Reuters Asia article on Shannon Airport

national | miscellaneous | news report Sunday April 06, 2003 22:55 by Eoin Dubsky

Irish Activists Hold Vigil at Shannon Airport

Fri April 4, 2003 12:05 PM ET | By Michael Roddy | SHANNON, Ireland (Reuters) - Conor Cregan knew before it landed that the plane flying into Shannon airport on Ireland's west coast early on Friday morning was one of the charters used to carry U.S. troops to Iraq.

Activists like him think there have been far too many such troop charters and cargo planes landing at Shannon to maintain that Ireland is sticking to its official military neutrality in the Iraqi conflict.

"There's something coming in now -- ATA (American Trans Air)," Cregan, a 30-year-old chef turned peace activist, said as the Boeing touched down at almost 1 a.m.

"It's that time of night," added Cregan, bundled up in a day-glo orange parka and black ski cap. "There's nothing else scheduled."

Cregan should know. After six months of lonely vigils, armed only with a telescope and warm clothes, he and a handful of activists are experts on movements at Shannon airport.

Cregan's fellow peace activist Edward Horgan, a retired U.N. peacekeeper, this week lodged a suit being heard in Ireland's High Court over the constitutionality of overflights and refueling in Irish airspace by U.S. military flights.

Horgan says the decision compromises Ireland's neutrality and amounts to state support for the U.S.-led war against Iraq.

"The government didn't want to publicize, 'Oh, look, here we have the American army going through'," Cregan said as he and Robert Morgan, 21, performed their nightly ritual, standing outside the barbed-wire perimeter fence watched by police patrols.

"They just wanted to keep their dirty little secret quiet.

"That was our aim from the start -- to bring it to people's attention."

GROWING SENTIMENT

The government argues the United States has a 50-year tradition of using Shannon on Ireland's west coast as a stopover for military flights to and from Europe, and that it is good for the local economy.

"I don't think foreign policy should be predicated totally on national interest," said Willie O'Dea, who represents Shannon in parliament.

"But the simple truth is there is nothing really to be gained for the people of Iraq by refusing these facilities in Shannon, because the Americans will just simply move on to Prestwick (in Scotland) or to Frankfurt or someplace else."

For the peace activists who have been spotting planes, or occasionally spray-painting them with peace slogans and battering them with hammers, the effort has not been in vain.

They feel they have kindled strong and seemingly growing anti-war sentiment in Ireland.

An unprecedented 100,000 people marched in Dublin in February and the ruling center-right Fianna Fail party of Prime Minister Bertie Ahern needed all its clout to quash a parliamentary motion to ban the U.S. flights at Shannon.

Cregan, who has devoted the past six months of his life to the peace movement and lives on donations, doesn't deny the United States has been a friend to Ireland.

"But when your friend is doing something wrong you point it out to them," he said. "That's the basis of friendship."