USAF Fairford broken into

Justan Dooit | 16.12.2002 12:58

Activists breach military airforce base security and entered base on Saturday.

On saturday, anti-war ctivists from across the country converged on US airforce base Fairford in Oxfordshire. A colourful 200-250 strong demo involving automous weapons inspectors, puppets and death vs peace flags, marched on the base. Upon arrival demonstrators split off into small groups to investigate the perimeter fence and suss out potential points of entry.

Fairford will be used to deploy B2 bombers and stealth bombers to carpet bomb Iraq in the event of war. It's the only base in Europe which will be deploying the aircraft due to its long runways and the face that locations in other countries - Spain and Germany were considered to risky for fear of local opposition.

Around 10-15 activists managed to break through the perimeter fence, vault over a smaller inside fence and make for the main hangars and depot before scattering, climbing up onto tall metal containers and finally being aprhended by police. Noone was arrested, and those aprehened were simply escorted from the base. Despite no damage being caused to equipment inside ): the action proved that the base could be entered with relative ease.

Justan Dooit

Comments

Hide the following 10 comments

This is anti-war activity!

16.12.2002 14:42

Sounds like a great action at Fairford. This airbase is where planes will actually take off from to bomb Iraq and we should be concentrating on it. Marches in London are fine, but imagine getting tens of thousands down to this airbase and surrounding it. They couldn't stop us and it would show that we're not against some abstract idea - we're against bombers taking off to drop bombs on cities.

I know the SWP don't really like direct action unless it's mass direct action - so lets all get together on just that, mass direct action to shut this base down.

Anyone want to propose that at the Stop the War Coalition conference in January?

activist

SWP

16.12.2002 15:15

Activist - there was a good turnout of the SWP at the Fairford demo, it would be completley wrong to accuse the SWP of being hostile to direct action.

At least a third of the rousing speakers afterwards were SWP members from all over the south-east, and even some that came down from Manchester just to attend the demo. Now that's dedication!

Marxist_Mike

Enough rousing speaches

16.12.2002 15:27

I have heard enough 'rousing' SWP speakers to last a lifetime. Activists are taking action which is dramatically damaging the war effort. People are working day and night risking safelty and liberty to take effective action, that is dedication. For various reasons not everyone is able to take such action but it would be useful if those that couldn't spent time doing prisoner support for those that can, rather than party building.

Barcelona36

Sabotage the War Machine

16.12.2002 17:25

On Saturday night a number of peace activists attacked targets within the Menwith Hill spy base causing tens of thousands of pounds worth of damage. Menwith Hill is the intelligence hub for co-ordinating the war effort against Iraq and is totally unaccountable to people in the UK. Activists broke through the security fences and disabled key elements of the base's covert listening apparatus. The damage will severely limit the base's ability to intercept communications and cost the US thousands to repair. We need to attack the US's ability to wage war which will lead to the inevitable deaths of 1000's of people. We can stop this war, we can stop star wars. Talking is not enough; marching is not enough; we cannot ask and expect the state to respond. This action was taken in order to inspire others to take the action necessary to stop this war.

Don Rumsfeld
Homepage: http://cndyorks.gn.apc.org/mhs/

Criminal damage

17.12.2002 11:38

Why was no one arrested after jumping the fence on Saturday?! And was anyone arrested for the damage to Menwith Hill ... you should have all been locked up and fined. You make me sick.

Billy Bunter

eh?

18.12.2002 00:44

Mr. Bunter
20 people cutting a hole in a fence and running around a bit makes you feel sick? What about a thermobaric bomb sucking the giblets out of an innocent Iraqi family - any reaction at all?

kyro

What?

21.12.2002 12:15

OK so we all fell sumit should be done and all you do is snipe at each other, marching draws a lot of attenion to a cause as dose criminal damage one form of protest i agree with but the other makes us no better than them if we continue along this path do we end up with guns and bombs to "keep the peace"? think before you strike out do you have any idea how many peaple turned down the chance to march on September 28 because they thought it would turn violent forgeting that it was ment to be a peaceful protest against the war!

Dan

violence? go on - break more guns..

21.12.2002 23:55

Destroying weapons and tools that are used to create wars or disabling a military base that is used for planning and carrying out acts of mass murder is the only direct way of reacting to a pre-planned, already decided, act of terror.

Voting, holding banners, letter-writing, and public speaking are all a waste of energy and time...

Demonstrations are only of any use when we get positive and fair reporting... ( does anyone ever remember THAT happening?? )

Indymedia and the like are our only voices in the wilderness of systematic state/multi-national/military propaganda...

We have to act NOW to protect other human beings from the terror and violence that the military and the war-mongering governments want to unleash upon them, all in the name of greed and power... (oil).

And we must start with dismantalling and destroying their machinery, weapons and tools. They might arrest us, but we will still live on, unlike their potential victims..

Fuck it, we are talking about peoples' lives here.....

Fight war - not wars.

DaWolf

it's all effective

27.12.2002 13:43

Talking about the build-up of opposition to the plans for war on Iraq -
It's ridiculous for anyone to suggest that one form of protest is superior of more effective than another. Any form of protest is better than none, that is the bottom line. Direct action is entirely ineffective unless it has a context of marches, blizzards of letter-writing, petitioning etc. to show a real groundswell of public support. Otherwise, you just look like a bunch of dangerously deluded, isolated nutters. Equally, conventional protest can be ignored without peaceful direct action. They go together. The point is for as many people as possible to join in and show their opposition to government policy.

ann pettitt

and the rest......

23.03.2003 13:55

>A colourful 200-250 strong demo

Oh come off it! Why is the media so conservative when estimating these attendance figures??? AND the REST!!- 200-250 is taking the p**s!!! I'd say the TRUE figure was more like 10,000!- I know - I was there!

Tom :-)

Tom