Direct Action

May 2, 2023 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

John’s Letter from Jail

Artist Mark Taylor’s rendition of Uncle Sam and his German doppelganger sentencing John LaForge.

January 15, 2023

This month has three important political anniversaries, anti-war and anti-nuclear holidays if you will, events I’ll celebrate privately for a change, since I’m temporarily cooling my heels in a German prison on the west end of Hamburg. It’s not that I killed or robbed very many people, but I have acted contemptuously toward the court system here and have refused to cooperate with its deeply corrupt and dishonest protection of the nuclear weapons establishment.

Because Susan Crane and I had the gall to occupy the top of a nuclear weapons bunker that holds U.S. hydrogen bombs here in Germany, and then refused to apologize by paying a fine for trespassing, the court has decided that seven weeks in this modern prison ought to mend my ways, or at least discourage other abolitionists.

The three war-weary events are Martin Luther King Day, January 16; the second anniversary of the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, January 22; and the yearly setting of the “Doomsday Clock,” January 24 – that weirdly formulaic gauge of nuclear armageddon’s likelihood concocted by a group of scientific nuclear eggheads.
The establishment of the MLK holiday and of the TPNW were both monumental achievements made against fierce, wealthy, bigoted, and colonialist forces of reaction. Advocates of nonviolent action and campaigners for a world free of nuclear weapons this Monday and next Sunday, then get back to work Tuesday when the alarm goes off again on the Doomsday Clock. Of course the clock’s “up one year, down the next” assessment of nuclear war risks has been ignored as a worn out rewrite of the Chicken Little tale. Yet the five metric tons of plutonium dust that was lofted into the upper atmosphere by nuclear weapons tests is all making its way back down to Earth. So yes, Mr. Watson, in fact the worst part of the sky is falling.

Dr. King and opposition to nuclear weapons will always be connected in my mind because MLK said, “We have guided missiles and misguided men” and “the ultimate logic of racism is genocide,” and because nuclear weapons are nothing if not genocidal.

Dr. King’s books, and the hard-won triumphs of the fearlessly nonviolent Civil Rights Movement, inspired a group of us in the 1980s to repeatedly blockade the entrance to the Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota which then controlled 150 land-based, long-range nuclear-armed missiles. Over a ten-year period, our band of nuclear resisters served enough county jail time after staging so many marches, protests, and stunts – once pouring blood across the 100-ton concrete lid of a locked-and-loaded Minuteman III missile silo – that when the Air Force later decided to eliminate over half of its land-based missiles, the Grand Forks nukes were some of the first to go.

Our small group efforts were encouraged back then by news of hundreds of thousands across Europe who took to the streets demanding – successfully, it turned out – the ouster of U.S. Cruise and Pershing missiles. Any prospective use of the weapons was almost universally viewed in Europe as suicidal.

We never know if our demands will be realized – only that nothing is gained without venturing. Anti-nuclear marchers in the ‘80s never guessed they’d see the UN General Assembly vote 122-to-3 to endorse a treaty banning nuclear weapons. This overwhelming majority of the world’s governments have agreed that nuclear weapons can only produce massacres, that any chance of a successful medical response to their effects is impossible, that these effects would illegally cross neutral borders, do long-term criminal damage to the environment, and then recoil to maim and destroy the very militaries that unleash them. (That’s why I wrote “B61 = Suicide” on the weapons bunker just before being detained.)

Today, the groundbreaking TPNW has permanently shamed and stigmatized the nuclear weapons states as hypocrites, scofflaws, and rogues who ridicule and ignore the treaty’s means while cynically claiming to desire its ends.

The nine-member thermonuclear cartel, like a gang of coldblooded mobsters, acts outside and above the law by rewarding their judicial, police, and prison authorities for the cover they provide – authorities who then wink and pretend that the protection racket is necessary and that the Bomb is legal.

Maybe our marching, our rebellion, and the law of nations can’t denuclearize the cabal of atomic weaponeers. Maybe the nuclear mobsters won’t re-direct their war chests to useful purposes before they run our earthly train off the rails. But then nothing changes unless we demand it.

— Written by John LaForge

May 2, 2023 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

U.S. Activist to German Prison for Protesting Büchel Nukes

John LaForge enters Billwerder Prison in Hamburg on Jan. 10 to serve 50 days for his actions aimed at removing U.S. nuclear weapons from Germany.

Amidst heightened nuclear tension between NATO and Russia in Europe, U.S. peace activist John LaForge entered a German prison on January 10, 2023, to serve jail time there for protests against U.S. nuclear weapons stockpiled at Germany’s Büchel Air Force Base, 80 miles southeast of Cologne. LaForge entered JVA Billwerder in Hamburg as the first American ever imprisoned for a nuclear weapons protest in Germany.

The 66-year-old Minnesota native and co-director of Nukewatch, was convicted of trespass in Cochem District Court for joining in two “go-in” actions at the German airbase in 2018. One of the actions involved entering the base and climbing atop a bunker that likely housed some of the roughly twenty U.S. B61 thermonuclear gravity bombs stationed there.

Germany’s Regional Court in Koblenz affirmed his conviction and lowered the penalty from €1,500 to €600 ($619) or 50 “daily rates” – 50 days incarceration. LaForge refused to pay and appealed the convictions to Germany’s Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, the country’s highest. In the appeal, LaForge argues the District Court in Cochem and the Regional Court in Koblenz erred by refusing to consider his defense of “crime prevention,” thereby violating his right to present a defense. Before entering prison, LaForge said: “U.S. and German air force plans and preparations, currently ongoing, to use the nuclear weapons stationed here in Germany are a criminal conspiracy to commit massacres with radiation and firestorms. The court authorities in this case have prosecuted the wrong suspects.”

Both courts ruled against hearing from expert witnesses who had volunteered to explain the international treaties that prohibit any planning for mass destruction. In addition, the appeal argues, Germany’s stationing of the U.S. nuclear weapons is a violation of the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which explicitly forbids any transfer of nuclear weapons between countries that are parties to the treaty, including both the U.S. and Germany.

— Press release reprinted from The Nuclear Resister editors Felice and Jack Cohen-Joppa

May 2, 2023 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Nuclear Weapons Protests in Germany in 2023

By Marion Küpker

John LaForge, Marion Küpker and IPPNW in Hamburg for ban treaty anniversary. Photo Credit: Hinrich Schultze.

Nukewatch is part of the network “Abolish nuclear weapons-start with us!” consisting of 75 peace organizations. Since 2017, Nukewatch has helped organize U.S. delegations to our International Week of Actions in the annual “Büchel is everywhere! Nuclear Weapons-free Now” campaign. There are 10-20 U.S. nuclear bombs at the German army “Bundeswehr” Büchel NATO airbase as part of the nuclear sharing program. These bombs are to be exchanged, as soon as the base’s infrastructure modernizations are finished, with the B61-12 bombs also produced in the U.S. Our non-violent actions were directed against this nuclear weapons deployment, which is contrary to international law, law that is officially supposed to be applied in German courts. Of the many court cases resulting from “go-in” actions of civil resistance at the base, there have now been 18 appeals to the Constitutional Court in which the convictions were upheld. In addition, there is an appeal by two resisters pending before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. Nukewatch co-director John LaForge just served jail time from January 10 to February 28 as the first U.S. citizen imprisoned for “go-in” actions: he refused to pay the court-imposed fine. While in prison, John received notice of the Constitutional Court’s refusal to consider his appeal (the 18th).

In early February, our Campaign Strategy Conference determined the organizing of protests at the Büchel air base has become extremely difficult. We no longer get any local peace camp areas approved. Further, the military built itself a positive image during the Corona pandemic. Although civil-military cooperation is prohibited by law in Germany, Büchel soldiers organized the tracking of Corona-infected people in the district. During the 2021 flood in the Ahr Valley, which killed more than 100 people, part of the military base became the hub for disaster response, and helicopters carrying soldiers rushed in to assist. Climate disasters currently give the military a good image, while the people are left financially alone with the reconstruction costs in the affected areas. Since the war in Ukraine, the media and politicians have shown solidarity with the military on a daily basis.

Nevertheless, we do not want to be driven away. Religious vigils with church representatives now take place monthly on the peace meadow near the main gate. At the June 24, 2023 event, Rev. Dr. Jochen Cornelius-Bundschuh (a retired bishop and professor) will preach. IPPNW and ICAN will do their blockade actions in early July this year at the airbase Nörvenich, because the Büchel air force squadron has temporarily moved their fighter planes there, due to infrastructure work at Büchel. Furthermore, discussion is ongoing regarding protests against the Constitutional Court demanding that it finally address the question of nuclear sharing in Germany under international law. We want a court ruling on this, whatever it is. We want to read their arguments.

On August 31, 2024, our anti-nuclear network will have existed for 30 years! At our strategy conference, we discussed organizing an “International Tribunal on the Illegality of Nuclear Sharing,” where experts would testify. Discussions will continue in mid-March. Europe without nuclear sharing! For a world without nuclear weapons!

— Marion Küpker is spokeswoman for the German campaign “Büchel is everywhere! Nuclear-Weapons free Now!”

April 24, 2023 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Treaty Law ‘Enforcer’ Endures Prison, While U.S. Nuclear Bombs in Europe Give Putin an Idea

Dennis DuVall, pictured at the main gate to the nuclear NATO base Büchel in Germany, began a 60-day prison sentence in Germany on 23 March.

By John LaForge

You have to hand it to Dennis DuVall. At age 81, he’s on the cutting edge of the hottest of political and military issues — nuclear weapons — and has put life and limb on the right side of history.

On March 23, DuVall began a 60-day prison sentence in Germany for refusing to pay fines for nonviolent interference with the lawless stationing of U.S. hydrogen bombs in Deutschland, at the Büchel air base. (U.S. H-bombs are also ‘forward deployed’ in Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Turkey.)

DuVall recently wrote a ‘Büchel Manifesto’ where he says: ‘Nonviolent direct actions at Büchel NATO base … intended to stop, prevent, or disrupt German Tornado pilots of the 33^rd Fighter-Bomber Wing and the U.S. Air Force’s 702^nd Munitions Support Squadron from training to drop B61 thermonuclear bombs on targets in Russia.’

Now, with renewed alarm over the nuclear threats due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, DuVall is shining a spotlight on the risk escalation posed by the United States and NATO. It’s not just Russia that’s ratcheted up the chances of nuclear weapons’ use. It was blundering German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock who blurted out Jan. 24 in Strasbourg, France, ‘We are fighting a war against Russia …’

Two days after DuVall entered Bautzen prison, east of Dresden, Russia’s Vladimir Putin announced plans to station Russian nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus, causing a loud if hypocritical reaction from the U.S. and NATO. Overnight, the imprisonment of a long-time Veteran for Peace and Air Force veteran of the U.S. war in Vietnam looked like a bellwether for a long-overdue debate on U.S. nukes stationed in Europe, because Putin said his March 25 announcement was a tit-for-tat.

According to Newsweek, ‘“… the United States has been doing this for decades. They have long deployed their tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of their allied countries,” said Putin.’ Then, after French President Macron declared, ‘In no case can nuclear weapons be deployed outside the territory of nuclear power, especially in Europe,’ the Russian Foreign Ministry asked with a smirk: ‘Is Paris’ demand “not to deploy nuclear weapons on foreign territory” addressed to Washington?’ according to Hindustan Times. In a related rejoinder, “Putin said he made this decision because the United Kingdom agreed to provide Ukraine with armor-piercing rounds that contain depleted uranium,” Foreign Policy reported March 27.

German’s branch of International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms joined the debate March 29 noting in a press release, “Nuclear sharing violates the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the human right to life.”

Andrea Sasse of the German foreign ministry described Russian but not NATO’s nuclear sharing as “irresponsible”, “escalatory”, and “another attempt at nuclear intimidation”, the Guardian reported March 27. Germany’s hypocrisy is rich. Just last August, its UN Ambassador Thomas Göbel declared to the General Assembly in writing: “NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangements, which include U.S. nuclear weapons forward-deployed in Europe and Dual-Capable Aircraft provided by a number of European Allies, continue to be, fully consistent and compliant with the NPT.”

With tongue firmly in cheek, Putin’s announcement used the same falsehood as Amb. Göbel, and claimed that nuclear sharing could be done “without in any way violating our obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.”

The Pentagon’s critique included a veiled reminder of the threat posed by its own H-bombs in Europe: ‘“We have not seen any reason to adjust our own strategic nuclear posture”, the U.S. Defense Department said in a statement’, Reuters reported March 26. It’s worth recalling that Gen. Tod Wolters, head of U.S. European Command and NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, testified to the Senate Feb. 25, 2020: “I’m a fan of flexible [nuclear weapons] first-use policy.” This ‘policy’ is the standing threat by the US and NATO to start nuclear attacks not in retaliation, but without first being so attacked.

In his obscure cell in Bautzen, DuVall is doing time for acting as if the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty were the law of the land. He’s a crime fighter for interfering with U.S./NATO’s plans for initiating nuclear attacks. He can take some credit for the fact that the “sharing” of U.S. B61 H-bomb’s, and “strategic” threats to use them, are in the news more than ever before. #######

— John LaForge is a co-director of Nukewatch and co-editor with Arianne Peterson of Nuclear Heartland, Revised: A guide to the 450 land-based missiles of the United States. An edited version of this comment was syndicated by PeaceVoice.org.

March 27, 2023 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Second U.S. Citizen Headed to German Prison for Anti-Nuclear Weapons Actions

Dennis DuVall, pictured at the main gate to the nuclear NATO base Büchel in Germany, began a 60-day prison sentence in Germany on 23 March.

By John LaForge, for Peacevoice

While dread of nuclear war between Russia and NATO states over Ukraine have reached new heights, especially in Europe, a second U.S. citizen has been ordered to serve prison time in Germany for protest actions demanding that U.S. nuclear bombs stationed at Germany’s Büchel NATO base, southeast of Cologne, be withdrawn.

Dennis DuVall, 81, member of Veterans for Peace, U.S. Air Force veteran of the war in Vietnam, and veteran anti-nuclear activist, is to report to the federal prison in Bautzen, Germany, 32 miles east of Dresden (JVA Bautzen, Breitscheid Str. 4, 02625 Bautzen, Germany), on Thursday March 23 to begin a 60-day sentence.

On July 15, 2018, DuVall was one of 18 people who clipped through the chain link fence and entered the base in order to — as the group said in a statement — “bring an end to the ongoing criminal conspiracy to unleash uncontrollable and indiscriminate heat, blast, and radiation with every B61 nuclear bomb deployed at Büchel NATO base.”

Charged with trespass and damage to property, DuVall explained to German trial and appeals courts that he has a legal obligation under the Nuremberg Principles to join in nonviolent protests to prevent or halt the planning and preparation for nuclear attacks which is taking place at Büchel. Well-reported exercises like the annual “Steadfast Noon” are often described as nuclear attack rehearsals.

Today, with NATO materially at war in Ukraine, the needless forward-basing of U.S. H-bombs at six European NATO base’s facing Russia has never been more provocative or destabilizing. NATO’s latest “Strategic Concept” (June 2022) reaffirmed its ever-present threat to launch nuclear first-use attacks using U.S., French and British weapons.

In Cochem District Court on May 11, 2020, DuVall was the first U.S. citizen to be convicted in Germany for civil resistance against the ongoing threat to attack Russia with the U.S. nuclear weapons stationed at Büchel, 170-kiloton B61-3, and 50-kiloton B61-4 free-fall hydrogen bombs.

For years, Büchel protest defendants have warned of the base’s threat of nuclear annihilation, and have urged court authorities “to send a message to the German government to remove B61 H-bombs from Büchel NATO base, and return them to the United States for dismantling and disposal.” In trial testimony on May 11, 2020, DuVall reminded the District Court Judge that “the threat of nuclear weapons is a clear and present danger to the European community, and nuclear war is an existential threat to the web of life on our planet.”

In refusing to pay a court-imposed fine, DuVall explained to the public prosecutor in the case that “it is a matter of conscience I share with many other U.S., Dutch, and German Büchel defendants not to pay money to those who willingly protect weapons of mass murder deployed at Büchel NATO base.”

The first U.S. citizen to be jailed in similar protests, yours truly (writer John LaForge), was released February 28 from Glasmoor prison near Hamburg after serving 50 days.

“It is my right and my duty,” says DuVall, “to work toward the abolition of nuclear weapons, and it is the responsibility of the German government to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and to ensure the prompt removal of U.S. B61 thermonuclear weapons from Büchel NATO base.”

— John LaForge, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Co-director of Nukewatch, a peace and environmental justice group in Wisconsin, and is co-editor with Arianne Peterson of Nuclear Heartland, Revised: A Guide to the 450 Land-Based Missiles of the United States.

Treaty Law ‘Enforcer’ Endures Prison, While U.S. Nuclear Bombs in Europe Give Putin an Idea

Second U.S. Citizen Headed to German Prison for Anti-Nuclear Weapons Actions

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