Autonomous Environmentalists Bockade RNAD Coulport

On Thurs­day, 26th April, a group of autonomous envi­ron­men­tal­ists shut down RNAD Coul­port, the MOD muni­tions depot where Britain’s nuclear weapons are stored, for a two hour peri­od. The activists used two 15 ft tripods each with a con­crete lock-on round one of the tri­pod legs, to block­ade the two roads lead­ing to the main gate of the base. The action was part of the Faslane 365 Envi­ron­men­tal­ists Block, com­mem­o­rat­ing the 21st anniver­sary of the Cher­nobyl dis­as­ter, and in protest at the upgrad­ing of Britain’s Tri­dent nuclear sys­tem.

Coulport eco blockade 1Coulport eco blockade 2On Thurs­day, 26th April, a group of autonomous envi­ron­men­tal­ists shut down RNAD Coul­port, the MOD muni­tions depot where Britain’s nuclear weapons are stored, for a two hour peri­od. The activists used two 15 ft tripods each with a con­crete lock-on round one of the tri­pod legs, to block­ade the two roads lead­ing to the main gate of the base. The action was part of the Faslane 365 Envi­ron­men­tal­ists Block, com­mem­o­rat­ing the 21st anniver­sary of the Cher­nobyl dis­as­ter, and in protest at the upgrad­ing of Britain’s Tri­dent nuclear sys­tem.

The two activists on the tri­pod blockad­ing the north­ern access road were even­tu­al­ly arrest­ed after the cut­ting team had removed the lock-on, and the climb­ing team had removed the activist at the top of the tri­pod, and charged with obstruc­tion of the high­way, part of the Roads Scot­land Act 1984. They were held in the Faslane police cells for a three hour peri­od before being released out­side on the North Gate on cau­tion and pend­ing court dates.

The two activists on the sec­ond tri­pod blockad­ing the shore road even­tu­al­ly unlocked after the north­ern access road had been cleared, although the activist locked on around one of the tri­pod legs had time to cre­ate addi­tion­al dis­rup­tion by unlock­ing only to super glue their hand to the tri­pod leg. Cir­cu­lar saws and pneu­mat­ic drills were replaced with a bowl of warm, soapy water.

In response to requests from local res­i­dents and school chil­dren prepar­ing to sit exams, and a local MSP Jack­ie Bail­lie, Coul­port was cho­sen as the tar­get of the block­ade instead of Faslane to max­imise dis­rup­tion to Britain’s nuclear pro­gramme and min­imise dis­rup­tion to local peo­ple. It is the opin­ion of the activists that the polic­ing is respon­si­ble for long traf­fic delays and that police tac­tics are exac­er­bat­ing and even cap­i­tal­is­ing on the dis­rup­tion caused by the ongo­ing block­ades.

The activists encour­age oth­er autonomous groups to take decen­tralised direct action against Tri­dent and all mil­i­tary oper­a­tions through­out the UK in order to hold back the grow­ing tide of mil­i­tarism and the envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion that goes with it.