Press Releases & Updates 1998

This forthcoming Saturday (May 2nd) sees the launch in London of a group who have vowed to use nonviolent direct action to enable Britain to disarm its nuclear weapons by the year 2000.

PLOUGHSHARES 2000 aims to push the British Government into abiding by the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice of 8th July 1996 that decided that the use or threatened use of nuclear weapons is generally illegal under international law because of the unique, indiscriminate and long-lasting damage their use would inflict on civilians and the global environment.

PLOUGHSHARES 2000 is simultaneously being launched in Hiroshima, London, Edinburgh, Gent and Gothenburg. The group is being co-ordinated by Angie Zelter, one of the four ’Hawk Women’ who in 1996 caused £1.5 million worth of damage to a Hawk jet bound for Indonesia. They won their case in court - arguing that their disarmament action was a justified ’upholding of international law to prevent British complicity in the Genocide in East Timor’. In Britain a rapidly growing nucleus of 62 ’global citizens’ aged between 20 and 90 have already signed up as Ploughshares activists. Individuals join ’affinity groups’ who are provided with handbooks, videos and nonviolence and safety training in preparation for their disarmament work. Transparency is a key element of the campaign and all the activists involved sign a Pledge to Prevent Nuclear Crime and their names are sent to the Government before they take action.

The group has already written to Tony Blair inviting him to negotiate a phased scaling down of Britain’s nuclear threat before they attempt to physically damage the weapon systems’ functional ability. They have issued a list of 9 disarmament steps that the British Government could take - such as removing Trident submarines from 24-hour patrol and removal of warheads to shore. If these steps are taken the group will hold off taking action. If no concessions are made they will start their disarmament actions on August 11th at Faslane, the Naval Base for Britain’s Trident submarines.

PLOUGHSHARES 2000 actions are backed by a recent Gallup poll, which found that:

  59% of people felt that Britain would be more secure without nuclear weapons,
  87% wanted the government to start international disarmament negotiations.

Speakers at the Press Conference will include:

  Rupert Ticehurst, Barrister and Lecturer in International Law at Kings College.
  Angie Zelter, from the Ploughshares Core Group.
  Matthew Pelling from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which is backing the campaign along with 42 other non-governmental organisations.

Notes:

The Press Conference is being held on the large hall at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London at 1pm on Saturday May 2nd 1998.

A Photo Opportunity, involving a spectacular banner drop, will take place in central London in the morning of the same day. The location details are being withheld but interested journalists should gather at 10.45 am on 2nd May outside Aquarium which is diagonally opposite the Thames from The Houses of Parliament, opposite the river from the Ministry of Defence buildings and Westminster Tube Station. They will then be taken to the venue - only 5 mins away.

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