Newsletter March 2007

Dear Friends of Faslane365,

As I write this Anna–Linnea Rundberg, one of the F365 Steering Group is doing a week in Cornton Vale Women’s Prison for refusing to pay a fine for an Aldermaston action last July. No one has yet gone to prison for a 365 action, but the day may soon be approaching. To date there have been 75 Blockading Groups, 102 days of presence, 696 arrests and 26 prosecutions. Trials are coming up on 16 and 18 April, and 14 May at Helensburgh District Court, for individuals who have been arrested three or more times since the beginning of Faslane365.

Over the past couple of months there have been many diverse and creative days of presence and action. In February an audacious Trident Ploughshares surprise block shut the South gate for more than an hour. The Coventry group, finding that they could not get near the gate on a day when the police were expecting an announced action locked on in the A814 and are the only group of first time 365 arrestees thus far to be prosecuted. Harry McEachan’s septuagenarian Pensioners for Peace, a small but surprisingly lively group blocked the North Gate on Valentine’s Day after Harry was arrested for distributing invitations from the ramparts of Edinburgh Castle and escorted from Parliament for calling Jack McConnell a “disgrace to Scotland” for following Blair on Trident. A small group of Christian Clergy celebrated Eucharist and, competing for the smallest blockade of the campaign were Di and Nick who stopped by on holiday to do a duo blockade.

Action picked up in March. A group of Yorkshire Quakers with bright yellow umbrellas which read “/Quakers Say No Trident/” negotiated with police for ten minutes of Peace Testimony which closed the gates before some of the group moved out of the road while others refused and were arrested. In a dramatic day of action the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise sailed up the Gareloch accompanied by seven Rigid Inflatable Boats (RIBs) and effectively prevented Trident from sailing for a day. After a high speed chase on the water during which a Greenpeace RIB landed an activist on the high security boom where he unfurled a *No New Nukes* banner. Three RIBs were seized by the MOD. The Arctic Sunrise out-manoeuvred four MOD tugs and blocked the sea gate. When the base bandit alarm sounded all gates were shut for nearly two hours. After a six hour standoff the MOD boarded the Arctic Sunrise, and arrested the entire crew. Forty seven Greenpeace activists were arrested overall and twenty nine were held in jail over the weekend. The Sunrise was locked up at Faslane where she could be seen docked for several days, her bright Green Hull and bright rainbow insignia a cheering contrast to the sinister dark hull of Trident.

Clergy Against Nuclear Arms provided a quiet counterpoint to the dramatic Greenpeace action. Some clergy sang new words to a favourite hymn:

Illegal, immoral, God only knows why-
Our leaders are planning to blow us sky high.
It’s yesterday’s weapon, for yesterday’s war
Now’s time to stop Trident that’s what we’re here for.

The sacrament of Eucharist was offered by the Bishop of Reading who spoke movingly of his support for those who would risk arrest in resistance to the evil of nuclear weapons and while wearing a white mitre and carrying the shepherd’s crook lead the congregation straight in to the entrance as police moved across the closing gate to block the fearless Christians’ path.

Leeds University students, due to low numbers, opted not to blockade but to maintain a presence at the gates. On the day of the Trident vote in Parliament Edinburgh and Stirling students inflated a life-size bin bag Trident missile bearing the giant message”:

*BLOCK THE BOMB*

Four people were arrested at Faslane while five Faslane Peace Campers were nicked for hanging a banner at Holyrood which said “/Whatever They Vote Trident is Still Wrong/”. Concurrently a group including a 365 Steering Group member (A-L again), Aldermaston Women’s Peace Camp residents and folk from Block the Builders locked on to barrels in Parliament Square in London, disrupting traffic in an unauthorized protest within the precinct regulated by SOCPA (or SOCRAP as it is affectionately called). Surprisingly when members of that group plead guilty they were only fined £100.

These demos were quickly followed by a series which vie with the Greenpeace flotilla for consideration as the blockade of the month. A group of Spaniards took the prize at least for most colourful block when they poured buckets of red paint over themselves. They “chose red to symbolize the pain and suffering and loss of blood that nuclear weapons threaten”. The police could only watch as the conscientious objectors danced unhindered before the closed gates of Faslane. As if to outdo the Spaniards a group from Bradford surprised us all when they linked arms and superglued their own hands together forming an unannounced human block which presented the police with a difficult challenge and kept the gates closed for two hours. The next day Katie and Chloe hosted a delightful Tea Party at which the “Rules of etiquette” included not only not speaking above the sound of the clink of a tea cup but also possession of no weapons of mass destruction. Oxford did another Tea Party, but with an /Alice in Wonderland/ theme, including a CLOCK BLOCK, which featured three Doomsday Clocks inscribed: "Time to Scrap Trident", "Not Too Late" and "Time For Peace", a decoy white rabbit and a Fluff-tastic attempt to Lock-on which the police prevented, but which provided the distraction for another successful lock-on. Twenty-one were arrested.

A large French group I am sorry to have to report were foiled in their cunning plans when a decoy group inadvertently led the police right into the main group who had not yet gotten their blockade established. This was followed by the whimsical Trident Is Bananas action, in which "sixteen actual banana activists were arrested for blockading the North Gate of Faslane. Forming 3 affinity groups the bananas used miniature arm locks and d-locks made of foil in their attempt to shut the base down. Assisted by 3 human supporters wearing *Banana Support* jackets, the banana blocks positioned themselves in front of the gates where they were immediately seized by eager police". Their banners read:

Trident is Bananas

Bananas say No Trident and Make Banana Cake not War

The German group, learning from their fellow European activists’ experience and being well prepared with seventeen lock-on tubes entered the road well south of the Peace Camp. They were already locked on in four or five rows which stretched across both lanes of the A814 by the time the police stopped them. The police offered to allow them to march to the gate on one side of the road, but as this would have meant that base traffic would have been able to pass they sat down in the road at that spot, stopping all traffic for three full hours. The following day “Robin Hood and 50 supporters from his Merry Band succeeded in blocking the North Gate for over 4 hours. Blockader’s plaster of Paris and cement lock-ons baffled the sheriff’s men who weren’t quite sure what had hit them”. On April Fools’ Day the /Clown Army/ invaded the Faslane area, declaring that according to tradition they were Kings and Queens for the day. As rightful owners of the land they therefore put the Naval Base up for sale. One of their number confused the police by approaching the base on stilts and at one point the clowns blocked a police car in the cemetery car park.

We have reached a new phase of the campaign. On Monday 2 April there was a demonstration by local people in protest against the disruption to non-base traffic by the blockades. This was sparked off by the German blockade a few days earlier which tied up the A814 for 3 hours. Locals are understandably upset and angered by the blockades because they prevent kids from getting to school, keep elderly people sitting in buses, cause people to miss hospital appointments, keep teachers from getting in to work at Garelochead Primary School, prevent carers from reaching the Penninsula and prevent local people from getting to work sometimes resulting in loss of income. Members of the 365 Steering Group and the Peace Camp had arrived early with banners which read:

We All Want to Return to Normal
Nuclear Weapons Are Not Normal

and

The Bomb is Bigger Than Argyll and Bute

We crossed the road to reach out to the local people and endeavoured to show empathy for the concerns of the local people on the day. There was some dialogue. Northants No Nukes, decided it would be better not to inflame local feeling by blockading the following day and instead performed Paula Bolton’s new play /The Anti-Nuclear Monologues/, with voices repeating the choral refrain expressing the experience of a moment of “cold clear anger” and the decision to join the resistance to nuclear weapons.

There have since been incidents of aggression directed at the camp. A beer bottle was thrown through the window of a van in which someone was sleeping. No one was injured. There have been similar incidents at the camp over past years. We knew from the outset that this campaign would have an impact on the local community and the Faslane365 Steering Group has proposed to the police ways of policing which would allow local people with no business at the base to pass freely. One solution would be for the police to allow blockaders to get into place in the entrance to the base and direct base traffic to park elsewhere until the blockade is cleared. We await their response but fully expect blockades to continue.

While it is traditional in this newsletter to choose a LOCK-ON of the MONTH it is too difficult to choose between the whimsical Banana Block, the Super (gluey) Bradford Bunch, the highly effective German block, the well-intentioned French, Oxford’s /Alice in Wonderland/ group Robin’s Merry Men, and those actions which do not strictly qualify as “lock-ons”, the Spanish paint pourers, the Clowns who consented to Steering Group’s request not to appear in clown costume on the day of the local protest, or the Bishop of Reading blessing the “Troublemakers” (his description of contemporary Peacemakers, updating the Sermon on the Mount) before the closed gates, and the greeting of peace which followed when protesting clergy and laypeople shook hands with police who had formed a cordon before those gates. I leave it for you to choose your favourite if choose you will. As for me I want to celebrate the wonderful diversity and creativity of this extraordinary and relentless campaign of opposition to the ongoing presence of weapons of mass destruction with which we are forced to live.

My daughter was at the peace camp the night the bottle was thrown through the van window. Next day she uncovered a sketch on the side of my caravan of a shoal of little fishes which together had the power to defeat the big grey shark Trident. She painted the little fishes in Rainbow colours, adding to the harmony of freshly decorated caravans on site. Like the shoal of diverse fishes the camp shimmers and sparkles as wave upon various wave of people pass through, with many groups using the camp as a base for their presence, and, with some individuals deciding to stay on and make the camp their temporary home, the population has doubled. The camp looks forward to welcoming many visitors to help celebrate 25 Years of Resistance to Nuclear Weapons at the Birthday Party on 15-16 June.

PRESS COVERAGE

As we stated in answer to the questions by local people in the Helensburgh Advertiser we long for the day when the Peace Camp will be a Peace Garden - a reminder of the time when the world still had nuclear weapons, and a monument to the struggle for the abolition of all weapons of mass destruction (see here)

The sustained and diverse actions in the Faslane365 campaign continue to generate substantial publicity. The day after the Trident vote the front page of the Scotsman collage of nationwide actions was composed half of photos from the Faslane protest with a quarter page photo of the NO NEW NUKES banner over pages 2 and 3 while The Herald had half a page of Trident protest photos and story. See the BBC News’ small slide show of the Trident Protests from Faslane in Pictures. The Sunday Herald Magazine included Trident Protesters in its list of “99 Things We Love About Scotland”. BBC News Magazine on line ran a photo of Coppers and Clowns as a Caption Competition. See The New Statesman’s story “The 365 Ways to Say No”. Or check out in the February issue of Red Pepper “Aiding the blockades” where Hilary Wainwright writes “there are no end of ways to blockade Faslane” and Rebecca Johnson on “Nuclear Whitewash”. More press coverage can be seen on the website: www.faslane365.org

As we are just past the halfway mark we are organizing a meeting to plan for continuing the energy of Faslane365 for resistance to nuclear weapons in the UK for Saturday 29 September, with an evening of creative celebration, song dance, storytelling, contributions welcome. Sunday 30 September will be further planning, with the afternoon and evening devoted to action preparation for autonomous groups who wish to join in a celebratory blockade of blockades to end the year of resistance. All are welcome. Contact info@faslane365.org for details and if you want to take part.

Donations to Faslane365 are welcome and needed. Please send cheques to:
Faslane 365
Valley Farmhouse
East Runton
Cromer
Norfolk
NR27 9PN
UK.

As we enter the second half of the Faslane 365 year long campaign of civil resistance to nuclear weapons the steering group would like to ask for more people to get involved to keep the blockades successful. If you look at the blockade rota on the website you will see that there are still gaps in the coming months and we invite new groups to sign up and old groups to take another turn. Let us know if you can help out with trainings, mobilising or website work. Contact us at:

info@faslane365.org, www.faslane365.org

0845 45 88 365

07768 312676