Press Releases & Updates 2001

Rupert Eris, a nature conservation warden from Norfolk, had taken part in the "Crimebusters" blockade of Faslane naval base on 14th February 2000. He said that there had been no breach of the peace. He had been sitting in the road for less than a minute before being removed by the police. Workers had been advised of the event in advance and a number had got into the base by ship. The base itself had claimed that it had not been inconvenienced by the blockade. He pointed out that although the recently delivered opinion of the Scottish High Court had gone against the campaigners, even those judges had admitted that international law applied in Scotland. Under that law any weapon used must be capable of discriminating between military and civilian targets. The MOD itself had recently admitted that nuclear weapons were indiscriminate.^* Trident was clearly illegal.

Rupert said: "However much this government claims that murdering innocent people is legal, many people disagree with them, and I am one of them."

^*Rupert was referring to a letter to MP Kim Howells from junior defence minister Lewis Moonie on the subject of depleted uranium. At one place he says: "In particular, International Humanitarian Law requires that weapons be used during armed conflict in a discriminate manner." And in another: "Nuclear, biological and chemical weapons are indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction specifically designed to incapacitate or kill large numbers of people;"

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