Trident on trial again
Crimes at Bangor Base

Poulsbo WA 9 August

Ground Zero community reports that four folks were arrested while blocking the main road into the Trident base in Washington. No trial date has been set yet.

The four - Jackie Hudson of Bremerton, Betsy Collins of Kingston, Jim Burns of Seattle, and Karol Milner of Lake Forest Park - held a long banner across the incoming lanes to Bangor, stopping the flow of morning traffic into the base. The banner read: "Bangor Closed - Trident Violates International Law!"

Arrested for disorderly conduct, the four were part of a group of approximately 60 people who came to the Bangor base on the 54th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Nagasaki. The 60 were there to remember all nuclear weapons victims and to demand a stop to continued preparations for nuclear war, including the proposed D-5 nuclear missile upgrade at Bangor.

The nonviolent direct action followed the June 1999 acquittal of 8 people on charges of disorderly conduct for blocking the road to Bangor on August 9, 1998.

The Bangor Trident Submarine Base is home to eight nuclear-powered Trident submarines, each of which is armed with 192 100-kiloton nuclear warheads on 24 long-range, accurate C-4 missiles. Only 20 miles west of Seattle, Bangor is home to approximately 1,600 nuclear warheads, one of the largest concentrations of nuclear weaponry on Earth. This action was a call to the conscience of all people to demand that the US comply with its obligations under International Laws and Treaties to abolish nuclear weapons. Such laws and treaties include: Article 6 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the July 8, 1996 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice, the Hague and Geneva Conventions, as well as the Nuremberg Principles.

Specifically, the action was also to protest the proposed "upgrade" of four Bangor-based Tridents to carry the larger, more accurate D-5 missile. This proposal will cost an estimated $6.43 billion, and involves the purchase of new D-5 ballistic missiles at $60,000,000 each, as well as extensive new explosives handling facility construction at Bangor. This is the largest military project in Washington since the Bangor base was built in the 1970s, and takes place on Hood Canal, home to endangered and threatened salmon.