In Bristol/England in Solidarity with EDO Decommisioners

international | anti-war | news report Tuesday March 24, 2009 14:52 by Ciaron - Plowshares/Catholic Worker

They're in There For Us, We're on the Loose for Them!

As we marked the 6th. anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, we remembered the 1 million Iraqi dead. 2 million exiled, 3 million internally displaced, the multitude of wounded, the 5,000 coalition troops killed and 30,000+ permanently wounded - used as cannon fodder in the plunder and pillage.

As the war has escalated and expanded into Lebanon, Somalia, Pakistan, Palestine - what remains relevant in terms of response is nonviolent resistance in the imperial hearltand and proactive solidarity that sustains such resistance.

My hunch is that there is not much anti-war resistance, because there's not much solidarity. My experience is that mainstream anti-war coalitions of parties and NGO's proactively marginalise anti-war resisters. If we are serious about resisting this war we need to be proactive in our solidarity with our imprisoned anti-war resisters and those is jeapoardy before the courts. It is this hunch that took me to Bristol/England last weekend in solidarity with the EDO Decommisioners who took nonviolent direct action at an arms supplier to Israel while Gaza was being bombed

EDO Decommissioners Solidarity Link
http://decommisioners.wordpress.com/

Over the weekend, I was able to meet seperately with Bob, Tom, Orella and Harvey - as repressive bail conditions restrict them from communicating with each other. All wonderful, impressive people who have risked their liberty to disable the war machine during the recent killing spree on Gaza at EDO arms company in Brighton - a supplier to the U.S., British and Israeli militaries.

Over the last six years as lives have been lost companies like EDO have been making a killing!

On Saturday I joined a lively crowd in a solidarity noise demonstration as we circled the downtown Victorian Jail in Bristol where Elijah James Smith of the EDO 6 is being held having been denied bail.

Bristol Indymedia Report/Photos
http://bristol.indymedia.org/article/690082

Aljazeera Report
http://www.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/68A55B8B-8F6C-4A91-A...B.htm

On Sunday night, we showed excerpts of the doc "Route Irish" http://www.indymedia.ie/route_irish_documentary at the Kebele Co-op http://www.kebelecoop.org/ and with 25 folks, I spoke of experiences of jails and courts from the ANZUS/B52 Plowshares in the U.S., the plowshares trials in England and the Pitstop Ploughshares in Ireland. An interesting discussion followed about prison solidarity, plowshares/disarmament/decomissioning traditions, resistance to the war & the arms trade and ways to support the EDO 6 in jail and out as they head to trial. There were a number of folks present experienced in the varied ways of resistance and solidarity and a lot of good insights shared.

Some simple ways to help is to access the EDO 6 website a and find out from them
http://decommisioners.wordpress.com/
*Get a copy of the fine doc "On the Verge" about the grassroots Brighton based campaign against EDO and pass it around
http://www.schnews.org.uk/pages_merchandise/merchandise...verge
*Checkout the website of the anti-EDO campaign where you can get more background on the company and campaign and view the doc over the net
http://www.smashedo.org.uk/
* and write a solidarity letter to the folks presently locked up. They're in there for us, we're on the loose for them!

Please write to them using the following:

Robert Alford VP 7552 HMP Lewes , 1 Brighton Rd, Lewes, Sussex, BN7 1EA England

Elija Smith VP 7551 HMP Bristol, 19 Cambridge Rd, Horfield, BS7 8PS England