James Richard Sauder, who served time in prison following a series of prayerful protests in the early 1980s at missile silos in Arkansas and Missouri and Navy bases in Virginia and Georgia, was arrested again April 15, 2010, inside a nuclear missile silo near Parshall, North Dakota. He has been jailed since his arrest and faces a federal court bench trial for criminal trespass, probably in late summer.
In his lengthy Minot Manifesto, Sauder anticipates dramatic social and geologic change coming, and advocates “direct, creative nonviolence” in response.
The silence over the horrors of nuclear weaponry is a terrible silence that is purchased with huge amounts of hush money by powerful military, industrial, political and financial interests in the USA and elsewhere,
I cannot remain silent and passive in the face of such a profound threat to the human race. I am here today to openly defy those interests and I publicly invite millions of people to join me, in Germany, France, England, Ireland, Russia, China, South Africa, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Nigeria, Japan, Korea, the USA, India, Pakistan, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, Iran, anyone and everyone, anywhere in the world.
Don’t cooperate with corrupt leaders. Withdraw your support and cooperation from them. You have a voice, use it! Stand up on your feet and claim your freedom! No one will do it for you, no one else can do it for you. The time for editorializing and blogging is drawing to a close. The time for action has arrived and it is my strong recommendation that our actions be creatively nonviolent, in the tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, so as not to further inflame an already very violent national and international arena.
Among other symbolic objects, Richard Sauder carried a bouquet of white roses, identifying his action as part of the White Rose Movement. Young Germans who first took action under the name were martyred for their nonviolent resistance to Nazi tyranny.
Sauder was being held at jail in Rugby, North Dakota, but will be transferred closer to court in Minot for his trial.