuclear weapons complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. photo by jpKernodle
from Art Laffin, Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, Washington, D.C.
The court hearing for the August 6th peace witness at the Pentagon took place on October 19 in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia before U.S. Magistrate Judge Buchanan. Andrea Eiland had her charge dismissed as did Luke Hansen, who was not present. Both were first time arrestees. Beth Brockman, popular educator and peace activist from Raleigh, North Carolina, Bill Frankel-Streit, Little Flower Catholic Worker in Virginia, Rosemary Thompson, Executive Director, Murphy Initiative for Peace and Justice, Baltimore, Maryland and I pled “no contest” to the charge of “failure to obey a lawful order.” We were each found guilty and allowed to make brief sentencing statements. (Below is a poem from Daniel Berrigan which I quoted in my sentencing statement). Several of us also extended an invitation to Judge Buchanan to join us in our work of creating a nonviolent world free of nuclear weapons, weapons of mass destruction and war. We were then given an $85 fine.
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Elizabeth McAlister, Philip Berrigan and baby Frida
by Frida Berrigan
October 19, 2012
Seamus Philip celebrated his three month birthday on Thursday. It was just like every other day — nursing and pooping, laughing and cooing, chewing on his hands and slobbering. He giggles and smiles and looks deep into your eyes now. He can hold his head up and has mounted an aggressive conditioning regime with the goal of turning over and crawling ASAP. Watching him, loving him, caring for him, living with his constant changes — all of this provides daily opportunities for me to reflect on my own early years and upbringing.
I wonder how his dad and I will impart our values and core beliefs, I wonder what kind of man he will grown up to be; I wonder what stories he will tell his friends and his children about his childhood. I already know they won’t be the same stories I tell.
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Linda Pon Owen assists Frances Crowe in chaining herself with others across the Vermont Yankee driveway.
from Marcia Gagliardi, Shut it Down affinity group
VERNON, Vermont — Attired in hazmat suits to highlight the danger of radiation emissions from the Entergy Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, twelve women of the Shut It Down Affinity group chained themselves across the driveway Wednesday afternoon, October 17, before Vernon police arrested them for trespass.
Workers scheduled to leave their day shift at the plant were detained by Entergy officials and Vernon police during the arrest while Vernon Sergeant Bruce Gauld arranged transportation for the arrestees to the police department less than a mile from the power plant.
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