Jubilee Ploughshares Action

In the early hours of November 3rd Trident Ploughshares pledgers, Susan van der Hijden and Father Martin Newell entered RAF wittering in Cambridgeshire. Calling themselves Jubilee Ploughshares 2000 they disarmed the convoy truck that was being made ready to take nuclear warheads up to Faslane for the Trident submarine. As a result of their actions they are now in prison in prison awaiting trial. This is the first newsletter in support of the Jubilee Ploughshares 2000 action. We hope to produce regular newsletters in the run up to Fr. Martin’s and Susan’s trial. Thank you in advance for your interest and support. The Editors The following is edited from letters received from Susan van der Hjjden and Fr Martin Newell from Thorpewood Police Station, and Bedford Prison respectively Eds.

Dear Friends,

(Susan) I have just returned from our first court appearance. They charged us with "Burglary with the intent to do unlawful damage" a bit strange that since we already admitted to doing "damage" (£30,000 pounds of it!).

(Martin) Here’s an account of events. It all seems so impossible as we negotiate the side of the airfield looking for a hole in the outer fence. Susan says "Here". We scramble through, with bags full of tools for the job ahead. Once through the fence we sit on a rusty iron frame. We pray again. We give each other a blessing, asking God to be with us, asking God to guide us, to open up the way ahead of us.

We reach the sheds easily but can we get in? After about 15 minutes of working the door with a crowbar it opens slightly and suddenly we’re in.

(Susan) Once we were in the building (building 18) we saw various vehicles, one of them a lorry as used in the Nuclear Weapons convoy. We first did the more silent work like hanging banners, spraying texts like "Love is the Fulfilment of Law" and "Proclaim Jubilee". Then we started the dismantling with our hammers. After a while we sat down. We had laid on The floor various books: The "Trident Ploughshares Handbook", "Tactical Trident" by Milan Rai and Hibakusha on the victims of the bombs on Japan. We put folded cranes on the lorry on the places we had hit it (They were folded by my community in Amsterdam). We sat down and prayed and sang Taize songs. I felt very connected to the Ploughshares tradition; I wore a Bread not Bombs T-shirt, had hammered with a hammer used by the ANZUS ploughshares and by Chris Cole in his ploughshares action, we had brought seeds mixed with ashes just as the "Seeds of Hope" women had done and we had the Trident Ploughshares handbook with us.

After a while we went up to an office in the same building. We must have been there for at least 1 1/2 hours already and spent another 30 minutes in this office. And nobody had heard or seen us. We tried the phone but couldn’t really make it work. Then we went back down, opened one of the big bay doors and went outside.

(Martin) Standing in the middle of the square, between four garages we looked back at the door we’d left open with the ’Jubilee/Trident Ploughshares 2000’ banner lit up in front. I wished we’d had a camera it looked so good. We stood and looked. And prayed. We thanked God again, and prayed the Lords Prayer in English and Dutch.

(Susan) We remembered the people we did this for, the thousands of children dying every day of hunger, the homeless in the western world, the refugees living in my house. We went towards the nearest guardhouse with flowers and fair trade chocolate and knocked on the window. A very young and surprised soldier opened the door and took our gifts. "Do you want to go out of the gate now?" he asked. Very tempting offer that was, but we invited him to have a look at the garage first. He called his mate and soon a lot of police vans started coming towards us. They had a good look at our dismantling work, brought some dogs to see if there were more of us and then finally brought us to Thorpewood police station where I slept most of the day.

I hope you are all well out there. I’ve had some support messages already, the first ones from Angie Zelter and the Oxford Catholic Worker. And Barbara Sunderland came to court today, many thanks for that it was good to see a familiar face. I’m looking forward to getting letters and cards from you all. Prayers can be sent without an address, so if you feel like it they are very welcome too. That is it for now...

I wish you PAX ET BONUM

Susan and Martin JUBILEE PLOUGHSHARES 2000

Susan and Martin

Dutch peace activist Susan van der Hijden, met the Catholic Worker movement at the beginning of the Gulf War in 1990. She moved in to their community in Amsterdam in 1993 and has lived there ever since. The Catholic Worker movement combines doing the works of mercy: feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, visit the prisoner etc. with doing resistance.

In 1998 Susan went first to the European ploughshare gathering ’Hope and Resistance’ and then in August to the first Trident Ploughshares camp and blockade at Faslane. She became a Trident Ploughshares pledger in January 2000.

Fr. Martin Newell is a Catholic Priest, based in St. Margaret’s, Canning Town, in London’s East End for the last three years. Martin came face to face with poverty with the Birmingham Ashram Community and with London’s street homeless through the London Simon Community. Through these experiences and by prayer and study, he came to see the ’preferential option for the poor’ as an essential dimension of his discipleship as a Catholic Christian, and as of the essence of God.

Martin joined Christian CND in 1991, then Pax Christi. He also discovered the Catholic Worker movement through the New York ’Catholic Worker’ paper. In 1997, through the Liverpool Catholic Worker community, he took part in his first act of ’civil responsibility’, which led to arrest with 8 Timorese on the airfield at BAe Warton.

Fr. Martin has twice before been arrested in nonviolent protests against Trident.

The Ploughshares Movement

The Ploughshares Movement originated in the North American faith-based peace movement. The first ploughshares action, known as the "Ploughshares Eight" was carried out in 1980 at a General Electric Plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. The 8 members of the group were inspired by the Biblical prophecies of Isaiah (2:4) and Micah (4:3) "to beat swords into ploughshares". They took household hammers and disarmed the nose cones of nuclear warheads and poured blood on documents.

Others have been inspired to follow suit, believing that people have the moral and legal right to begin the disarmament process at any base or factory. Christian ploughshares activists believe that they are honouring and embodying God’s law which they believe is broken by authorities and people who continue to prepare for war. Ploughshares people take full responsibility for their action by awaiting arrest, and telling the story of their action in court and to the public.

Over 140 individuals have participated in over 60 ploughshares actions around the world. Although its roots are in the faith based peace movement, it has also inspired secular activists and drawn people from a wide variety of backgrounds. (Adapted from "Swords into Ploughshares: Nonviolent Direct Action for Disarmament, Peace, Social Justice" Edited by Art Laffin and Anne Montgomery. Fortkamp Publishing.)

About Trident Ploughshares

Trident Ploughshares was formed in 1998 as a campaign to disarm the UK Trident nuclear weapons system in a nonviolent peaceful and fully accountable manner. All Trident Ploughshare activists are united under an agreed set of nonviolence and safety ground-rules, organised into supportive affinity groups undergoing common preparation in order to disarm Trident. All activists sign the Pledge to Prevent Nuclear Crime 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. If promises of serious and meaningful disarmament are forthcoming then Trident Ploughshares will be able to stop its active and practical disarmament actions.

Since Trident Ploughshares was formed 172 people from 14 countries have pledged to disarm Trident. Mass demonstrations have occurred regularly at Faslane and Aldermaston and a wide variety of actions ranging from fence cutting to disarming the conning tower of the Trident submarine itself. To date Trident Ploughshares activists have spent 750 days in jail.

Death on the Roads

Trident nuclear warheads are made at the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, with final assembly at the nearby Burghfleld. The warheads are transported by road along known routes to Faslane where Trident submarines are based. Because of the distances involved overnight stops occur at RAF bases, notably Wittering and Albermarle.

The convoy consists of between 2 and 5 specially made Foden 7-axled green covered lorries. They are accompanied by motorcycle outriders, minibuses of armed marines, a fire engine and breakdown truck. The government is extremely secretive about the movements of the convoys. However, close monitoring by Nukewatch has ensured that the public can find out when they are on the move.

The lorry that Susan and Martin dismantled was due to be loaded with warheads at the weekend to go up to Faslane. Their action undoubtedly delayed the convoy from leaving. For information on nuclear convoys contact Nukewatch at 22, Edmund St, Bradford, BD5 OBH

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