Campaigners Break Into Top UK Nuke Base As Vanunu Walks Free

international | anti-war / imperialism | news report Friday April 23, 2004 01:02 by Eoin Dubsky - Trident Ploughshares

"Northwood 5" Charged After Security Breach

The report below is from Joss Garman, a student and anti-nuke activist with Trident Ploughshares (http://www.tridentploughshares.org/ ) and Greenpeace (http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/ ). You may have heard about their Vanunu-inspired "whistleblower" action at the UK's nuke HQ yesterday already - if not see link at end of report.
It's an honour to know two of these thoughtful, courageous war resisters -- celebrate, Vanunu is free, the truth is out!

Yesterday morning, 5 of us, dressed in Vanunu masks, and white suits labelled “whistleblower,” entered Northwood HQ, to blow the whistle on UK WMD, on the day Israeli whistleblower, Mordechai Vanunu walked free.

From inside the base it was possible to phone journalists to let them know we had evaded security at the command and control centre for Britain’s nuclear weapons programme to highlight the hypocricy and secrecy behind the UK's own WMD…they loved it. It was everywhere…radio 4 today programme, radio 5 live breakfast, BBC News 24 TV, ITV National News, London Tonight TV news, PA News, BBC 1 TV breakfast news…the list goes on....also, the Jerusalem post!

Anyway, once inside, we wondered around for almost ten minutes before soldiers (marines) came running forward shouting “freeze” and telling us to “drop the phone!” Graham and I were busy calling PA news, the Guardian etc. One soldier said, “I can't believe it, they’ve been calling journalists…where’s your bloody lap top eh..? You got a laptop in here as well?" It was about that time that they realised we had a videographer and photographer outside, which as you can imagine, they didn’t like. Kate from Fairford was press spokesperson for Trident Ploughshares outside the base.
They didn’t recognise Vanunu’s face, and shouted, “Take those stupid fuckin masks off!”

They surrounded us with their guns (SA80s we think) and ordered us to kneel, stand, all fours…everything. We were ordered to put our hands on our heads…they were lovin it, tellin us “that’s your kneck not your head, hands on your head (etc.)…testosterone levels soaring…and then we were marched at gun point to a holding room. As we arrived there, a more senior marine said, “What do you think your doing? They’re not prisoners of war you know, so don’t treat them like that! Let them relax. They could sue us for this.”

Inside the base it was possible to see “Danger, radiation area” signs. (one on the side of building 1115 apparently) Interesting. They carried out a massive search of the base including all buildings. I think they thought that one of us had gained entry to one of the buildings. They seized a vauxhall astra from outside the base that they thought was something to do with us.

Then, civilian police arrived and we were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage. We were driven to Watford police station where we were held for 15 hours. At the police station, the police kept referring to us as their “prize catch” and it didn’t take long for the “super” to arrive. Due to the fact that joss is on two bind overs and Graham is on 2 conditional discharges they didn’t want to release us, and eventually when we were released it was on conditions not to go within 200m of Northwood.
Meanwhile, whilst in cells, they carried out raids on the homes of Graham, Sarah and Briony under section 18 of PACE. Unfortunately, there were some pretty important documents at Sarah’s house which they seized. Perhaps we’ll get further charges. The searches were not carried out according to official procedures though according to our solicitor from Bindmans. We were not notified in interview. We were not asked if we wanted to be present. Our solicitor was not informed. Outrageous.
Who said TP activists get too paranoid. They told our solicitor that the reason they didn’t raid joss' home was that they knew I hadnt been there for the last few weeks. Hmm…?

At the end of the day we were charged with Criminal Damage and Going equipped. We are in court next Thursday 29th. We are entitled to jury trial if they don’t drop the going equipped charge as we reckon they might. Alternatively, they might add loads more charges and go the whole hog.

We were all heartened when we received a message from the US coordinator of the Free Vanunu campaign who said that Vanunus conditions had been weakened since he was released and that for example, he was being allowed to meet internationals. They said that was due to the massive coverage of the event, much of which was related to our action, and so they said thanks. That, at the end of the day, makes everything justified just in itself.

Thanks to everyone who gave support. We’ll keep you all updated.