Nuclear weapons crime in the UK has been reported to Thames Valley Police.
Our last newsletter of 2014 is packed full of plans and dates for your diary – get ready to Wrap Up Parliament; Lockdown Burghfield; and Act Speak Vote and Disarm the UK. We’re also supporting book launches, and we have good news from the Marshal Islands…
A World in Chains
In November we’re launching the book World In Chains - you still have time to put the Oxford launch on 19 November in your diaries. The book is a collection of essays from different perspectives exploring how nuclear weapons and militarisation impact on our society, and our ecology. Authors include economist Mary Mellor, feminist peace activist Cynthia Cockburn, asylum and refugee campaigner Dr Trevor Trueman, scientists Helena Paul and Dr Philip Weber, Action AWE’s Angie Zelter and Rebecca Johnson, and Peace Studies professor Paul Rogers.
The Oxford launch will be at Blackwells Book Shop on Broad Street on 19 November, 7-8.30pm, featuring speakers Professor Paul Rogers and Helena Paul talking about their contributions to the book, and performance from Camilla Cancantata, composer of Trident – A British War Crime.
See you there!
Wrap Up Parliament
24 January 2015, 12– 3pm
Join us to take the peace scarf to the decision makers at Parliament in Westminster, and send a message to the government and MPs: SCRAP TRIDENT AND BAN ALL NUCLEAR WEAPONS. With the ‘Main Gate’ decision on Trident replacement scheduled for 2016 and just months before the election, now is the time to make our voices heard for peace and disarmament.
After the fantastic Wool Against Weapons event in August, linking AWE Aldermaston and Burghfield on Nagasaki Day, many people wanted to re-use the peace scarf at Parliament before turning the knitted sections into blankets. So Action AWE and CND
are organising a mass demo in London, supported by Wool Against Weapons, on Saturday 24 January 2015. We plan to link the peace scarf from the Palace of Westminster, along the Embankment past Portcullis House and the MoD, up Horse Guards Ave, down Whitehall past Downing Street, the MoD and Foreign Office, with a rally in Parliament Sq.
The demo will make the links between the obscenity of nuclear weapons and the need to tackle issues that really matter to people, with the key message “SCRAP TRIDENT, BAN ALL NUCLEAR WEAPONS” and whatever messages you want to add, such as: ‘NHS not Trident’, ‘Jobs not Trident’, ‘Climate not Trident’… At the rally we’ll hear from activists, anti-Trident MPs, trade union and faith leaders – and some great musicians! A lot of peace scarf is stored in different places, so bring whatever you have and we’ll do the rest. Even if you don’t have some peace scarf to bring we want to see you there! Organise a bus from your town and bring your friends and neighbours, with lots of banners and placards to get our message across that the next government must put people’s needs before nuclear weapons.
Check our website for more info. Help us make this the biggest nuclear disarmament demo London has seen since the 1980s!
CND is mobilising coaches and activists to come from all over the country. Contact Rebecca (demo coordinator) on [email protected]. More info also from [email protected] or phone 020 770 2393.
Burghfield Lockdown…
2 March 2015
Join us on Monday 2 March next year to launch the month of action of Act Speak Vote Disarm (see below) by ‘locking down’ Burghfield AWE, where construction work preparing for the replacement of Trident has already begun – despite no public decision having been taken to replace.
More news will be available on the website as we pull the plans together. For now you need to:
- Put the date in your diary
- Form an affinity group and plan how you will take action on the day
- Check our website for information about AWE and the local area
To get in touch with Action AWE for more information as you need it, contact us on this number: 01547 520929 or email [email protected]
See you there!
…Act Speak Vote >> Disarm!
March 2015 – all month
The Burghfield Lockdown will kickstart our month of action in the run up to the general election next year – a month of daily actions by independent affinity groups from around the UK, coming to AWE to close down Aldermaston and Burghfield and say no to nuclear weapons. It works like this:
- We’re asking YOU to pledge to form an affinity group, pick a weekday in March, and come down to AWE – you can publicise your action on our web calendar, or keep it secret. Your action can be colourful, theatrical, direct – whatever works for you.
- When you get home, publicise your action locally where you live.
- Then lobby your local election candidates to make clear that you will not vote for a candidate who supports Trident replacement.
Together let’s make sure we get Trident onto the election agenda across the country.
Marshall Islands take the world to court…
On 24th April 2014, the Marshall Islands filed an application against all nine nuclear-armed states, at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), known as the World Court. The Marshall Islands claim that the nine countries armed with nuclear weapons (UK, USA, China, Russia, France, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea) are endangering the whole world; the 5 that are parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) have failed in their obligations to pursue and bring to conclusion nuclear disarmament negotiations aimed at eliminating all nuclear weapons, while the 4 that do not regard themselves as bound by the NPT have failed to pursue disarmament in accordance with UN and other international law resolutions and agreements which they have supported or applied to themselves.
Between 1946 and 1962 a number of atolls in the Marshall Islands were used for dozens of nuclear tests by the US military, with long-term environmental, cultural, health and genetic damage to the islanders. On 1 March 1954, the US detonated their largest bomb, vapourising Bikini Atoll and spreading heavy levels of radioactive fallout that contaminated nearby inhabited islands and fishing vessels. Codenamed Castle Bravo, this 15 megaton explosion was 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The largest hydrogen bomb ever detonated by the USA, the Bravo test explosion was several times larger than the designers had planned or expected.
Only three of the states – the UK, India, and Pakistan – recognise the jurisdiction of the ICJ. The others are not obliged to take part, though they could (theoretically) choose to – China has refused the application, the others have ignored it. For more detailed news and analysis, see http://www.nuclearzero.org/in-the-courts
