Category: South East England

15th Feb 2010
Update: Approx­i­mate­ly 800 pro­test­ers block­ad­ed the base, with a large police and FIT/EG sur­veil­lance pres­ence. 26 arrests were report­ed, main­ly for obstruc­tion of a pub­lic high­way. The block­ade caused a huge back­log of traf­fic, many of which were work­ers try­ing to get to work at AWE, and fail­ing due to blocked gates. Main­stream media cov­er­age.

Cam­paign­ers call for dis­ar­ma­ment of Tri­dent and abo­li­tion of nuclear weapons

An esti­mat­ed eight hun­dred cam­paign­ers from Eng­land, North­ern Ire­land, Scot­land, Wales and a num­ber of oth­er coun­tries have joined a block­ade of every gate of the Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment (AWE) at Alder­mas­ton, Berk­shire, Eng­land. [1] The block­ade start­ed at 7am.

Indi­vid­u­als present at the block­ade, which is aimed at halt­ing con­struc­tion of mul­ti-bil­lion pound facil­i­ties for research and devel­op­ment of a new gen­er­a­tion of nuclear war­heads, [2] include Nobel Peace Prize lau­re­ates Jody Williams, from Ver­mont, USA and Máiread Cor­ri­g­an-Maguire, from Belfast, North­ern Ire­land (both Jody and Máiread were locked on using tubes). [3] Also present are the Catholic bish­op of Brent­wood, Thomas McMa­hon; the Angli­can bish­ops Stephen Cot­trell (Read­ing), Mike Hill (Bris­tol) and Peter Price (Bath and Wells); Jill Evans MEP, Vice Pres­i­dent of Plaid Cym­ru and chair of CND Cym­ru (Wales); and Kate Hud­son, chair of CND.

All gates have been block­ad­ed, with a large num­ber of peo­ple locked-on using tubes. In par­tic­u­lar, sev­er­al women are locked-on at the main gate exit, one of whom is in a wheel chair. Police are cur­rent­ly cut­ting peo­ple out of their lock-ons. Five arrests have been made to this point, with more expect­ed over the course of the day.

Bri­an Larkin, a Tri­dent Ploughshares (TP) activist who trav­elled from Helens­burgh, Scot­land, said: “This is the biggest block­ade of Alder­mas­ton in years and comes at a time when even major polit­i­cal par­ties are ques­tion­ing the log­ic of spend­ing up to £97 bil­lion [4] on use­less weapons. It demon­strates the depth and breadth of deter­mined civ­il soci­ety oppo­si­tion to Tri­dent and its planned replace­ment. [5] Although the gov­ern­ment now seems to have delayed the next phase of Tri­dent replace­ment until after the gen­er­al elec­tion, the ongo­ing con­struc­tion of facil­i­ties at the AWE for the design, devel­op­ment and man­u­fac­ture of new nuclear war­heads is ille­gal and immoral and will only lead to fur­ther pro­lif­er­a­tion of nuclear weapons.”

Ang­ie Zel­ter, co-founder of TP, who trav­elled from Knighton, Wales, added: “In May, world gov­ern­ments will meet to review the nuclear Non-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Treaty (NPT); [6] but this pro­gram of mod­erni­sa­tion of UK nuclear weapons vio­lates the treaty and could lead to a dis­as­trous fail­ure of the Review Con­fer­ence. Over forty years ago, when it signed up to the treaty, the UK made a deal to nego­ti­ate mul­ti­lat­er­al nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment in exchange for states with­out nuclear weapons agree­ing not to obtain them.[7] Not only have we failed to keep that promise but now we are prepar­ing to build a new gen­er­a­tion of nuclear weapons. If the gov­ern­ment wants to halt the pro­lif­er­a­tion of nuclear weapons it should get rid of its own nuclear weapons first. We are call­ing on the UK to abide by its agree­ment to achieve nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment — that means tak­ing Tri­dent off patrol, halt­ing all work and prepa­ra­tions for any new gen­er­a­tion of nuclear weapons and using the AWE only for dis­ar­ma­ment and ver­i­fi­ca­tion.”

Sarah Lasen­by, a TP activist who trav­elled from Oxford, added: “The time has come for the UK to dis­arm its nuclear weapons. Instead of build­ing a new gen­er­a­tion, the gov­ern­ment should go to the upcom­ing NPT Review Con­fer­ence in New York and com­mit to nego­ti­a­tions for a Nuclear Weapons Con­ven­tion to abol­ish nuclear weapons world­wide.” [8]

Each of the gates to the nuclear weapons site is themed: Scot­land, Wales, Eng­land, inter­na­tion­als [9], cyclists and envi­ron­men­tal­ists, faith groups, women and stu­dents. Choirs, med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, aca­d­e­mics and politi­cians are also present.

Media con­tacts: Daniel Vies­nik 07506 234 091; Bri­an Larkin 07768 312 676; Ang­ie Zel­ter 07835 354 652

Images from the block­ade: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cnduk

Updates:
http://twitter.com/TridentPlough
http://blockawe.blogspot.com

ENDS

Notes to edi­tors:

1. The Alder­mas­ton Big Block­ade was ini­ti­at­ed by Tri­dent Ploughshares and sup­port­ed by the Cam­paign for Nuclear Dis­ar­ma­ment (CND), the Alder­mas­ton Women’s Peace Camp(aign) (AWPC) and var­i­ous oth­er groups.

Tri­dent Ploughshares is a cam­paign to dis­arm the UK Tri­dent nuclear weapon sys­tem in a non­vi­o­lent, open, peace­ful and ful­ly account­able man­ner.
Web­site: http://www.tridentploughshares.org

CND web­site: http://www.cnduk.org
AWPC web­site: http://www.aldermaston.net

Block­ades of AWE Alder­mas­ton took place most recent­ly in Octo­ber 2008 and June 2009.

2. The Min­istry of Defence’s plan­ning appli­ca­tion for a new enriched ura­ni­um han­dling and stor­age facil­i­ty at AWE Alder­mas­ton, Project Pega­sus, was approved by West Berk­shire coun­cil on Wednes­day 10 Feb­ru­ary 2010, despite receiv­ing over 1400 let­ters of objec­tion. http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/berkshire/hi/people_and_places/newsid_8509000/8509099.stm

Cam­paign­ers say the new facil­i­ty will be used to build a new gen­er­a­tion of nuclear war­heads, which they say breach­es the UK’s legal oblig­a­tions under the Nuclear Non-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Treaty [see note 7].

For infor­ma­tion on all facil­i­ties under devel­op­ment or planned at the AWE, see: http://www.aldermaston.net/awe

3. Jody Williams won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 joint­ly with the cam­paign she worked for, the Inter­na­tion­al Cam­paign to Ban Land­mines..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jody_Williams

Máiread Cor­ri­g­an-Maguire was award­ed the prize in 1976 joint­ly with Bet­ty Williams for their work to end vio­lence in North­ern Ire­land.
http://en.wikipedia..org/wiki/Mairead_Corrigan

4. See report from Green­peace, In the Fir­ing Line (Sep­tem­ber 2009): http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/reports/firing-line-hidden-costs-supercarrier-project-and-replacing-trident

5. In an ICM poll for the Guardian pub­lished on 13 July 2009, 54% of respon­dents indi­cat­ed that they want­ed to see Britain aban­don its nuclear weapons and not replace its Tri­dent sys­tem. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/13/icm-poll-nuclear-weapons

6. The next five-year­ly Review Con­fer­ence of the NPT is due to take place 3–28 May 2010 in New York. For back­ground infor­ma­tion on the NPT and the Review Con­fer­ence, see: http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org

7. Arti­cle VI of the NPT, rat­i­fied by both the UK and the US, stip­u­lates: “Each of the Par­ties to the Treaty under­takes to pur­sue nego­ti­a­tions in good faith on effec­tive mea­sures relat­ing to ces­sa­tion of the nuclear arms race at an ear­ly date and to nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment, and on a treaty on gen­er­al and com­plete dis­ar­ma­ment under strict and effec­tive inter­na­tion­al con­trol.”
http://www.un.org/en/conf/npt/2005/npttreaty.html

8. For fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the inter­na­tion­al cam­paign for the NPT Review Con­fer­ence to com­mit to nego­ti­a­tions toward a Nuclear Weapons Con­ven­tion, see: http://www.icanw.org

9. In addi­tion to the hun­dreds of UK peo­ple who have par­tic­i­pat­ed in the block­ade, there are peo­ple from Bel­gium, Swe­den, Fin­land, and Switzer­land in atten­dance at Alder­mas­ton.

media@tridentploughshares.org
http://blockawe.blogspot.com/