Press Releases & Updates 2001

The activists will set up their disarmament camp at Peaton Glen Wood, half-a-mile south of the Coulport base on Loch Long, from 27th July to 11th August. Campaigners will come from all over the UK, from the US and from Belgium and Finland. There will be a variety of actions against the bases. At each of the summer disarmament camps in the campaign’s short history activists have breached base security, have swum close to the Trident submarines and have conducted effective blockades of the base entrances.

It was at Coulport in August 1998 that the active part of the Trident Ploughshares campaign began - three years which have seen remarkable achievements, including the damaging of vital testing equipment on Trident sub HMS Vengeance, the putting out of action of the Trident research barge Maytime, the disarming of a nuclear warhead convoy truck and two dramatic acquittals at Sheriff Court/Crown Court level. There have been almost 1300 arrests and activists have spent around 1250 days in prison.

These achievements are celebrated in Angie Zelter’s book "Trident on Trial" which tells the story of the whole campaign and the disarmament work and legal struggles of the Trident Three.* (Trident on Trial - the TP book)

Trident Ploughshares member David Mackenzie said: "Every day we get another indication that those in power are critically complacent about the threats to our planet, including the threat from appalling weapons like Trident. In that setting, peaceful and nonviolent intervention by ordinary, responsible people is not merely legitimate, it is vital. We are delighted that more and more people are acting on this conviction."

* Trident on Trial (£9.99), published by Luath Press (ISBN 1 84282 004 4), is available from all good bookshops. An excellent background resource for journalists it is also available directly from Trident Ploughshares. (Trident on Trial - the TP book)

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