The Nuclear Resister

Banner held outside of the Trident nuclear submarine base, Kings Bay, GA. Photo by Beth Brockman.

Hungering for Nuclear Disarmament

by Kathy Kelly, June 19, 2018

In the state of Georgia’s Glynn County Detention Center, four activists await trial stemming from their nonviolent action, on April 4, 2018, at the Naval Submarine Base, Kings Bay. In all, seven Catholic plowshares activists acted that day, aiming to make real the prophet Isaiah’s command to “beat swords into plowshares.” The Kings Bay is home port to six nuclear armed Trident ballistic missile submarines with the combined explosive power of over 9000 Hiroshima bombs. 

This week, five people have gathered for a fast and vigil, near the Naval Base, calling it “Hunger for Nuclear Disarmament.” 

In Boston, Vietnam veteran Dan Luker is arrested on May 29, 2018. Photo by Steve Pavey via medium.com

The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival launched the day after Mother’s Day with rallies and nonviolent civil disobedience at more than 30 state capitals across the the United States. The Campaign revives the vision of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1968 Poor People’s Campaign that challenged the fundamental and interconnected injustices of racism, poverty and war. To these triple evils, as King identified them, the 50th anniversary campaign has added ecological devastation as part of the common threat to humanity.

Activist and author David Swanson, arrested in Washington, D.C., identified it as “The first multi-issue coalition we’ve seen in years that properly takes on militarism rather than indulging the fantasy of a $1 trillion a year military coexisting with decent humanitarian and environmental policies.”

The organizing model for this, the first phase of the Campaign, is a series of six weekly rallies and civil disobedience actions, each highlighting facets of the Call.  Phase One will wind up on Saturday, June 23 with a “Global Day of Solidarity and Sending Forth Call to Action Mass Rally” in Washington, D.C.

After the first three weeks of action, chronicled below are reports of over 1,000 arrests reported from 24 states and the District of Columbia.* Each week some civil disobedience actions did not result in arrests. The largest number of arrests were reported during the May 14  action in Washington, D.C. when demonstrators occupied First Street outside the Capitol building and refused to leave. One hundred and forty-six people were cited and released.

by Patrick O’Neill, Kings Bay Plowshares

At a May 17 bond hearing in United States District Court in Brunswick, Georgia, U.S. Attorney Karl Knoche told U.S. Magistrate Stan Baker that the government recommended that the seven Kings Bay Plowshares activists be held without bond pending their federal trial for conspiracy, destruction of property on a Naval Station, depredation of government property and trespass.  

Calling the action “serious criminal activity” carried out by defendants with “long criminal histories” who were a threat to the safety of the community, Knoche asked Baker to withhold bond.

After being released by police, Dr. Babu Rao addresses the meeting.

Farmers near the uranium mine and mill at Tummalapalle, in India’s Andrha Pradesh state have been protesting contamination of soil and groundwater and the depletion of their irrigation wells by the operations of the nuclear industrial site. Some have had to abandon their homes to the invisible blight and have suffered health problems they blame on the widespread pollution. When independent testing documented the levels of contamination, the Uranium Corporation of India (UCIL) arranged for their own tests before scheduling, then postponing, a meeting with village leaders to dispute the findings and try to calm the growing protest in the heart of India’s richest uranium deposits.

The meeting was finally set for Monday, April 9. That day, police arrested three prominent activists as they traveled to the meeting at the invitation of the farmers.