Wales Afghanistan Newswire Archive

Sat: An A to B march through Newport
Sun: Protest at Cardiff's fence of steel
Mon & Tue - still to write up
Wed: Police asked to arrest NATO leaders

A day of action in solidarity with Welsh-American whistleblower Chelsea Manning was held on Tuesday 12 August as the Long March on Newport stopped off in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire where Manning attended the local Tasker Milward school as a teenager and has many family connections. On Wednesday 13 August the march passed Brawdy military base where Manning's father, then a US Navy intelligence analyst, was stationed in the 1970s.

The march is one of many protests against the NATO Summit which will be held in Newport on 4 & 5 September. A week of action, workshops and a counter-summit are planned in Newport and Cardiff from 30 August. See Stop NATO Cymru, No NATO Newport and this feature for more details. Many of the documents released by Manning, for which courageous act she is now serving 35 years in a military jail, expose NATO's wars and corruption.

On Wednesday, July 9th, the otherwise successful Day of Action against Nato in Merthyr Tydfil was marred by an intrusive police presence, the attempted intimidation of Stop Nato Cymru activists and the harassment of a public meeting that afternoon.

North Wales Armed Forces Day is this year being held in Wrexham. We are being asked to 'celebrate' and 'thank' our Armed Forces without any critical analysis of the recent conflicts they have been involved in. The event will be used by the military as a recruitment exercise, and much of this will be aimed at children.

Over 100 people have signed an open letter to Wrexham County Borough Council protesting its promotion, sponsorship and funding of this event and the use of a picture of a toddler in military gear to advertise it. The council has yet to respond.

On Saturday 3rd May, a group of 25 anarchists and other anti-militarists closed Barclays' Cardiff city centre branch in protest of the bank's investment in the arms trade.

View some pictures at  http://smashedo.org.uk/1676

We held another drone information stall yesterday in Wrexham.

See also this indymedia report and photos from a previous stall and this recent protest at RAF Waddington from where British armed Reaper drones will be controlled.