(16/05/01)

Invitation to Trident Ploughshares Camp: Join the Mother Earth Disarmament Tour!

For Mother Earth is calling for people from all over the world to join an action camp for a nuclear free world in Scotland this August. The camp is part of the Trident Ploughshares campaign which aims to disarm Trident, UK’s nuclear weapon system, by non-violent and accountable direct action. Trident consists of four nuclear powered submarines carrying nuclear missiles which have the destructive power of nearly 1000 Hiroshima nuclear bombs.

The camp will take place 27 July - 11 August 2001 in Peaton Woods, Scotland, near to the two main Trident bases of the UK, Coulport (Trident warhead depot) and Faslane (Trident submarine base). Non-violent direct action to disarm UK’s illegal weapon of mass destruction will happen through the whole camp.

Activists form affinity groups to take part in the actions, and the consensus decision making process at the camp. There are also support roles needed, such as cooking and building work at the camp, as well as media and legal support. Actions at the similar two-week camp last August involved fence cutting, blockades, attempts to swim to the submarines. There were 161 arrests.

Peace campaigners and activists from Belgium, Finland, France and the Netherlands are already planning to join the British ploughshares activists at the camp, and further mobilisation is happening. "Trident endangers all life on Earth. Therefore it’s important that we all take action against it and all the other nuclear weapon systems on our planet", says the spokesperson of For Mother Earth.

Trident Ploughshares is a campaign of direct people’s disarmament launched in 1998. Since then, there have been hundreds of nonviolent direct actions at nuclear weapon sites across Britain, resulting in numerous court cases.There have also been several disarmament actions where activists have actually succeeded in dismanteling Trident-related equipments.

For Mother Earth campaigns for the abolition of all nuclear weapons. During its latest action at NATO base in Kleine Brogel, Belgium, 850 people trespassed the base where 10 U.S. nuclear bombs are stored illegally. For Mother Earth has been active with the Trident Ploughshares campaign since 1998.

Both Trident Ploughshares and For Mother Earth use international law in their campaigns for nuclear disarmament. According to the International Court of Justice "..the threat or use of nuclear weapons is generally contrary to the rules of international humanitarian law..". However, the governments of the nuclear weapons states and NATO states that participated in the nuclear planning group continue to threaten the rest of the world with nuclear destruction. It’s up to all of us to take non-violent direct disarmament action.

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