Record Number of Arrests in 1989 for Anti-Nuclear Protest The latest statistics, compiled annually by the Nuclear Resister, reveal that the 5,500 arrests for anti-nuclear protests in the United States and Canada in 1989 exceed the number reported for any previous year. "Reports of the death of the anti-nuclear movement were greatly exaggerated in the second half of the 1980's," notes Felice Cohen-Joppa, co-editor of the Nuclear Resister newsletter. "The numbers testify to the vitality of a nonviolent movement that made the 1980's a decade of unprecedented anti-nuclear civil resistance, resulting in more than 37,000 arrests in North America." The annual statistics show that 5,010 such arrests were made in the United States, and nearly 500 in Canada, during almost 150 protests at more than seventy nuclear power and weapons plants, test sites, along transportation routes and at military bases, government offices and proposed nuclear waste dumps. As a result of these anti-nuclear arrests, in 1989 alone more than ninety people served or are serving from two weeks to seventeen years in prison, while hundreds more served lesser sentences. The Nuclear Resister, published since 1980, is a comprehensive chronicle of anti-nuclear civil disobedience and peace prisoner support. It is recognized within the peace and justice movement as THE source for information, referals and networking about nonviolent direct action for disarmament and safe energy. In June, federal officials of the Bureau of Land Management evicted the Test Site Peace Camp, arresting three. Resolute peace campers have nonetheless sustained the three-year old continuous vigil by re-locating their camp on the public rally site adjacent to the main gate. This proximity enabled peace campers in July to hastily blockade the entrance road, and for the first time actually stop a truck convoy likely bringing nuclear weapons to the test site. Also in June, federal and state agents arrested four Arizona residents in an alleged conspiracy to topple electrical transmission lines leading from the Palo Verde (Arizona) and Diablo Canyon (California) nuclear power plants, and the Rocky Flats (Colorado) nuclear weapons plant. The four are all active in the radical environmental movement, Earth First! The arrests exposed a major undercover operation against Earth First! involving infiltrators and wiretaps in at least seven western states. Three of the four were jailed for two months before bond was set. In December, a fifth Arizonan was also indicted on related charges. Ironically, Earth First! has never focused their attention on nuclear issues. In an apparent effort to discredit both the anti-nuclear and radical environmental movements, prosecutors branded the original four as "terrorists." FBI anti-terrorist agent David Small justified that claim with the sweeping assertion that terrorism "includes any individual committing criminal acts under federal, state or local laws in furtherance with (sic) their political or social goals." No firm trial date has been set, as defense attorneys review hundreds of hours of wiretap transcripts and recorded conversations. While the government has escalated its response to direct action movements, nonviolent activists are also exploring different ways to advance their resistance. While each year scores of resisters refuse to pay fines or cooperate with terms of probation or parole, in 1989 activists charged in Michigan, Georgia, Ohio, Missouri and Pennsylvania actions refused even to answer summons or appear voluntarily in court. This refusal upheld the claim of many who do go willingly to court that nonviolent resistance to U.S. nuclear policies is no crime. The recalcitrant activists carried on instead with their peace and justice vocations. In the case of two people arrested at missile silos during the 1988 Missouri Peace Planting actions, federal authorities in 1989 resorted to intimidating the activists' friends and relatives until the resisters surrendered. The U.S. Supreme Court was presented in 1989 with the opportunity for the first time to hear a major nuclear resistance case. The appeal of the Plowshares Eight, Catholic peace activists who in 1980 first employed hand tools to damage nuclear weapons parts, claimed that they were denied a fair trial in Pennyslvania state court because their defense of justification and the supporting testimony of various experts had not been allowed. On October 2, the US Supreme Court declined without comment to hear the case. In an earlier appeal, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had invalidated their original sentences of 1.5 to 10 years. The Eight, Rev. Daniel Berrigan, Philip Berrigan, Dean Hammer, Fr. Carl Kabat, Elmer Maas, Sr. Anne Montgomery, Molly Rush and John Schuchardt - now await resentencing in early 1990. Civil resistance has also played a major role in the Canadian movement in 1989. A major nonviolent resistance campaign is being led by the Innu, native people of Northern Quebec and Labrador. The Canadian government is giving favorable consideration to a NATO proposal for expanded low-level training flights of nuclear and conventional NATO warplanes over traditional Innu hunting ranges, from an airbase at Goose Bay, Labrador. Innu families have repeatedly occupied the base runway and camped on the bombing ranges in protest, facing arrest and jail, while their supporters have engaged in a series of civil disodedience actions at government offices in Ottawa and Toronto. The struggle continues, with over 300 related arrests in 1989. In the next year, a major challenge facing anti-nuclear activists will be to expose the illusion of a diminished nuclear threat. Image-makers in the Bush administration will strive to finally silence nuclear critics by offering "cosmetic disarmament", in the form of an "arms reduction" treaty to eliminate up to half of the strategic nuclear arsenal. Yet the weapons most likely to be disarmed under the terms of a potential treaty - the land-based force of 1,000 Minuteman nuclear missiles in silos throughout the heartland of the United States - are in fact the least threatening. While offering to sacrifice silo-based missiles to public demand for nuclear weapons cuts, the Pentagon has clearly stated its intent to continue production of the more modern, less vulnerable weapons which are suitable to first-strike strategies; weapons such as Trident submarines, air- and sea-launched cruise missiles, the Stealth bomber and mobile, land-based missiles (the MX rail-garrison and/or Midgetman). While direct actionists have opposed all of these systems to varying degrees, it is the Trident nuclear submarine and its highly-accurate D-5 missile which are being most vigorously opposed. At the Trident's east coast homeport at Kings Bay, Georgia, the Metanoia Community has supported an increasing level of nonviolent resistance over the last three years. Arrests (105 in 1989) and jail terms have increased as the base comes into full operation. Across the southern states, communities of resistance are preparing to protest and blockade the "nuclear train," expected to return to the tracks in early 1990 to transport warheads to Kings Bay from the Pantex assembly plant near Amarillo, Texas. Trident resistance will also continue at sites in California and Utah, where the D-5 missile is designed, tested and assembled; at the west coast homeport at Bangor, Washington; and in Groton, Connecticut, where Trident submarines are built. In the spring of 1990, civil resisters at the Nevada test site will demonstrate in concert with nuclear testing opponents in Kazakhstan, the Soviet Union, who call theirs the "Nevada Movement", in solidarity with direct actionists in the United States. In this next decade, anti-nuclear resisters will be joined by citizens groups concerned with the environmental hazards of weapons production and nuclear waste disposal. Nuclear weapons plants remain closed in several states as the secret poisoning of surrounding communities over the last forty years has come to light. Activists are preparing direct action campaigns to "Stop the Restart" of these facilities, and prevent replacement factories from being built. And at the end of the nuclear fuel cycle, nuclear waste dumps nearly completed in New Mexico and under consideration in New York and Nevada are facing nonviolent opposition at the dump sites and along transportation routes. If the l99O's are truly to be the "Decade of the Environment", nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience will play a significant role in making the environment of the third millenium a non-nuclear one, as well. Jack and Felice Cohen-Joppa the Nuclear Resister, January 19, 1990. PO Box 43383 Tucson AZ 85733 (602)323-8697