Press Releases & Updates 2000

Two campaigners from Biggar in Scotland cut their way into Faslane Naval Base on the Clyde, north of Glasgow, home to Britain’s four Trident submarines. Jean Oliver (41) and Douglas Shaw (50) were arrested at 11 a.m. this morning, while cutting through the fence with boltcutters. They had been trying to get through to the submarine berths at Faslane.

Meanwhile at Aldermaston in Berkshire, four campaigners from East Anglia have cut into the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE). Barbara Sunderland, Davida Higgin, and Peter Lanyon (all retired school teachers), and Simone Chimowitz were arrested at 11:30 this morning, while cutting through the high security fence at AWE Aldermaston. They had already cut through the outer chain-link fencing. Wearing white radiation suits, they intended to inspect the base, and to investigate the illegal and life-threatening development of new forms of Trident warheads. AWE Aldermaston makes the plutonium "pits" (bomb cores) for Trident warheads.

Both groups are part of the Trident Ploughshares campaign, which has organised this weekend’s ’disarmament camp’ at AWE Aldermaston. Campaigners from across Europe have gathered at Aldermaston, committed to taking safe and non-violent direct action against the establishment there. Those arrested at Aldermaston this morning carried with them statements of intent, saying,

"We are here on Rememberance day to remember the dead of all wars, and to try actively to prevent the British Government from manufacturing illegal weapons of mass destruction, planning genocide and future wars. We must work towards peace in the future."

These actions come the week that the High Court in Edinburgh reconvenes to consider questions about the illegality of Trident nuclear weapons under international law, arising from the acquittal in October 1999 by Sheriff Gimblett of three peace activists who had disarmed the Trident research barge ’Maytime’. They bring the number of arrests since the Trident Ploughshares campaign began in 1998 to 778, with 750 days spent in prison. Last weekend, two campaigners broke into an RAF base in Cambridgeshire, and symbolically disabled a military vehicle used to transport nuclear warheads from the Atomic Weapons Establishments in Berkshire to the submarine bases in Scotland.

A Trident Ploughshares spokesperson said, "These actions come at an exciting time for the campaign. Not only are more people getting involved all the time, but we are at last hearing the real issues about Trident debated in the High Court in Scotland. The Remembrance Day actions show that we are committed to our disarmament work at both ends of the nuclear chain, from manufacture at Aldermaston to deployment at Faslane."

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