Nuclear warhead convoy stopped in Stirling, Scotland: 6 arrests
From
Indymedia
Sept
13 2004;
The Nukewatch phone tree was triggered. There was a sighting of a Nuclear Weapons convoy travelling north from Burghfield.
September 14 2004:
Britain owns 200 nuclear warheads each 8 times stronger than the one that
exploded above Hiroshima. The nukes are stored and handled in Coulport in
Scotland. These scary nuclear Weapons of Mass Destruction are of a
delicate design and they need to be checked regularly. That's why the
nuclear warhead convoys are a regular feature on the English and Scottish
roads.
The nukes are maintained in Burghfield in the south of England.
Why the MoD chose to build the home in the north and the maintenance
facilities in the south and so far apart remains a mystery to me. But the
long distance between those locations means that it takes the convoys 2 or
3 days to make a single trip. The lorries that carry them are also so
large and heavy that they can only take certain routes and can only stay
at certain -overnight stop- places. The fact that the convoy is so
predictable makes it not really hard to spot them by our network (or any
one else for that matter)
Let it be no surprise then that we managed to intervene with the transport
once again!:
SCND hired a minibus and we drove to Stirling to intercept the convoy
there. Regretfully the MoD police spotted us and sent Stirling police our
way to guard us and prevent us from stopping the convoy. That is where the
police harassment started. Police officers outnumbered us by two to one and
followed us everywhere we went.
In my case, there were two police officers
who positioned themselves between me and the road. One of them took the
pose of a goal keeper who was about to receive a penalty shot. All I could
do was play a bit with him to test his reflexes. I assure you that was
very funny. (grin)
What was less funny was that Roz was prevented in her human rights to
roam, she was physically restrained by a policewoman to go where ever she
wanted to go and to safely cross the road. Even when there was no traffic
and no sighting of the convoy yet!
Regretfully we had to let the convoy pass by unhindered.
So we got back
into the van and bypassed the convoy at a lay-by a bit further where it had
parked. On the same spot as usual. Very predicable breaks they have!.
We pulled over to let some people who wanted to go home get into another
vehicle before we drove further to Balloch. At least that was the
intention. The police thought different, they decided to block our path
with their own vehicles and harassed us with a very thorough illegal
vehicle search, further illegally and in one case physically restraining
our freedom to roam, following us everywhere we went. They obviously were
not going to let us get anywhere until the convoy passed.
Boy did they underestimate us all!
All they did was to choose the location
of the action for us.
When the convoy passed by, we managed to evade the outnumbering
police numbers and Roz, Seinaid, Beth and Ludd managed to get on the road
in the path of the last truck and Phill managed to climb on the roof of
the truck. Thus breaking up the convoy and bringing it to a standstill for
a half hour!
Crap arrest goes to Tony. He was arrested for pretending to want to go
into the road and clapping his hands while cheering us on and his arrest
brought to total number of arrests to 6.
Roz was released after a few hours, Tony's and Beth's charges were dropped
minutes before their court appearance the next afternoon. Seonaid, Phill
and Ludd are all told to come back to Court in January next year.
We are
charged with "Breach of the Peace". But pleaded "Not Guilty".
Oh Irony! We are trying to prevent millions of people being incinerated on
the spot in a possible full scale nuclear war or accident and we are
accused of Breach Of the Peace! It should be the other way around!
We could do with more people to help us stop the convoys.
Although welcome
and encouraged, it is not necessary to be arrestable! We also need people
to witness and cheer, take pictures, hand out leaflets, do press and
indymedia-work and look after our stuff, make food and prison support
etc,...
Feel free to contact us for more information!
info@scotland.motherearth.org
Beth, Tony, Roz are with Faslane Peace Camp
Phill and Seonaid with Scottish CND
Ludd with For Mother Earth Scotland.
Supporters were also from Stirling CND
September 2004 |