Eleven Activists Arrested as Trident Ploughshares Blockades Aldermaston

Aldermaston Women blockaded the Home Office Gate (West gate) locking on to concrete blocks. Another affinity group blockades Tadley gate locking on to two cars. This gate was blockades from before 7am until after 10.30am.
A third group blockades Boilerhouse gate locking on two a caravan. A fourth group blockaded the north gate using lock-ons.

Angie Zelter, one of the organisers of the blockade today, said, 'When our Government refuses to comply with the fundamental principles of law and undermines the whole Non-Proliferation process then it is up to us, ordinary people, to prevent 'business as usual' at Aldermaston. The blockades today are responsible nonviolent attempts to prevent nuclear state terrorism.'

Janet Kilburn of the Aldermaston Womens' Peace Camp, said, 'The government is due to take fundamental decisions on the replacement of Trident this autumn. They wanted to do it in secret, behind closed doors. Given the current economic situation, blowing £76bn on a useless weapon of mass destruction should surely be a matter for public scrutiny and debate. Our action today is part of the process of bringing this issue out into the open'.

For more information contact:-

Angie Zelter on 07835354652

For pictures of the event you can contact  press@aldermaston.net or you can download pictures direct from  http://aldermaston.net/media


Notes:

1. Trident Ploughshares is a campaign to disarm the UK Trident nuclear weapons system in a non-violent, open, peaceful and fully accountable manner  http://www.tridentploughshares.org To date 2,240 Trident Ploughshares disarmers have been arrested leading to over 520 trials.

2. AWE (Atomic Weapons Establishment) Aldermaston is where the UK makes its nuclear weapons. It is where the warheads for the current Trident system were built and at nearby AWE Burghfield, the warheads are periodically refurbished, and then taken back to Faslane in Scotland. Now they have started work on the next generation of nuclear weapons. Since 2002, AWE Aldermaston has been building new facilities to design, test and build the next generation of nuclear weapons. The development plans are on the same scale as Terminal 5 at Heathrow airport. Despite opposition from people all around the world, who fear the start of another nuclear arms race, a new laser facility, which is able to recreate the conditions of a nuclear explosion, is nearing completion, and other buildings are planned or under construction.

3. Parliament was promised in 2007 that they would have ample time for discussion of the new proposals for updating Trident and yet decisions will be taken behind closed doors during the Parliamentary recess this summer. EDM 660. states 'That this House recalls the commitment given during the parliamentary debate on the prospective programme for the replacement of the Trident system on 14 March 2007, Official Report, column 309, by the then Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Derby South, that the Government would ensure regular reports to Parliament as the programme proceeds; contrasts this with the answer given by the Permanent Under Secretary at the Ministry of Defence, Sir Bill Jeffrey, in oral evidence to the Public Accounts Committee on 19 November 2008, when it was highlighted that the Ministry of Defence had announced its intention to conclude the Initial Gate decision in September 2009, during the parliamentary recess, that these would normally be decisions taken by Ministers; notes that the Secretary of State for Defence said in a written Answer on 10 December 2008, Official Report, column 341W, that decisions will be taken on the Initial Gate in autumn 2009 and that the Government proposed to update Parliament on progress after Initial Gate; believes this undermines the commitment made to Parliament by the Foreign Secretary in March 2007; and requests that the Initial Gate decision be delayed until Parliament is in session and can be presented with the report for scrutiny.'

4. Judge Bedjaoui in 2009 states , 'I have been asked to give a personal opinion on the legality of a nuclear weapons system that deploys over 100 nuclear warheads with an approximate yield of 100 kt per warhead. Bearing in mind that warheads of this size constitute around eight times the explosive power of the bomb that flattened Hiroshima in 1945 and killed over 100,000 civilians, it follows that the use of even a single such warhead in any circumstance, whether a first or second use and whether intended to be targeted against civilian populations or military objectives, would inevitably violate the prohibitions on the infliction of unnecessary suffering and indiscriminate harm as well as the rule of proportionality including with respect to the environment. In my opinion, such a system deployed and ready for action would be unlawful. In accordance with evidence heard by the Court, it is clear that an explosion caused by the detonation of just one 100 kt warhead would release powerful and prolonged ionising radiation, which could not be contained in space or time, and which would harmfully affect civilians as well as combatants, neutral as well as belligerent states states, and future generations as well as people targeted in the present time. In view of these extraordinarily powerful characteristics and effects, any use of such a warhead would contravene international and humanitarian laws and precepts. In other words, even in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake, the use of a 100 kt nuclear warhead – regardless of whether it was targeted to land accurately on or above a military target -- would always fail the tests of controllability, discrimination, civilian immunity, and neutral rights and would thus be unlawful'.