[Peace-discuss] Jury Reaches Verdict in Disarm Now Plowshares Trial

[Stuart Levy]

All five, who entered a Navy base housing nuclear-armed submarines, posted banners
and scattered sunflower seeds, were found guilty, and face up to ten years in prison.

    "In their defense the peace activists argued three points: the nuclear 
    missiles at Bangor are weapons of mass destruction; those weapons are both 
    illegal and immoral; and that all citizens have the right and duty to try 
    to stop international war crimes from being committed by these weapons of 
    mass destruction."

    "The Disarm Now Plowshares defendants tried to present evidence about the 
    presence of nuclear weapons at Bangor despite repeated objections.  At one 
    point, Sr. Anne Montgomery challenged the prosecutors and the court,
    'Why are we so afraid to discuss the fact that there are nuclear weapons?'"

----- Forwarded message from Jackie Cabasso <wslf at earthlink.net> -----

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2010 13:21:42 -0800
From: Jackie Cabasso <wslf at earthlink.net>
Subject: [ufpj-activist] Fwd: Jury Reaches Verdict in Disarm Now Plowshares
	Trial
To: ufpj-activist at lists.mayfirst.org, abolition-usa at yahoogroups.com,
	Abolition-Caucus at yahoogroups.com, globenet at yahoogroups.com,
	thinkoutsidethebomb <thinkoutsidethebomb at yahoogroups.com>

*News Release

December 13, 2010

For Immediate Release

Jury Reaches Verdict in Disarm Now Plowshares Trial*

Tacoma, Washington, Monday, December 13, 2010: The federal criminal trial 
of five veteran peace activists that began December 7 ended today after the 
jury found them guilty on all counts. The five defendants, called the 
Disarm Now Plowshares, challenged the legality and morality of the US 
storage and use of thermonuclear missiles by Trident nuclear submarines at 
the Kitsap-Bangor Naval Base outside Bremerton Washington.

In their defense the peace activists argued three points: the nuclear 
missiles at Bangor are weapons of mass destruction; those weapons are both 
illegal and immoral; and that all citizens have the right and duty to try 
to stop international war crimes from being committed by these weapons of 
mass destruction.

The five were charged with trespass, felony damage to federal property, 
felony injury to property and felony conspiracy to damage property. Each 
defendant faces possible sentences of up to ten years in prison.

On trial were: Anne Montgomery, 83, a Sacred Heart sister from New York; 
Bill Bischel, SJ, 81, a Jesuit priest from Tacoma Washington; Susan Crane, 
67, a member of the Jonah House community in Baltimore, Maryland; Lynne 
Greenwald, 60, a nurse from Bremerton Washington; and Steve Kelly, SJ, 60, 
a Jesuit priest from Oakland California. Bill Bischel and Lynne Greenwald 
are active members of the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, a 
community resisting Trident nuclear weapons since 1977.

The five admitted from the start that they cut through the chain link fence 
surrounding the Navy base during the night of the Feast of All Souls, 
November 2, 2009. They then walked undetected for hours nearly four miles 
inside the base to the Strategic Weapons Facility, Pacific (SWFPAC). This 
top security area is where the Plowshares activists say hundreds of nuclear 
missiles are stored in bunkers. There they cut through two more barbed wire 
fences and went inside. They put up two big banners which said "Disarm Now 
Plowshares: Trident Illegal and Immoral," scattered sunflower seeds, and 
prayed until they were arrested at dawn. Once arrested, the five were 
cuffed and hooded with sand bags because the marine in charge testified 
"when we secure prisoners anywhere in Iraq or Afghanistan we hood them...so 
we did it to them."

The eight Trident nuclear submarines home ported at Naval Base 
Kitsap-Bangor each carry 24 Trident D-5 nuclear missiles. Each missile 
carries up to eight warheads, each one having an explosive yield of up to 
475 kilotons, over 30 times the destructive force of the weapon dropped on 
Hiroshima.

Additionally, Bangor is home to SWFPAC where nuclear warheads are stored 
ready for deployment.  Located just 20 miles west of Seattle, it is home to 
the largest single stockpile of nuclear warheads in the U.S. arsenal, 
housing more than 2000 nuclear warheads.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, the 2,364 nuclear 
warheads at Bangor are approximately 24 percent of the entire U.S. arsenal, 
more than the combined nuclear warheads than China, France, Israel, India, 
North Korea and Pakistan.

The jury heard testimony from peace activists who came from around the 
world to challenge the use of Trident nuclear weapons by the U.S.  Angie 
Zelter, internationally known author and Trident Ploughshares activist from 
the UK, testified about the resistance to Trident weapons in Europe.

Stephen Leeper, Chair of the Peace Culture Foundation in Hiroshima, told 
the jury, "the world is facing a critical moment" because of the existence 
and proliferation of nuclear weapons. Though prohibited from testifying 
about the details of the death, destruction, and genetic damage to 
civilians from the US nuclear attack on Hiroshima, he testified defendants 
"have a tremendous amount of support in Hiroshima."   When asked if he had 
encouraged the Disarm Now Plowshares defendants in any way he said, “Yes, 
I told them, ‘Yes, do anything you possibly can to bring this to the 
consciousness of the world, because Americans more than any other people in 
the world are unconscious of what’s going on.’ ”

Retired US Navy Captain Thomas Rogers, 31 years in the Navy, including 
several years as Commander of a nuclear submarine during the Cold War, said 
of Trident, "strategic nuclear weapons on submarines... are kept on alert, 
deployed, and if ever used, they are released with a coded message that's 
authenticated on board the ship, and the commander of the ship shoots the 
missiles, delivers the weapons.  Which, in my opinion, in my knowledge, is 
contrary to the law of armed conflict which says a commander is responsible 
for - - is responsible for following the rules and principles of 
humanitarian law, and for not indiscriminately hurting noncombatants and 
for not causing undue suffering or environmental damage, and that 
commanding officer is powerless, and it's an awful feeling.

The peace activists represented themselves with lawyers as stand by 
counsel.  Attorneys Anabel Dwyer and Bill Quigley also assisted the 
defendants.  Dwyer is a Michigan attorney and Board Member of The 
Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy (LCNP), and an expert in 
humanitarian law and nuclear weapons.  Quigley is the Legal Director for 
the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York and Professor at Loyola 
New Orleans.

Prosecutors said the government would neither confirm nor deny the 
existence of nuclear weapons at the base, and argued that "whether of not 
there are nuclear weapons there or not is irrelevant."  Prosecutors 
successfully objected to and excluded most of the defense evidence about 
the horrific effects of nuclear weapons, the illegality of nuclear weapons 
under U.S. treaty agreements and humanitarian law, and the right of 
citizens to try to stop war crimes by their government.

The Disarm Now Plowshares defendants tried to present evidence about the 
presence of nuclear weapons at Bangor despite repeated objections.  At one 
point, Sr. Anne Montgomery challenged the prosecutors and the court, "Why 
are we so afraid to discuss the fact that there are nuclear weapons?"

There were many indications that the jury found it difficult to convict the 
Disarm Now Plowshares defendants.  Jury questions,facial expressions, body 
language and post-trial conversations all gave this impression.  One of the 
jurors said that from what he could tell, no one was ready to convict right 
away.

After the verdict was read and the Judge Settle was about to dismiss the 
jury, Steve Kelly stood and announced that the defendants would like to 
bless the jury.  Steve and all of his co-defendants stood with their hands 
raised in blessing as he said, "May you go in peace and have a safe, happy 
holiday."

Sentencing is scheduled for March 28, 2011 at 9:00 am.

For more information on the trial and the Plowshares peace activists please 
see the site for Disarm Now Plowshares 
http://disarmnowplowshares.wordpress.com/ or Ground Zero Center for 
Nonviolent Action http://www.gzcenter.org/index.html

Contact:  Leonard Eiger  (425) 445-2190
             Media & Outreach Coordinator
             Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action
subversivepeacemaking at comcast.net 
<mailto:subversivepeacemaking at comcast.net>

###


_______________________________________________
ufpj-activist mailing list

Post: ufpj-activist at lists.mayfirst.org
List info: https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/listinfo/ufpj-activist