Dissident Veteran For Peace

Excerpt from "Not Guilty. The Pitstop Ploughshares All Acquitted on All Charges" on Indymedia Ireland, July 25, 2006:

The verdict was given at aproximately 11.50 a.m. this morning at this significant trial in The Four Courts. Since their action on the 3rd February 2003 the five defendants have waited three years for todays verdict, under onerous bail conditions, with two other trials collapsing. In a statement released immediately after the verdict the Pitstop Ploughshares said:

"The jury is the conscience of the community chosen randomly from Irish society. The conscience of the community has spoken. The government has no popular mandate in providing the civilian Shannon airport to service the US war machine in it's illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq.

"In 1996 in Liverpool the Jury acquittal of the four 'ploughshares' women contributed to the end of arms exports to the Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia and the independence of East Timor.

"The decision of this jury should be a message to London, Washington DC and the Dail that Ireland wants no part in waging war on the people of Iraq. Refuelling of US warplanes at Shannon Airport should cease immediately. " - Ciaron, Damien, Karen, Deirdre and Nuin.

Here's what they were on trial for:

In the early hours of Monday 3 February 2003, five members of the pacifist Catholic Worker Movement cut their way into Shannon Airport, Ireland. The peace activists poured human blood on the runway that has been servicing U.S. military flights, troop and munition deployments to U.S. military bases in Kuwait and Qatar.

They constructed a shrine on the runway to Iraqi children killed and threatened by U.S./British bombardment and sanctions. The shrine consisted of copies of the Bible and Quran, rosary and muslim prayer beads, flowers, photographs of Iraqi children and Brigid's crosses. They then began to take up the runway, working on its edge with a mallet.

The activists approached the hanger housing a US Navy plane under repair. They painted ''Pit stop of death'' on the hanger's roller door, and began the dismantling of the hanger. They then entered the hanger to disarm the repaired US warplane. The plane in question according to Ciaron was the same plane as Mary Kelly hit with a hatchet in the recent past. They then prayed together.

Here are the first four paragraphs of the July 27, 2006, article " 'We'll use people power to shut down Shannon' " by Mary Regan in the Irish Examiner:

ANTI-WAR protesters are plotting to trespass at Shannon Airport, occupy a runway and blockade American air craft carrying troops to Iraq.

The warning, to "demilitarise" or shut down the airport through non-violent measures, came yesterday.

One of the five activists, acquitted this week on charges of causing an estimated €2 million worth of damage to a United States Navy aircraft three years ago, said every effort would be made to close down the airport through "people power".

Ciaron O'Reilly, 46, said: "We're going to analyse how many people it will take to close down Shannon Airport until it's demilitarised. In doing that we'll be in discussion with student groups, human rights peace groups, environmental groups and community groups, to see — in the tradition of Martin Luther King and Ghandi — if we can initiate a process of non-violent direct action and close the airport down until it's demilitarised."

Labels: anti-war movement, Iraq, Ireland, Justice, resistance