Two Recent US Plowshares Actions

(1) Silence Trident Action

On June 24, 2000, two peace activists, performing an "act of nonviolent direct disarmament and crime prevention," cut down three poles supporting transmission lines for a controversial U.S. nuclear weapons submarine communication system located near Clam Lake, Wisconsin.  Michael Sprong and Bonnie Urfer, both of rural Luck, Wisconsin, used hand-held saws to cut the poles, taking the transmitter off-line.  They waited over an hour for the arrival of police.  Urfer and Sprong, who called their action "Silence Trident," carried reams of documents justifying their action as a modern day Boston Tea Party.  They attached references to laws and treaties to the poles they cut.   
This is the fifth time since 1984 that the transmitter - known as Project ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) - has been shut down by activists who simply walked up to poles supporting the 28-mile-long transmitter antennae and cut them down with hand saws.  All the previous actions resulted in prison sentences. 

For more information, contact: Silence Trident, c/o Trident Resistance
Network-Midwest, P.O. Box 373, Luck, WI 54853, USA. Tel.: 715-472-4185.
Website: www.nukewatch.com

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(2) Sacred Earth and Space Plowshares 2000
By Rebekah Shardy 

On September 9, five Catholic nuns between the ages of 52 and 73 blazed onto Peterson Air Force Base during an "air show" with the fierce concern of elders who burn with the ancient zeal to teach and caution.  In this case, their village is global and reaches to the stars. "After proceeding around the Peterson air show display, looking at all the instruments of death, we came to the F-18 Hornet.  After reading its resume, of bombings in Operation Storm, we felt it needed to be disarmed directly."
Two sisters - Ardeth and Jackie Hudson - hammered and tossed blood on the Navy jet; in another area, Sisters Carol Gilbert, Ann Montgomery and Elizabeth Walters did the same to the Milstar Satellite Receiver, a communications transmitter designed to withstand nuclear war. The date of the air show coincided with the 20th anniversary of the first Plowshares action at General Electric. (Editor's note: Sister Ann Montgomery took part in that first plowshares action on Sept. 9, 1980.) The felony charges against the nuns were dropped, although a misdemeanor investigation continues.

Source: "Birthpangs of Peace: Five Women's Perpetual Labor," Colorado Springs Independent, September 28, 2000.

For more information, contact: Email: disarmnow@erols.com