Press Releases & Updates 2001

With ten people from For Mother Earth we left to Scotland to participate in the Big Blockade of the Faslane Trident base on Feb 12th. David Heller took off on his own on Friday evening, the others went together in a nine-seater minibus from Gent (Julien Vacher and Regis Lequin from France, Katri Silvonen, Eveliina Lundqvist and Hanna Järvinen from Finland, Krista Van Velzen from the Netherlands, Pol Dhuyvetter, Iwan Meerhaeghe and Bernard De Witte from Belgium).

After a long ride we arrived at the meeting place in Glasgow and took part in the last briefings and an action training. Next morning we drove to the base, to find the entrance already blocked on our arrival, with hundreds of participants and also hundreds of policemen.

Early during the blockade Julien Vacher and Regis Lequin were arrested and brought to the Glasgow police station.

With the others of our group we had convened not to be arrested during the blockade itself, but to try to get inside the base, in order to trigger the ’bandit-alert’ which means that, as soon as someone gets arrested inside the base, the work on the base has to be stopped and everyone on the base is supposed to go and look for eventual other ’invaders’. (Since at the peace camp they managed to get hold of documents which describe this emergency scenario, we know exactly how this alert works);. This alert lasts for at least half an hour, during which the whole base is inoperative.

About 12h30 Krista Van Velzen, Iwan Meerhaeghe, David Heller and Eveliina Lundqvist actually managed to cut through the fence, but they were discovered while getting inside the base and arrested, which of course triggered the ’bandit alert’. Meanwhile Katri Silvonen and Bernard De Witte tried to get into the base north from the main entrance, but since they operated just alongside the main road, they were discovered before they could cut sufficiently. They got also arrested, and both groups were held for about three hours at the police station inside the Faslane base, while getting through the normal procedures (identification, photos, fingerprinting and so on). About four in the afternoon we were all released and brought to Faslane peace camp.

After some rest at the peace camp we decided to try once again to get inside the base, so we could stop them for some time more. But from a first reconnaissance it appeared that there were too many police cars patrolling still, and we postponed our plan for an hour. But at nightfall we got into our minibus, and somewhere in the beginning of the fence, Krista, Katri and Bernard got out and climbed the slope up to the fence, where we started cutting. It took a long time, cause every time a car passed we ducked down so we could not be seen by an eventual police patrol.

Once inside things got smoother, we cut a passage through the rolls of razor wire and took off behind some administrative buildings. After a while we got on the main road which connects the South gate with the North gate. There were still workers passing on this road, and several cars drove by, but no one took attention of our presence. So we kind of sauntered further on that road, it was a queer feeling, walking in the middle of that military base, being seen by passers-by and still not being embarassed.

After a walk of some twenty minutes we got at the back side of the first berth (where Trident and other submarines are inspected), but there we were seen by two policemen, Katri being recognised by one of them.

"Can we see your passes" - well of course, we could not show anything of that kind, and we got arrested immediately, while the ’bandit alert’ sounded from loudspeakers all around, so we blocked once more the whole system for some time.

We got taken to the police station inside the base, but only a few minutes after we arrived there, Pol Dhuyvetter, Hanna Järvinen and Martin Kelly (from Ireland , who joined us for this action). They had managed to cut through a first fence but were arrested while trying to cut through a second fence.

This time we were held about six hours, until four in the morning, and then we got brought back to Faslane peace camp.

Bernard De Witte

Angie Zelter (49), from Cromer in Norfolk, one of the Trident Three, appeared today in Helensburgh District Court after being arrested yesterday. Angie had an outstanding warrant against her because she had refused to attend for trial on the grounds that the district court should wait for the High Court judgment on the Lord Advocate’s Reference which will be sharply relevant to her defence.

Justice of the Peace Joe Scullion offered Angie a new date for the missed trial. Angie then told him that a senior Scottish lawyer, Ian Hamilton QC, had accepted the campaign’s case that Trident is illegal under international law and had been arrested at Faslane yesterday. She then invited the JP to join Trident Ploughshares. Mr. Scullion declined. Also released from custody by the court were Georgina Smith and Tiff Clelland who had initially refused to give arresting police the full personal details required.

Jenny Gaiawyn, a student at Bangor University, was sent to Cornton Vale women’s prison in Stirling this morning. When they arrested her yesterday the police acted on an outstanding warrant against her for non-payment of a fine. Jenny also served time at Cornton Vale last August for non-payment of a fine.

Today Armed Forces Minister John Spellar stated: "HMS Vengeance and the officers and men who serve in her will now begin to play their part in the maintenance of deterrent patrols in future decades."

A Trident Ploughshares spokesperson said: "John Spellar’s statement today confirms our suspicion that this government’s paper commitment to rid us of its nuclear arsenal is just so much window dressing. The civil resistance to Trident must continue and intensify. Yesterday’s blockade shows that the number of people ready and willing to share in this urgent disarmament task is growing all the time."

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