1. Overview of TP

Tri-denting It Handbook, 3rd Ed (2001) Part 1 Overview Of Trident Ploughshares

Contents

1.1 Aims

1.2 Several Good Reasons for Disarming Trident

1.3 General Overview of Trident Ploughshares

1.4 Timetable for Actions

1.5 Why Nonviolent Action and why this Action Now?

1.6 Background History and Philosophy of the Ploughshares Movement to Date

1.7 Chronology and Succinct Summary of the Anti-nuclear Weapons Campaign to Date

References and Acknowledgements

Recommended Further Reading

1.1 Aims

Trident Ploughshares is taking place within the context of an international peace movement which has been actively engaged in nuclear disarmament work ever since the first use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki over 50 years ago.

As global citizens we will endeavour to openly, accountably, safely and peacefully disarm the British nuclear weapon system, which is deployed on Trident submarines. Our acts of disarmament are intended to stop ongoing criminal activity under well-recognised principles of international law. We will do this as our part of an international citizens’ initiative to encourage a nuclear weapon free world and an international culture of peace and co-operation.

The very many actions and campaigns, of which this is just a small part, may well not succeed in the abolition of all nuclear weapons in the very near future. We must not lose heart if this is the case. All we can do is our very best. Each attempt at disarmament adds to the overall pressure and we will perhaps never know which of the many peace actions finally succeeds in pulling the world back from the brink of a nuclear holocaust. We can be sure however that our acts of disarmament will have an effect and be part of the solution. Trident Ploughshares is a practical way of peacefully disarming some of the horrific nuclear threats to life on earth and is a way of withdrawing our consent for British nuclear weapons and NATO nuclear war planning.

1.2 Several Good Reasons for Disarming Trident

  To use or threaten to use nuclear weapons of any kind is a crime against humanity and totally immoral.
  Trident is criminal and illegal.
  Trident is a clear breach of Articles I and VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
  Trident pollutes the environment with toxic and radioactive waste threatening the future of the planet.
  Trident deployment does not respect international Nuclear Free Zone boundaries and exposes every person on the planet to the risk of a nuclear accident.
  Trident warheads are transported from one end of the UK to another exposing countless communities to the risk of a nuclear accident.
  Scarce global resources and vast sums of British taxpayers’ money spent on Trident (currently around £1.5 billion per year) are being diverted from urgent social necessities (eg in health and education) and from programmes that could tackle the underlying causes of international conflict.
  A majority of the world’s nations feel threatened by nuclear weapons and want them disarmed. Many poor nations regard them as a terrible threat which is used to protect the interests of the rich nations.
  Trident is anti-democratic. The decision to have nuclear weapons was made in secret without informed public debate. The majority of people in recent polls say it would be best for British security if we do not have nuclear weapons.
  The British Government and NATO are not disarming Trident themselves.
  Global citizens have a right and obligation to uphold international law, to behave ethically and in the interests of the global community, and to disarm Trident themselves.

1.3 General Overview of Trident Ploughshares

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By January 2001, 175 Ploughshares activists from fifteen different countries, united under an agreed set of nonviolence and safety ground-rules, and organised into supportive affinity groups, had undergone a common preparation in order to attempt to disarm the British nuclear Trident system. Each activist signs the Pledge to Prevent Nuclear Crime (Part 9.1) and a public list of their names is sent to the Government every three months.

Serious and considered dialogue and negotiation is continually offered to the British Government with a set of criteria for nuclear disarmament. Some of the letters and a summary of the dialogue can be seen in Part 3. If promises of serious and meaningful nuclear disarmament are forthcoming then Trident Ploughshares will be able to stop its active and practical disarmament actions, but meanwhile they continue.

Trident Ploughshares was launched on May 2nd 1998 in Edinburgh, Gent, Gothenburg, Hiroshima, and London. In August that year several hundred activists attended the two-week disarmament camp at Faslane and Coulport for the first of the open disarmament actions and there were over 100 arrests. By the end of the camp, nine people were on remand in Scottish prisons and tens of cases were being heard in the local District Court at Helensburgh. The disarmament actions ranged from fence-cutting to blockades to swimming across the loch almost onto a Trident submarine in the dead of night. Since then there have been regular open disarmament camps every three months. Security at the bases is constantly being breached.

By November 2000 the total number of arrests was 775 and the local court system had been so overwhelmed that the majority of first arrests are now seldom pursued through the courts. Most actions are ’minimum’ disarmament actions (eg blockades and fence cutting) but there have been eight ’maximum’ disarmament actions of which three were successful. Rachel and Rosie disarmed testing equipment on HMS Vengeance at Barrow in February 1999, Ellen, Ulla and Angie disarmed ’Maytime’ at Loch Goil in June 1999, and Susan and Martin disarmed a warhead convoy vehicle at RAF Wittering in November 2000.

Trident Ploughshares Pledgers have committed themselves to continual disarmament attempts until the Government commit to disarming Trident themselves.

For a more detailed look at the story so far see Part 4.

1.4 Timetable for Actions

To date there have been four ’open’ disarmament events every year, at either Coulport/Faslane or Aldermaston in February, May, August and November. The February and November events being over a long weekend; the May event is a week long; and the August event is a two-week disarmament camp at Coulport.

Affinity groups can, and do, plan and carry out their own ’closed’ disarmament actions at any of the Trident-related sites at any time of their own choosing.

For up-to-date information on dates and places of disarmament actions please contact us or phone the TP Newsline, or check the TP Events Diary.

1.5 Why Nonviolent Action and why this Action Now?

Why nonviolent action?

Nonviolence has been chosen as the guiding principle for the Trident Ploughshares project for a variety of good reasons:

  Our vision is for a world which is not ruled by violence, but relies instead upon co-operation, tolerance and a willingness to seek creative outcomes to nonviolent conflict. This is how we work in our affinity groups. Trident represents the logical conclusion of a habit of thinking which relies upon domination by force and threat of annihilation. It is an expression of extreme violence. Our methods for opposing Trident must be consistent with our vision of what we would like to see in its place. Part of the aim of Trident Ploughshares is to show that active nonviolence can be more powerful than even the deadliest weapon on earth. It is entirely possible.
  Since Trident is supported by the military, legal and political establishment, we should acknowledge that we are confronting a very violent system. Violence is a common response to a concerted challenge. The system is designed to respond to violent resistance through the use of greater violence, but it doesn’t have much expertise in handling nonviolent resistance. We should be prepared for violence and be strong in our calm and peaceful responses. We are trying to bring a new and creative dynamic into a deadlocked situation - violence will not do that.
  Nonviolent intervention is about bringing an inherently violent or unjust situation to wide attention and changing it. We are not trying to defeat an enemy in a situation of winners and losers; we are instead seeking to transform the situation so that everybody wins.
  Violent conflict seeks to dehumanise the opponent so as to justify harm to them. Nonviolent conflict always looks beyond the title, the uniform or the suit to the person so as to engage on a purely human level. Even if our opponents are aggressive or violent, we will practise techniques to stay calm and try to defuse the situation. Any complete and lasting disarmament needs the support and active participation of everyone. Indeed, some of the very people we are actively confronting in this Ploughshares action will have to complete our disarmament work by making the decisions and actually doing the practical task of decommissioning the warheads. We have to live with one another.

Why this action now?

Campaigning against nuclear weapons has been going on for over 50 years, ie for as long as there have been nuclear weapons. Part 1.7 gives a very brief overview of the national and international attempts to persuade our governments to abolish nuclear weapons. It has involved millions of people all around the world and includes a vast range of different activities. Despite all of this, the nuclear powers still have nuclear weapons, still deploy them and are still researching and developing new models. If nuclear weapon states ignore their treaty obligations to get rid of their nuclear weapons, we cannot expect non-nuclear states to keep their side of the bargain by not developing their own. The testing of nuclear weapons by India and Pakistan in May 1998 is the clearest signal yet of this, and there are more states waiting in the wings to follow their example.

We are now, however, at a time in history when global nuclear disarmament is more achievable. The reason given for the existence of nuclear weapons, to deter a war between superpowers, no longer exists. Trident, like many other weapons, was designed and built from a Cold War perspective, and has no obvious military role today. There is a clear treaty obligation on the part of the nuclear weapons states to negotiate away their nuclear weapons. This was loudly reaffirmed by both nuclear and non-nuclear weapon states at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference of 2000. The United Nations Conference on Disarmament offers a ready-made forum in which they can do it. The Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (World Court) in July 1996 increased the pressure on the nuclear weapons states to fulfil this obligation sooner rather than later. The whole process leading up to the World Court decision galvanised many non-nuclear weapons states into applying further pressure. The Canberra Commission has clearly demonstrated the feasibility of nuclear disarmament and has done much to address the technical, scientific and political problems cited as obstacles by the nuclear weapons states. Sixty-two generals and admirals around the world have publicly declared their opposition to the continued inclusion of nuclear weapons in military arsenals. One of these, General Lee Butler, was, until his retirement in 1994, Commander-in-Chief of the US Strategic Command, with responsibility for all US Air Force and US Navy strategic nuclear forces. His statement can be seen on our website.

In June 1998 the Foreign Ministers of Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand/Aotearea, Slovenia, South Africa and Sweden made a joint declaration calling for decisive action to eliminate nuclear weapons from the earth. They have pledged to ’spare no efforts to pursue the objectives of a universal and multilaterally negotiated legally binding process to achieve the goal of a world free from nuclear weapons’. This New Agenda Coalition, as they became known, followed up this declaration by tabling a resolution at the United Nations General Assembly. Voting patterns on these resolutions have revealed; massive support in favour, opposition by the nuclear weapon states, and differences between the member states of NATO.

On the domestic front, public opinion is questioning the expenditure of vast sums of money on nuclear weapons when there is a real problem of funding for public services. In its Strategic Defence Review of 1998, the UK Government took some small unilateral steps to de-alert its Trident missile system, move towards a greater transparency of its nuclear weapons capacity and reduce its Trident warhead numbers. But this is hardly the catalyst that will bring about moves toward global nuclear disarmament, nor is it intended to be. The UK Government has made clear its position that it will not throw its nuclear weapons into disarmament negotiations until the US and Russia have reduced their stocks to a level comparable with the UK’s.

We have then, a situation where pressure is being applied at every level, from grassroots to military to diplomatic. The nuclear weapons states are finding it increasingly difficult to justify their position. Education, persuasion and lobbying have been continuous throughout and remain essential to keep the dialogue going. So far, the nuclear weapons states have resisted all of it. Trident Ploughshares is one means of applying extra pressure which may lead to a breakthrough.

In many protest movements, particularly those seeking a far-reaching social or political change, it is often necessary to challenge laws which protect the unjust status quo. Mohandas Gandhi, along with thousands of others in the struggle for Indian independence, broke the law and was imprisoned. In 1955, Rosa Parks broke laws by refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man; this was the catalyst for the US Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, during which Martin Luther King and thousands of others broke laws and were imprisoned. Thousands of South Africans broke national and local laws and were imprisoned before the apartheid regime of South Africa was overturned.

There may well be, in some people’s minds, some uncertainty about whether our Trident Ploughshares actions are within or outside the law, or some ambiguity about what the law actually says. Trident Ploughshares activists should feel able to justify their disarmament actions simply as an act of love
  they do not have to use the legal justifications unless they wish to. Some of us may choose to use the law to show that it is the nuclear weapon states who are the law breakers. Indeed, we have made amazing progress on this front, particularly in the Scottish courts. Please see The Story so Far (Part 4), The Criminality of Trident (Part 6.7) and the Outline Skeleton Defence (Part 7.5).

Others may wish to point to the fact that nonviolent direct action is often undertaken in obedience to a high moral or ethical principle which conflicts with domestic law. When this happens it is important that everybody should openly subject their self to the legal process and conduct their defence on the basis of this higher moral law.

Challenging laws which are unjust or which protect an unjust status quo is not something everybody would choose to do, but it is a focus for the active work of many Ploughshares groups. There are opportunities for those who are not prepared to subject themselves to the court process, to support those who are. The pledge is expressly designed both for those who wish to support and for those free enough to be able to confront the court system.

Openly and responsibly undertaken, legal challenges can be an essential part of the democratic process and are a legitimate method by which ordinary people can create change. Diplomatic pressure and public campaigning sometimes require the added impetus of nonviolent direct action, including civil resistance, to help the process of change along. Nonviolent direct action complements rather than replaces the conventional methods of campaigning and can help those mainstream voices to be better heard.

We are at a time when it is appropriate to use every nonviolent means at our disposal.

1.6 Background History and Philosophy of the Ploughshares Movement to Date

The Ploughshares movement originated in the North American faith-based peace movement. Many priests and nuns in the 1970s began to resist the Vietnam War, thereby connecting with the radical political secular movements. When the war ended, the arms race and nuclear weapons became the focus of resistance. There was a deep sense of urgency. Ordinary protests did not suffice - the nuclear arms race continued to escalate. People responded by engaging in more confrontative nonviolent resistance. The underlying rationale was that if people were expected to risk their lives for their country in war then we have to be willing to risk something for peace. Catholic Workers, and other communities such as Jonah House in Baltimore, US, became the base of the movement. These communities combined solidarity work for the inner city poor (soup kitchens, shelters etc) and nonviolent resistance to the US war machine.

The first Ploughshares action was carried out in 1980. On September 9th the ’Ploughshares Eight’ entered a General Electric plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, US, where the nose cones for the Mark 12A nuclear warheads were manufactured. Enacting the Biblical prophecies of Isaiah (2:4) and Micah (4:3) that people would ’beat swords into ploughshares’, they hammered on two of the nose cones and poured blood on documents. They were arrested, tried by a jury, convicted and sentenced to prison terms ranging from 1 to 10 years. After a series of appeals that lasted ten years they were re-sentenced to time they had already served - from several days to 23 months.

Although the name comes from the Hebrew scripture, the Ploughshares movement is not a Christian or Jewish movement. It includes people of different faiths and philosophies. Actually, in most Ploughshares groups the members adhere to a range of different faiths or philosophies. Some people have seen their action arising out of the Biblical prophecy of Isaiah and as witnessing to the kingdom of God. Others, coming from a secular perspective, have viewed their action as being primarily motivated by a humanist or deeply held conscience commitment to nonviolence and solidarity with the poor. Then again there have been other people with a range of religious, moral or political convictions. What they all have in common is a striving to abolish war, an engagement in constructive conversion of arms and military related industry into life affirming production, and the development of nonviolent methods for resolving conflicts.

Since the Ploughshares Eight many people have continued the disarmament work. Using simple tools such as household hammers, ordinary people continued disarming weapons in a small but effective way. As of August 1997 over 140 individuals had participated in over 60 Ploughshares actions in Australia, Germany, Holland, Sweden, UK and US. The smallest group of hammerers consisted of one person (who had only one support person) - Harmonic Disarmament for Life, and the largest group of hammerers consisted of nine people and was called Trident Nein.

There have been very many different weapon systems that have been disarmed. There have been components of US first-strike nuclear weapon systems such as the MX, Pershing II, Cruise, Minuteman ICBM’s, Trident II missiles, Trident submarines, B-52 bombers, P-3 Orion anti-submarine aircraft, the NAVSTAR system and nuclear capable battleships. Combat aircraft used for military intervention, such as helicopters, the F-111 and F-15E fighter bombers and the Hawk aircraft as well as other weapons including anti-aircraft missile launchers, bazooka grenade throwers and AK-5 automatic rifles, have also been disarmed. Model weapons have also been disarmed at an arms bazaar.

The most common way of disarming weapons in Ploughshares actions is to use a hammer. Ordinary household hammers. Activists have hammered on nosecones, loading mechanisms, breech-sights, barrels, control panels, bomb mountings, bomb pylons, bomb guidance antennae and so on. Hammers are used to begin the process of disarmament. The hammer is used for dismantling as well as creating, and it points to the urgency for conversion of war production to products that enhance life.

There have also been Ploughshares actions where people have disarmed weapons in other ways. The ELF communication system transmitter site near Clam Lake, Wisconsin, US was disarmed by cutting down three ELF poles and cutting some ground wires with a hatchet, saw and other tools - Harmonic Disarmament for Life 1987. The Trident USS Florida at Electric Boat shipyard, Groton, Connecticut was disarmed with a security van. Peter DeMott noticed the empty van with keys in it, got into the van and repeatedly rammed the Trident, denting the rudder
  Plowshares Number 2, 1980. Also two Minuteman missile silos were disarmed by the Silo Plowshares in 1986, using sledgehammers to split and disarm the geared central track used to move the 120-ton missile silo cover at the time of launch. They also cut circuits and used masonry hammers to damage electrical sensor equipment.

People who have been involved in Ploughshares actions have undertaken a process of intense spiritual preparation, nonviolence training and community formation, and have given careful consideration to the risks involved. Extensive care is taken to prevent any violence from occurring during the action. Accepting full responsibility, Ploughshares activists always peacefully await arrest following each act in order to participate in a public conversation about the particular issues which the action raises: nuclear weapons, arms exports to repressive regimes, military defence, democracy, solidarity and so on. The goal is to reach an agreement, a democratic decision about disarmament.

The backgrounds of Ploughshares activists vary widely. Parents, grandparents, veterans, former lawyers, teachers, artists, musicians, poets, priests, sisters, house-painters, carpenters, writers, health-care workers, students, gardeners, advocates of the poor and homeless - all have participated in Ploughshares actions.

With the exception of the Aegis Ploughshares and the first Australian Ploughshares group, all Ploughshares activists have been prosecuted for their actions. While most Ploughshares activists have pleaded not-guilty and have gone to trial, several Ploughshares and disarmament activists opted to plead ’guilty’ or ’no contest’ to charges brought against them. All of the trials, except three to date, have ended in convictions. The first exception was the four women in the Seeds of Hope - East Timor Ploughshares in the UK, who disarmed a Hawk fighter plane destined for export to Indonesia. In July 1996 the jury in Liverpool found them not guilty. The second case was in October 1999 at Greenock Sheriff Court in Scotland when three Trident Ploughshares women were acquitted after disarming a Trident research laboratory in the middle of Loch Goil. More recently, Sylvia Boyes and River were arrested when swimming towards Trident, and were charged with Conspiracy to Commit Criminal Damage. A jury at Manchester Crown Court acquitted them in January 2001. Members of the Epiphany Ploughshares were tried an unprecedented five times with mistrials and three trials ending in hung juries.

During trials most of the defendants have represented themselves and have been assisted by legal advisers. Many Ploughshares defendants have attempted to show that their actions were morally and legally justified, and that their intent was to protect life, not commit a crime. Almost all US judges have denied this testimony and have prohibited the justification/necessity defences, whereas in Europe the situation is different. Some US judges, including those who presided in the trials of the Epiphany Ploughshares and Pax-Christi Spirit of Life Ploughshares, issued gag orders and found defendants in contempt of court for speaking about the truth of their action. Those convicted for Ploughshares actions have received sentences ranging from suspended sentences to 18 years in prison. The average prison sentence has been between one and two years.

Art Laffin of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House in Washington, D.C., US, writes, ’In my view, the basic hope of the Ploughshares actions is to communicate from the moment of entry into a plant or base - and throughout the court and prison witness - an underlying faith that the power of nonviolent love can overcome the forces of violence; a reverence for the sacredness of all life and creation; a plea for justice for the victims of poverty and the arms race; an acceptance of personal responsibility for the dismantling and the physical conversion of the weapons; and a spiritual conversion of the heart to the way of justice and reconciliation. Thus, Ploughshares participants believe that the physical dismantling of the weapon and the personal disarmament of the heart is a reciprocal process. As Phil Berrigan states, ’We try to disarm ourselves by disarming weapons’.

People who do Ploughshares actions are ordinary people who, with all their weaknesses, are attempting to respond truthfully to a call of nonviolence. These actions are not to be glamorised or taken lightly. People have taken great risks, experienced the loneliness and dehumanisation of prison, and have had to cope with many difficult personal and family hardships. Building and sustaining an active nonviolent resistance community takes commitment and is certainly not problem-free. Yet with all their limitations and imperfections, these actions are powerful reminders that we can live in a world without weapons and war if people are willing to begin the process of disarmament, including learning nonviolent ways of dealing with conflicts and literally beating the swords of our time into ploughshares. While these actions usually are deemed criminal by the state, they should be considered a sign of hope in a violent time. Although each Ploughshares action has many similarities to others, in the end each is unique, each is a learning process, each is an experiment in truth.

1.7 Chronology and Succinct Summary of the Anti-nuclear Weapons Campaign to Date

The Anti-nuclear Movement in Britain

Like its counterparts in other countries, British campaigning has employed a range of tactics, including petitions, manifestos, public meetings, conferences, lobbying,demonstrations, peace camps,nonviolentdirect actions and legal processes. British groups have often joined with those abroad in international actions and the rise and fall of activity in Britain has paralleled that in other parts of the world. However, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) stands out for its endurance over 40years.

1945-62. As in the USA, the first organised efforts for nuclear disarmament came from the scientists. Under the inspiration of Joseph Rotblat (winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996) and Kathleen Lonsdale particularly, the Atomic Scientists Association was formed in 1946. In 1950, 100 Cambridge scientists petitioned the government not to develop the hydrogen bomb (see the international section for other activities). During the 50s, the seeds of street protest were sown, with the formation of the Non-Violent Commission set up by the Peace Pledge Union (1949). Some of its members later formed Operation Gandhi, which organised a sit-down outside the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in 1952, and, soon after, demonstrations at Aldermaston, Mildenhall, Harwell and other places. In turn, members of this group played a crucial role in the formation of the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War in 1957, which organised the first Aldermaston March (1958), and continued to stage occupations and sit-downs at military bases and atomic establishments. It merged with CND in 1961.

Concern over the H-bomb, radioactive fallout from atmospheric bomb tests and the increasingly dire pressures of the Cold War led to further organising of direct action via the Committee of 100, which was launched by the appeal statement ’Act or Perish’ by Bertrand Russell and the Rev. Michael Scott (1960). Its central aim was to create civil disobedience against the Bomb on a mass basis. Their first action involved 5,000 people in a sitdown at the MoD (1961). Later that year there were sitdowns numbering 12,000 in Trafalgar Square where there were 1,300 arrests and 7,000 people sat down at three US bases and four cities with around 800 arrests. As well as civil disobedience actions, there was an anti-H-bomb petition (1954) which gained one million signatures, calling for a disarmament conference and the strengthening of the UN; also a march and rally organised by the National Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons Testing (NCANWT), in which 2,000 women protested against the (British) Christmas Island H-bomb tests (1957). It was the local groups of NCANWT which contributed greatly to the formation of CND.

CND itself was launched in February 1958 at a London meeting with over 5,000 present. This event (bringing together individuals and more than 100 local groups) and the subsequent Aldermaston March created a grass-roots anti-nuclear campaign of national significance. By 1962 the Hyde Park climax of March involved 150,000.

In Scotland, action centred on Holy Loch, on the Clyde, where US Polaris missile submarines were based. Two sitdowns took place in 1961, one organised by the Direct Action Committee, the other a few months later by the Committee of 100, to coincide with their actions in Trafalgar Square. Many local councils passed resolutions against Polaris. Before this, there was a Scottish Council for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons Tests formed in Edinburgh (1958) which grew out of an Edinburgh group started in 1957 in protest against the Christmas Island tests. Scottish CND evolved from these groups (and others) and was launched after a march of about 4,000 in Glasgow in May 1959.

1963-1980. The Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963 came about as a result of the nearly catastrophic Cuban missile crisis and the obvious world-wide concern over atmospheric testing. It reduced anti-nuclear tensions and the levels of protest. But Peter Watson’s film ’The War Game’, showing the imagined aftermath of a nuclear attack was banned from being shown by the BBC (it was finally shown in the 80s). There were other films, books and studies dealing with the nuclear issue in the 60s and 70s and some of these began to link the anti-nuclear movements with growing environmental awareness. In 1970 over 40 peace, religious and trade union groups were brought together by CND for conferences and joint activities. In 1978 a petition against the neutron bomb collected a quarter of a million signatures.

1980 to the present. The NATO decision in 1979 to deploy land-based nuclear missiles in Western Europe and Britain, brought on a new generation of protest (see also in the international section that follows). Thousands took part in demonstrations at the planned missile sites of Greenham Common and Molesworth; from 1981 onward there was a permanent peace camp at Greenham Common which became a women’s camp in 1982. Very large CND demonstrations were held in London (1981 and 1982
  both up to 250,000 people) and in many other cities. At Bridgend in Wales there was a successful nonviolent direct action to stop nuclear bunkers being built. Manchester was the first city to declare itself a Nuclear Free Zone (1980) and in the next few years some 140 councils followed suit. The Government’s civil defence campaign (’Protect and Survive’) fell apart under exposure which involved street actions, leafleting, letters to the press and public meetings, in many places in virtual partnership with local authorities. Scientists took an active part in researching and publicising the aftermath of a nuclear war (SCOPE Report, SANA nuclear winter campaign). In 1980 the Alternative Defence Commission was set up as an independent body supported by the Bradford University School of Peace Studies and others, to examine non-nuclear defence and foreign policy alternatives for Britain, publishing two widely discussed reports in 1983 and 1987. Labour, Liberal and other political parties moved strongly towards nuclear disarmament (later this was reversed).

Actions also continued at Greenham with 30,000 women encircling the base in 1982. In 1983, the 24th May was International Women’s Day for Disarmament, and women’s peace camps were set up at US, NATO and other sites in Britain. Faslane Peace Camp was set up on the Clyde in 1982, at a peppercorn rent and with planning permission from Strathclyde Regional Council. In the late 80s they began doing sea actions as well as holding vigils, blockading the base and breaking in. Their role became heightened when the Trident submarines began to be based there.

The Snowball Campaign began in 1984. The aim was to demonstrate by direct action, the widespread public desire for peace and nuclear disarmament. Campaigners cut a strand of wire at their local nuclear base and gave themselves up for arrest. Nearly 3,000 people took part at 42 different places during three years, and there were 2,419 arrests. During the 80s there were also a number of court proceedings initiated through the International Law Against War (INLAW), Pax Legalis and the Institute for Law and Peace (INLAP) campaigns whose aims included charging members of the Government for conspiracy to incite others to commit Genocide or grave breaches of the Geneva Convention. These ’layings of information’ often got local publicity and support but (predictably) got no further as the various courts threw them out on ’public interest’ grounds or accused the campaigners of malicious and vexatious litigation! The really successful legal campaign was the World Court Project begun in 1987 (see International section on next page and also Part 6.7).

With the START negotiations between the US and the Soviet Union (later with Russia), the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the renewal of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and above all the ending of the Cold War, it has become more difficult to mobilise public opinion against a nuclear threat perceived as much less dangerous than in the 80s. Nevertheless, CND is still active (with a lower membership than in the early 80s) nationally and in several hundred local groups. Abolition 2000, founded in 1996, aims to draw together all peace and anti-nuclear groups. Greenpeace has taken a high profile action against French nuclear testing in the Pacific, and along with FOE has taken action against radioactive waste dumping. Much attention in recent years has focussed on nuclear power and the plutonium economy. The Nuclear Free Local Authorities are still concerned with issues of nuclear transport, safety, waste and the conversion of arms industries to peaceful jobs. Nukewatch has mobilised hundreds of local campaigners who track every nuclear convoy travelling the British roads, often stopping them in their tracks, and they also publicise the frequent accidents and the potential for serious nuclear contamination. The Faslane Peace Camp is under threat of eviction with a change in council boundaries but is still battling on.

The continued existence of Trident in a very altered world poses a challenge to all British campaigners as the peace movement gains strength for what we hope will be a final transformation to a Britain that encourages peaceful resolution of conflict rather than nuclear annihilation.

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The International Anti-nuclear Movement

Anti-nuclear campaigning at an international level has taken various forms: open letters, petitions, conferences and lobbying from the scientific community; professional and citizens’ actions throughout the established channels of the law and Government; and diverse forms of ’street’ protest (marches, blockades, direct action, peace camps). Although one or another of these activities has been going on almost continuously since 1945, there have been peaks and troughs associated with particular periods of nuclear development, deployment or crises.

During the first few years after 1945 scientists mainly lead the anti-nuclear movement (although at the diplomatic level a further protocol of the Geneva Convention was added in 1949). The Federation of Atomic Scientists lobbied intensively for civilian control of the US Atomic Energy Commission with some success. As the Cold War deepened, the Einstein-Russell manifesto (with signers including Linus Pauling and Joseph Rotblat) led to the first Pugwash conference (1957), an international gathering of eminent scientists against nuclear weapons, which has continued to meet ever since. At the same time, Pauling initiated a petition against nuclear weapons and testing which gained nearly 10,000 scientists’ signatures. The quickening of the arms race, the NATO decision in favour of First Strike and growing public awareness of the dangers of radioactive fallout from atmospheric testing stimulated the first of many street protests in Germany and elsewhere (for CND action see section on Britain).

All these efforts of the late 50s, but probably mainly the implications of the Cuban missiles crisis of 1962, led to the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963 between the US, Soviet Union and UK, banning atmospheric testing. (France continued to do atmospheric testing - see below). But anti-nuclear campaigning continued, particularly in Europe: the European Federation Against Nuclear Arms - 12 nations meeting in Copenhagen, 1962; a march of 100,000 in Germany against nuclear weapons on West German territory, and others.

On another level the UN passed a resolution in 1961 declaring the use of nuclear weapons contrary to the spirit, letter and aims of the Charter - the first of many similar resolutions. Between 1959 and 1985 a number of treaties establishing nuclear-free zones in Antarctica, Latin America, Africa and the South Pacific were signed.

In 1973 Australia and New Zealand took France to the International Court of Justice over atmospheric testing in the Pacific. France refused to acknowledge the Court’s authority, did two more tests and then announced that she had no further need for atmospheric testing, thus enabling the Court to shelve the case.

Nuclear powers offered Negative Security Agreements to non-nuclear powers in 1978, extending in a fashion the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968. These NSAs are of uncertain force. The first UN Special Session on Disarmament (UNSSOD) in New York in 1978 was an occasion for demonstrations there, especially one by international women’s groups.

The decision by NATO to deploy land-based missiles (Cruise and Pershing) in Europe in 1974 initiated a new wave of protests. The Soviet Union had earlier deployed SS20s, and after NATO’s disproportionately large response they (SU) extended the SS20 zone to include East Germany and Czechoslovakia. In Holland 20,000 plaintiffs took their Government to court to prevent the stationing of Cruise and succeeded only in delaying this. There were anti-neutron bomb protests in Holland and Germany, street protests and lobbying in the US (150,000 people marched in Washington) and a huge rally in New York coinciding with the second UNSSOD (1982). Many women’s actions took place world-wide including conferences, marches, direct action and peace camps (for Greenham Common see the British section). Some direct action court cases won acquittals on the ’necessary defence’ principle (action to prevent a greater crime) but not many.

It was at this time that E.P.Thompson founded European Nuclear Disarmament (END), intending it to be a grass roots movement to create a nuclear-free group of nations in Europe (east and west). Referring to the declaration of scientists, including Sakharov, and a few non-scientists like Lord Mountbatten and Pope John Paul, he wrote, ’Every warning has been disregarded ... (we) cannot get through to the political power’.

During the 80s, actions pursuing the legal-political path were taking place: the international group of Nuclear Free Local Authorities, the Nuremburg Tribunal Against First Strike, the Nuclear Warfare Tribunal convened by the International Peace Bureau and other peace groups, and the World Court Project; while Canadians mounted Operation Dismantle, Japan and Belau saw action to defend their nuclear-free constitutions, and New Zealand passed an Act declaring itself nuclear free (1987). On January 12th 1987, 22 Judges blockaded the US base at Mutlangen in West Germany, protesting at the deployment of Pershing. In their statements to their fellow Judges before whom they were tried they explained that they had a special responsibility not to be silent in the face of ever-growing stockpiles of nuclear weaponry. One Judge, Ulf Panzer, stated, ’It is our office to serve justice and peace. Nuclear arms do not serve justice or peace. They are the ultimate crime. They hold all humankind as hostages.’

Between 1987 and 1996, when the Advisory opinion was handed down, the World Court Project (WCP) campaigned to get the International Court of Justice to consider the legality of nuclear weapons. Over 4 million ’declarations of public conscience’ were collected world-wide, and the International group of Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 and by then had the support of 140,000 doctors in 34 countries) successfully lobbied the World Health Assembly to refer the issue to the Court. Although the eventual judgement was almost all that could be hoped for the WCP regards it as a beginning only and present actions are under way to convince the nuclear powers to accept it. Meanwhile the Canberra Commission set up by the Australian Government in 1996 is attempting by diplomatic means to achieve agreement on a denuclearisation programme among all the nuclear powers.

A surge of protest against French nuclear testing in the Pacific (1995-6) showed that international action could still be aroused by a specific provocation; however, the French completed their series of tests. A recent statement from 60 naval and military high officers has strongly supported abolition of nuclear weapons. There is also an international network called Abolition 2000 drawing together many peace groups.

The Hague Appeal for Peace brought together many of the international movements for peace and disarmament with its appeal to ’commit to initiating the final steps for abolishing war, for replacing the law of force with the force of law’. Trident Ploughshares aligned itself with this international peace movement and joined the Hague Conference in May 1999 and the following walk to NATO Headquarters in Brussels.

With the ending of the Cold War and limited measures of nuclear detente (the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the renewal of the Non-Proliferation Treaty
  with all their hedging and possibilities of flouting
  and the ongoing START II negotiations) it is possible to see a window of opportunity for abolition. The experience of the last fifty years shows that all methods of achieving this should be pursued at international level as well as at national and local levels.

References and Acknowledgements

1.5 Why nonviolent action and why this action now?

This section was written by Steve Whiting.

From Nuclear Deterrence to Nuclear Abolition - address to the National Press Club, General Lee Butler USAF (RTD), December 4th 1996.

The Movement Action Plan - a strategic framework describing the eight stages of successful social movements, Bill Moyer, Spring 1987.

Turning The Tide - a Quaker programme on nonviolent social change - various briefing sheets - Quaker Peace Service.

1.6 Background history and philosophy of the Ploughshares movement to date

This whole section was adapted by Hans Leander, from Art Laffin’s article An introduction to Plowshares-Disarmament Actions published in the book Swords into Plowshares by Art Laffin and Anne Montgomery.

1.7 Chronology and succinct summary of the anti-nuclear weapons campaign to date

This was put together by Davida Higgin and Zina Zelter with inputs from Howard Clark and Michael Randle.

Recommended Further Reading

Civil Disobedience as Christian Obedience - Steven Mackie.

Keeping the Peace - edited by Lynne Jones, The Women’s Press Ltd, London, 1983.

Path of Resistance - Per Herngren, New Society Publishers.

Protest and Survive - E. P. Thompson, 1982.

Snowball - The Story of a Nonviolent Civil-disobedience Campaign in Britain - edited by Angie Zelter and Arya Bhardwaj, Gandhi in Action.

Speaking our Peace: Exploring nonviolence and conflict resolution - Quaker Peace Action Caravan, Quaker Peace and Service (London) 1987.

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