Press Releases & Updates 1999

The women are Rosie James and Rachel Wenham, both from Leeds. The women swam 300 metres in wet suits into the Vickers dock yard at Barrow in Furness to reach HMS Vengeance. They swam in freezing conditions in the dark with their disarmament equipment of hammers, chisels, crowbars, screwdrivers and paint. The women then climbed around the submarine and dismantled radio equipment used to launch weapons of mass destruction. Both have been arrested and are being held in police custody at Barrow. Since August 1998, this is the second disarmament action at Barrow, and the third swimming action - the others being at Faslane in Scotland.

The imminent threat of a nuclear conflict is such that the women had no alternative but to carry out this task of preventing a new vehicle for these weapons of mass destruction being even tested. This threat to us all comes from the facts that
  the British Trident submarine Vanguard was on patrol around Gibraltar during the Gulf crises
  from the allegiance displayed between Blair and Clinton in the latest Gulf war, there is little doubt that Blair would follow a U.S. military lead
  the current British Strategic Defence Policy indicates that the UK would contravene International Law, by launching a nuclear attack even if the sovereignty of the nation itself is not directly threatened.

These facts together denote that although the Trident weapon has not been used so far, the illegal threat is constant - so the danger of it being used is imminent.

A single Trident warhead is 8 times more powerful than those detonated over the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Due to this enormous explosive yield, these weapons are in direct contravention of International Law governing War, Human Rights, the Environment and Genocide.

Rachel Wenham states "as a citizen of the world, I have upheld the Nuremberg Principles in acting to prevent the crime of mass murder from being threatened and committed".

The women support the campaign Trident Ploughshares 2000. This is committed to the implementation of the decommissioning of the Trident programme by the year 2000. The UK Government refuses to recognise the illegality of the Trident warheads, and continues their criminal activities of maintaining and deploying these weapons. TP2000 activists uphold the law - including by disarming the system themselves. The women state: "In this world where in the arena of War instantaneous mass murder of innocents is an accepted possibility, we, the said mass, have the unalienable right to protect our rights to life and peace".

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