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Four Members of E.U. Parliament Arrested Protesting US Nuclear Weapons in Belgium

By John LaForge
Nukewatch Spring Quarterly 2019
Three Members of the European Parliament climbed into the air base at Kleine Brogel in Belgium February 20 and symbolically blocked the runway, demanding the withdrawal of the US nuclear bombs stationed there. Standing with banner L-to-R were lawmakers Molly Scott Cato, Tilly Metz, and Michèle Rivasi. Photo by Act for Peace.

“I have been arrested for breaking into a Belgian military airbase to protest against the stockpiling of American nuclear bombs.” This dramatic declaration came from Molly Scott Cato, a Green Party Member of the European Parliament (MEP) representing southwest England. Ms. Cato joined three other parliamentarians and members of the Belgian peace group Agir Pour la Paix (Act for Peace) in the February 20 protest at Kleine Brogel air base in eastern Belgium, “to challenge EU countries to remove US nuclear weapons from Europe.”

Ms. Cato, 55, from Bristol, and two other MEPs boldly scaled a 7-foot fence with Act for Peace members and walked directly onto the runway used by F-16 fighter jets. Holding a banner calling for a “Nuclear free zone for Europe,” they symbolically blocked the runway to demand the ouster of US nuclear weapons from Europe. A fourth Green Party parliamentarian, Thomas Waitz from Austria, was arrested along with 12 members of Act for Peace at a simultaneous protest outside the base, The Guardian reported. The activists were arrested and released.

The lawmakers—Michèle Rivasi of France, Tilly Metz from Luxembourg, and Ms. Cato—all represent Green parties in their home countries, and Rivasi is the Vice-Chair of the Green Party caucus of the European Parliament. The Greens currently hold 51 of the EP’s 751 seats.

According to a press release from the Greens and the European Free Alliance, the blockaders issued three demands: the withdrawal of US nuclear bombs stationed in Europe; the ratification of the Treaty of Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons by all European Union Member States; and the creation of a nuclear weapon-free zone for Europe.  Kleine Brogel is one of six European air bases that deploy and train in the use of US B61 nuclear weapons.*

“To date, no state or international organization has the medical, human and logistical means that would manage the humanitarian and environmental consequences of a nuclear detonation,” Act for Peace said in a statement. “That is why it is essential for Belgium to set an example by joining gestures with words, and concretely work towards nuclear disarmament.”

Ms. Rivasi told The Guardian, “We are demanding the withdrawal of nuclear bombs at Kleine Brogel and also from Italy, Germany and the Netherlands. We urge all EU (European Union) member states to sign and ratify the treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons. Our first objective is a Europe without nuclear arms.”

“Today, 15,000 nuclear weapons are still in circulation in the world and about 20 nukes are still present at the Kleine Brogel military base,” Rivasi told The Irish Times. “However, the bombs stored in Belgium have adjustable power ranging from one to 340 kilotons, or up to 26 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. Yet everyone seems to have forgotten their presence and most importantly, their danger,” she added.

The US Air Force’s 701st Munitions Support Squadron manages the twenty B61 nuclear bombs on the base, home to the Belgian Air Force’s 10th Tactical Wing which flies the nuclear-capable F-16s.

In a statement sent to Newsweek, the British-based Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament voiced its support for the action. CND General Secretary Kate Hudson said, “US nuclear weapons have no place in Europe—this isn’t a battle-ground for a nuclear war between world powers.”

“A secret bilateral agreement between a European Union Member State and the US is an imposed choice of extreme violence—imposed on the Belgian and European people. These bilateral agreements leave no room for democratic debate and genuine consideration of citizens. That is why we join activists today in civil disobedience because we believe the public interest is under threat,” Rivasi said.

Ms. Cato, who represents Cornwall and Devon, said to The Cornwall News, “These apocalyptic weapons should find no home in Europe. We demand that Europe’s nuclear nations immediately sign up to the landmark global Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and begin the process of decommissioning their nuclear arsenals.”

* The United States is the only government in the world that places its nuclear weapons in other countries. The other bases are in The Netherlands, Germany, Turkey and two in Italy. Unconfirmed reports suggest that the 70 to 90 US H-bombs thought to be stationed at Turkey’s Incirlik airbase have quietly been removed. Previous “nuclear sharing” agreements have ended with Britain, Greece and Canada where US nuclear weapons were formerly stationed.

 

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NATO: Alliance for Global Intervention

By Jürgen Wagner

Nukewatch Spring Quarterly 2019

A US B61 nuclear gravity bomb at the ready inside a Protected Aircraft Shelter with a German Tornado PA200 fighter jet. German bunkers like these hold at least 20 of the bombs, and German pilots train to use the weapons under a controversial and classified “nuclear sharing” agreement. Similar “sharing” agreements have been made between the US and Belgium, The Netherlands, Italy and Turkey.

NOTE: This report is excerpted from an article in 360⁰-NATO: Mobilization on All Fronts, edited by Sabine Lösing, Member of the European Parliament, April 2017.

[I]n March 1999, without a UN Security Council mandate and thus in clear violation of international law, NATO began an offensive air war against the independent state of Yugoslavia. The Alliance had emphasized its readiness to intervene “out of area,” by acting independently of the UN Security Council and therefore avoiding the veto power of Russia and China. …

On April 24, 1999, just one month after the first air strikes on Yugoslavia, NATO adopted a new strategy that interpreted similar interventions as its core task… [and] included the telling statement: “NATO will seek, in cooperation with other organisations, to prevent conflict, or, should a crisis arise, to contribute to its effective management, consistent with international law, including through the possibility of conducting non-Article 5 crisis response operations… In this context, NATO recalls its subsequent decisions with respect to crisis response operations in the Balkans.” [NATO Strategic Concept, April 24, 1999, Item 31] …

The reference “consistent with international law,” while the line of action in the Balkans was addressed as being a model for future operations, was quite disturbing. The entire statement, in fact, runs contrary to the NATO [Charter] itself, as there is no provision in the treaty for military interventions outside the territory of the Alliance. [emphasis added] The member states make a mockery of their own treaty, which had remained unmodified since 1949, by inventing so-called “non-Article 5 operations.” …

Article 5 of the NATO [Charter] does not include an obligation for military assistance by the member states; the NATO states are held to exhibit solidarity in case of an attack against another NATO member state. [emphasis added] Individual states are allowed to determine their own course of action in following this provision. Nevertheless, a case for extra-territorial operations was made following the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001. The invasion of Afghanistan by NATO began less than a month later. …

Offers by the Taliban, Afghanistan’s de facto ruling party, to extradite Osama bin Laden were ignored. In August 2003, NATO took over the governance of Afghanistan with its International Security Assistance Force. With… more than 130,000 troops, Afghanistan became the central setting for NATO to prove that it was capable of permanently seizing control of a conflict area. …

[T]he NATO summit in Warsaw in July 2016 … gave the go-ahead for NATO’s AWACS warplanes equipped with radar and communication technology to control the airspace above Syria (and Iraq) and, thus, to join the fight against the so-called Islamic State group. …

A study in March 2006 funded by the German Marshall Fund [NATO in a World of Disorder] … puts special emphasis on the revitalization of the role of nuclear weapons. …

               On April 4, 2019, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will celebrate its 70th anniversary in Washington, D.C. In view of NATO’s post-Cold War crime spree in Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, peace activists are organizing

 “Unwelcome” events between March 30 and April 4. For info on scheduled events in D.C., see:

<no2nato2019.org>

<no-to-nato.org/en/>

<worldbeyondwar.org/notonato/>

<Email: contact@No2NATO2019.org>

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Atomic Saber Rattling: NATO’s Nuclear First-Strike Offensive

By Jürgen Wagner
Nukewatch Spring Quarterly 2019

NOTE: This piece is excerpted from an article in 360⁰-NATO: Mobilization on All Fronts, edited by Sabine Lösing.

The 2010 Strategic Concept of the Alliance* clearly addresses “the hierarchy of NATO’s nuclear powers”: “The supreme guarantee of the security of the Allies is provided by the strategic nuclear forces of the Alliance, particularly those of the United States…”

Neither NATO nor its non-nuclear member countries hold any competence over the nuclear weapons of the United States—not even over the nuclear weapon stockpile deployed in Europe within the scope of nuclear sharing…. [Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists reported in 2015:] “NATO itself has no authority over the nuclear weapons use decision. The decision to employ nuclear weapons in support of NATO can only be made in Washington, London and Paris by the state leaders of those nuclear-weapon states. NATO … cannot block use.” …

[Otfried Nassauer reports that] “In its 1999 Strategic Concept … NATO went without depicting the use of nuclear weapons as a ‘last resort’ as it had … the no-first-use policy was not issued either, because the US reserve[s] a right to nuclear first use…”

Thus, Claudia Major of the German Institute for International & Security Affairs writes: “Nuclear deterrence offers protection, too—but only if Russia believes that NATO would actually apply nuclear weapons.”…

[Wikipedia reports,] “In peacetime, the nuclear weapons stored in non-nuclear countries are guarded by US Air Force personnel… codes required for arming them remain under [USAF] control. In case of war, the weapons are to be mounted on the participating countries’ warplanes. The weapons are under custody and control of USAF Munitions Support Squadrons.”…

The B61-12 [bomb] is now expected to replace older types 3, 4, 7, and 10 as well as the bunker busting B61-11 and B83 strategic nuclear bombs. …

[German] Tornados [fighter jets] are not compatible with the B61-12 without modifications. For this reason, they are candidates for “modernization” as is the associated airport at Büchel…. [According to N-TV, Sept. 22, 2015]: “German Tornados should be able to attack with the newest US nuclear weapons within the scope of nuclear sharing.… Not only American, but also German sources plow money into the modernization of the airbase in Büchel.

While the US pays for the weapons’ integration into German Tornados, the German Ministry of Defense invests [$127 million] into the modernization of the runway and the instrumental approach system in Büchel. Other US nuclear bases in Europe, like Incerlik, Turkey, or Aviano, Italy, are candidates for modernization, too.” …

The fact that they are focusing on more accuracy and penetrating power suggests that they are really aspiring to a first-strike capability. In 2006, a much-discussed report in Foreign Affairs revealingly entitled “The Rise of US Nuclear Primacy,” arrived at the same result: “…The current and future US nuclear force, in other words, seems designed to carry out a preemptive disarming strike against Russia or China.”…

An analysis by the US Congressional Research Service reads: “A prompt strike against an adversary’s ballistic missiles or caches of weapons of mass destruction might allow the US to destroy these weapons before an adversary could use them.” …

Until now they have been too inaccurate and without enough penetrating power to be used as strategic weapons…. Thus they could become integral parts of US first-strike plans… The German television program Frontal 21 reported in September 2015: “Armament experts confirm that the new B61-12 tactical nuclear weapons are much more accurate than the nuclear bombs that have been stored in Büchel so far. In case of war, German Tornado pilots are supposed to fly attacks with US bombs within the scope of nuclear sharing.”…

Hans Kristensen … in Washington, DC criticizes: “The differences between tactical and strategic nuclear weapons are obliterated with the new [B61] bombs.”…

[The Associated Press reported in 2015] “that the Obama administration was weighing options to deploy new land-based missiles in Europe to be able to pre-emptively destroy Russian nuclear weapons under certain conditions.”

[As Foreign Affairs reported]: “[T]he sort of missile defenses that the US might plausibly deploy would be valuable primarily in an offensive context, not a defensive one—as an adjunct to a US first-strike capability, not as a stand-alone shield. If the US launched a nuclear attack against Russia (or China), the targeted country would be left with a tiny surviving arsenal—if any at all…. Washington’s continued refusal to eschew a first strike and the country’s development of a limited missile defense capability take on a new, and possibly more menacing look.”…

In a footnote, Mr. Wagner writes, “In January 2008, several high-ranking NATO strategists published the report ‘Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World’… [and] explicitly emphasized their readiness for first use once again: ‘Regrettably, nuclear weapons—and with them the option of first use—are indispensable, since there is simply no prospect of a nuclear free world.’”

*The Strategic Concept is NATO’s official periodic document that outlines its purpose, nature and tasks.

On April 4, 2019, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will celebrate its 70th anniversary in Washington, D.C. In view of NATO’s post-Cold War crime spree in Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, peace activists are organizing

 “Unwelcome” events between March 30 and April 4. For info on scheduled events in D.C., see:

<no2nato2019.org>

<no-to-nato.org/en/>

<worldbeyondwar.org/notonato/>

<Email: contact@No2NATO2019.org>

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How the Wall Street Journal Gets it Wrong*

By John LaForge
Spring Nukewatch Quarterly 2019

* See accompanying article In Germany, Long-Standing Deal to Host US Nuclear Weapons is Now in Question.

A Sandia National Laboratories mechanical engineer adjusts a microphone for an acoustic test on a prototype of the new B61-12 nuclear bomb, scheduled to go into production by 2020. Photo by US Energy Dept.

The Wall St. Journal’s claim that the current debate in Germany about US nuclear weapons stationed there is “the first since the 1980s” is in error. Here are just a few examples of the debate.

  • In 2008, five former armed forces chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France and The Netherlands published a manifesto that declared in part that a “first strike” nuclear option remains an “indispensable instrument” since there is “simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world.” The paper was signed by a former chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Germany’s former top soldier and ex-chairman of NATO’s military committee, a former Dutch Chief of Staff, a former French Chief of Staff, and former Chief of the General Staff in the UK.
  • In 2009, then German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the US B61 arsenal in Germany was “militarily obsolete” and urged the US to remove it.
  • On March 26, 2010, following nationwide grassroots campaigning and demonstrations, the German parliament adopted a widely popular, cross-party (nonpartisan) resolution demanding that the federal government see to the removal of US weapons.
  • After it was reported that disarmament activists had gotten far inside the Büchel Air Base and occupied the top of a potential nuclear weapons bunker July 16, 2017, Green Party parliament Deputy Tabea Rössner openly criticized the base’s security, prompting an August 7 headline that read, “Is Air Base Büchel just as safe as an amusement park?”
  • On Aug. 22, 2017, Martin Schulz, the Social Democrat Party candidate for Chancellor in September’s national elections, unexpectedly called for the ouster of the US nuclear weapons. Reuters, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Politico and major German media reported: “German rival of Chancellor [Angela] Merkel vows to remove US nuclear weapons from the country”; “Searching for another point of difference, Schulz pledged on [August 22] to have US nuclear weapons withdrawn from German territory if, against the odds, he defeats Merkel”; and “Germany’s Schulz says he would demand US withdraw nuclear arms.”

The LA Times reported that Schulz said at a campaign rally, “As chancellor, I’d push for the ejection of nuclear weapons stored in Germany.” The debate continued as conservative politicians and editorials attacked Schulz as unrealistic about military matters.

  • On Aug. 29, 2017, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel made a surprise endorsement of Schulz’s proposal during a press conference with then US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Washington, DC. Gabriel’s statement included his bold admission that, “I agreed with Mr. Schulz’s point that we need to get rid of the nuclear weapons that are in our country.”

Media around the world reported, “Foreign Minister joins call to withdraw US nukes from Germany,” and “German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has supported Social Democrat (SPD) leader Martin Schulz’s pledge that he will push for the removal of US nuclear warheads from Germany if elected Chancellor.”

  • On Aug. 31, 2017, International Business Times and The Financial Tribune online declared, “Top German Politicians Want US Nuclear Weapons Out.” The reports noted, “Germany’s top diplomat has backed the suggestion of SPD leader and Chancellor hopeful Martin Schulz, who has pledged to rid his country of US nukes. Washington, meanwhile, is pressing ahead to modernize its nuclear stockpile.”
  • Headlines and radio waves were buzzing again in July 2018, after five separate groups of activists clipped the fence around Büchel Air Base in broad daylight, gaining entry to the base and again occupying the top of a hardened aircraft shelter. Court cases stemming from these civil resistance actions always push the issue and the debate into the public square.

* See accompanying article In Germany, Long-Standing Deal to Host US Nuclear Weapons is Now in Question.

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US Nuclear Weapons “Sharing” in Europe

Protest and Resistance

By John LaForge
Winter Quarterly 2018-19

Regular readers will recall that for two summers in a row, Nukewatch has organized a delegation to Germany made up of US peace activists, and joined forces with Germany’s nation-wide campaign to oust the remaining 20 US nuclear weapons from Germany’s Büchel Air Force Base.

Under a program called “nuclear sharing,” the United States positions nuclear gravity bombs known as B61s at six NATO air force bases in five European states, one base each in Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Turkey, and two bases in Italy.

Military pilots in these NATO states reportedly train for loading the US nuclear bombs on their own fighter jets and are prepared to use them on orders from the president of the United States.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was asked last spring whether NATO’s “nuclear sharing,” was becoming “obsolete.” Speaking at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, April 5, 2018, Mr. Stoltenberg said:

Nuclear sharing, for those who don’t know … the United States, they have the weapons. But then other NATO allies, for instance, deliver the planes that can carry the nuclear bombs. So, then different nations work together to provide a nuclear capability. That’s nuclear sharing…. [I]t’s not obsolete. … I cannot comment on which countries are a part of our nuclear sharing arrangements…”

Protest and Resistance

German activists have worked for 20 years to see the bombs removed from Büchel, and hundreds have been engaged in protest and nonviolent resistance at the base.

Hundreds of activists have participated in the campaign “20 Weeks for 20 Bombs,” a 5-month peace camp organized by Nonviolent Action for Abolition of Nuclear Weapons (GAAA) which is supported by 60 national and regional peace groups around the country. The Nukewatch/US delegation has twice joined the camp during its “International Week” in July.

In the years 2017 and 2018, International Week saw nuclear weapons opponents conduct uninvited “go-in” actions 58 times at the base, GAAA coordinator Küpker reports.

From left, Susan Crane, Marion Küpker, Gerd Büntzly, and John LaForge held banners outside the state prosecutor’s offices in Koblenz, Germany July 25, 2018 after delivering a letter. Büntzly has appealed his conviction on trespass charges stemming from a July 16, 2017 protest in which he, Crane, LaForge, Bonnie Urfer and Steve Baggarly all got deep inside the Büchel Air Base and occupied a heavy bunker. The other four were never charged, and the letter complained of his “selective prosecution.”
Selective Prosecution for Bunker Occupation

In one of the 2017 actions, a group of four US citizens, including this reporter, and German activist Gerd Büntzly set out to inspect a nuclear bomb bunker. After spending an hour on one of the heavily fortified and earth-covered bunkers, and being picked up and briefly detained by air base authorities, the action made headlines. Of the five, only Gerd Büntzly was charged and convicted of trespass and damage to property.

Büntzly will be in Koblenz, Germany on January 16, 2019, for an appeal of the low-level conviction. (check back for updates!)

In protest of the apparently selective prosecution of Gerd, Plowshares activist Susan Crane and I (who along with Bonnie Urfer and Steve Baggarly had joined Gerd on the bunker) submitted a formal letter to the German prosecutor’s office in Koblenz on July 25, 2018. The letter complained of the offices’s unfairness in charging just one for actions taken by five.

The prosecutor’s office first claimed that it could not find contact information for the US citizens. When it was reminded that the German Air Force, the civil police and the US Air Force all had the addresses, the prosecutor simply replied that our letter of complaint had not been persuasive in changing the offices’s position.

With the help of Küpker, translators, and GAAA, Susan Crane and I will travel to Koblenz in January to testify at the appeal hearing on Gerd’s behalf. To support Gerd’s defense of necessity in the case, German attorneys are helping arrange for our testimony and for the submission of formal declarations from international law experts.

Prosecutor’s Warnings to “Go-in” Activists

GAAA’s Küpker reports that over the last 20 years, so-called “go-in” protest actions involving crossing into air force property have led to charges and convictions for trespassing, and sometimes for property damage if the fence was cut. However, it is striking that prosecutors have always refused to charge activists from European countries outside Germany.

This year for the first time, letters of warning from the German military and in some cases from the state prosecutor have been sent to at least 16 activists from various countries informing them that the charges could be pending. Peace activists from The Netherlands, England, and the United States have received notices which strangely do not contain official charges. Küpker suggested the letters could be an attempt at intimidation.

Join the Effort to Oust US Nukes from Germany

The camp, set just outside the gates of the Büchel Air Force Base in west-central Germany, is again scheduled to run from March 26 to August 9, 2019. Contact Nukewatch to join this year’s delegation running July 8-16.

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