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Press Releases & Updates 2001
19th November 2001
"War Crimes Inspectors" Close Rolls-Royce Office
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An international "War Crimes Inspection Team" this morning visited the
Rolls-Royce plc head offices in Buckingham Gate, London, looking for
evidence of the company’s involvement in crimes against humanity related to
the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons programme and the bombing of Afghanistan.
While one group of seven activists went in to interview workers and search
files another group prevented access to the office and displayed a banner
which read: "Rolls-Royce Profits from War Crimes". They occupied the foyer
for 90 minutes before being dragged away by security guards.
The company is under scrutiny for its involvement with the construction of
the nuclear reactors for the UK’s fleet of four Trident submarines, which
are armed with 100 kiloton nuclear warheads. The warheads are considered
illegal under international law since they cannot distinguish between
civilian and military targets. Other allegations include: supplying the
reactors for the UK’s Hunter-Killer submarines used in cruise missile
attacks on Afghanistan; supplying arms to countries with poor human rights
records; burying weapons-grade nuclear waste at Crich in Derbyshire since
the mid 1960s.
One of the group, David Heller (25), who is a volunteer with the Gent-based
campaign For Mother Earth said: "Rolls-Royce are implicated in war crimes
and crimes against humanity and we wanted to make them aware that people
are opposed to their disregard for the law and human rights."
The inspection team come from England, Scotland, Belgium, Germany and
Finland and are members of the anti-Trident campaign, Trident Ploughshares,
which on Friday evening closed Downing Street for an hour to draw attention
to the UK’s continuing and active deployment of Trident.
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