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June 27, 2018 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

US Peace Delegation to Join International Call for Ouster of US Nuclear Weapons from Germany

For the second time in two years, a delegation of US peace activists* will participate in protests at the Büchel Air Base in the center-west part of Germany, July 10 to 18, 2018 demanding the withdrawal of the 20 remaining US H-bombs still deployed there.

The eight US activists — from Wisconsin, California, New York, Missouri, Georgia and Arizona — will join the coalition of 50 German peace groups and organizations converging on the air base. The delegation has been organized by Nukewatch, the peace and environmental group based in Luck, Wisc., in conjunction with a 50-group coalition of German peace organizations called “Büchel is Everywhere: Nuclear Weapons-Free Now!”

The target of the protests is the controversial policy of placing nuclear weapons in other countries, and expensive US plans to replace the bombs instead of withdrawing them. The US is the only country in the world that arms other countries with its nuclear weapons. Under a program called “nuclear sharing,” Germany, Italy, Belgium, Turkey, and The Netherlands still deploy a total of 150 Cold War-era US nuclear weapons.** Critics point out that all five countries are parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which explicitly prohibits nuclear weapons from being transferred to or accepted from other countries.

This past March 26, activists in Germany launched a 20-week-long series of nonviolent protests — “Twenty Weeks for Twenty Bombs” — to rid Germany of the remaining 20 US Air Force nuclear gravity bombs known as B61s. The protests continue through August 9, the anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan in 1945. The US peace delegation will join International Week, July 10 to 18, along with activists from Belgium, The Netherlands, France, Germany and elsewhere. (Last year’s US delegation joined other nuclear weapons opponents from as far away as China, Mexico, and Russia.)

“The world wants nuclear weapons abolished,” said US delegate Bonnie Urfer, a long-time peace activist and former staffer with the nuclear watchdog group Nukewatch, in Luck, Wisconsin. “To waste billions of dollars replacing them with new ones is outrageous considering how many millions are in poverty or in need disaster relief, emergency shelter, and safe drinking water,” Urfer said. Urfer has spent 6-and-1/2 years incarcerated over the last 30 years for misdemeanor-level protests she calls “civil resistance” against war, nuclear weapons and nuclear power.

The US delegation and the German public object to US plans to produce 480 new hydrogen bombs — dubbed the “B61-12” — to replace the 150 now deployed across Europe (including the 20 at Büchel Air Base).

“Our united resistance will stop the new, illegal nuclear bombs nobody needs,” said Marion Küpker, a disarmament campaigner with Büchel Is Everywhere. “We want Germany to be nuclear weapons-free,” she said.

A huge majority of the German public supports the UN treaty ban and the removal of the US nuclear weapons from its territory. According to a March 2016 poll, a whopping 93% want nuclear weapons banned; 85% agreed that the US weapons should be permanently ousted from Germany; and 88% said they oppose US plans to replace the current H-bombs with the new “B61-12.”

*The delegation includes: CEECEE ANDERSON from Atlanta Georgia; SUSAN CRANE, of Redwood City, California; ANTHONY DONOVAN of New York, NY; DENNIS DUVAL from Prescott, Arizona; ANN SUELLENTROP of Kansas City, Missouri; VICTOR WHITE, of Oceanside, California; and BONNIE URFER and JOHN LaFORGE, both with Nukewatch, in Luck, Wisconsin.

**United States nuclear forces, 2018, tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00963402.2018.1438219

Filed Under: Direct Action, US Bombs Out of Germany

April 2, 2018 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

German Foreign Minister Calls for Ouster of US Nukes from Germany

By John LaForge
Spring Quarterly 2018

In a diplomatic break with its US and NATO colleagues, Germany’s Foreign Office on Feb. 4th issued a scathing critique of the Trump Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review one day after it was released. Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said in a prepared statement: “The US Administration’s decision to develop new tactical nuclear weapons shows that the spiral of a new nuclear arms race has already been set in motion. As at the time of the Cold War, we in Europe are particularly at risk. For this reason, we in Europe in particular must launch new arms control and disarmament initiatives. …

“The mutually accelerating development of new nuclear weapons must be viewed with concern, as it sends the wrong message…. However, the solution must not be to simply join the nuclear arms race.

“The current arms control treaties must therefore be upheld as a matter of urgency. We need new disarmament initiatives rather than new arms systems.”

Last Aug. 22, Martin Schulz, during his unsuccessful campaign as the Social Democrat candidate for Chancellor, called for the ouster of US weapons. Worldwide media reported that, “German rival of Chancellor [Angela] Merkel vows to remove US nuclear weapons from the country.” The Los Angeles Times noted that Schulz said at a campaign rally, “As chancellor, I’d push for the ejection of nuclear weapons stored in Germany.”

Then Aug. 29, Foreign Minister Gabriel, shocked a Washington, DC press conference with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson by endorsing Schulz’s call for ridding Germany of US bombs. Gabriel bluntly said, “I agree with Mr. Schulz’s point that we need to get rid of the nuclear weapons that are in our country.”

Filed Under: B61 Bombs in Europe, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter, US Bombs Out of Germany

April 2, 2018 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

2nd US Delegation to Join Peace Actions at German Air Base that Hosts US H-Bombs

Nuclear abolitionists in Germany will again sponsor 20 weeks of nonviolent resistance at Büchel Air Base, from March 26 to August 9, 2018. The campaign demands that the 20 US B61 H-bombs at Büchel be sent home permanently—not replaced with new bombs as the US intends—and that Germany ratify the new nuclear weapons ban treaty. A delegation from the US coordinated by Nukewatch will join the Büchel peace camp July 10-18. For more info., visit the websites buechel-atombombenfrei.de and atomwaffenfrei.de (click on International & English), where you can consider joining the delegation, and endorse the campaign by signing the Declaration of Solidarity.

To support a scholarship fund for the delegation, please send a donation to Nukewatch today—online or by mailing to Nukewatch, 740A Round Lake Road, Luck, Wisconsin 54853.

Filed Under: Direct Action, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter, US Bombs Out of Germany

December 28, 2017 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Nuclear Shorts

US EPA Says Higher Radiation Levels Pose ‘No Harmful Health Effect’

In the event of a radioactive dirty bomb or a reactor disaster in the United States, emergency responders can safely tolerate radiation levels equivalent to thousands of chest X-rays, the Environmental Protection Agency said in new guidelines that ease off on established safety levels. The EPA’s determination sets a level 10 times the drinking water standard for radiation recommended under President Barack Obama. It could lead to the Trump Administration weakening radiation exposure rules, say watchdog groups critical of the move. —Ari Natter, Bloomberg.com, Oct. 16, 2017

Republican Chair of US Radiation Watchdog Agency Secretly Urges its Abolition

The chairman of a panel charged with protecting workers at nuclear weapons facilities as well as nearby communities has told the White House he favors downsizing or abolishing the group, despite recent radiation and workplace safety problems that injured or endangered people at the sites it helps oversee.

Republican appointee Sean Sullivan, a former Navy submarine officer, told the director of the Office of Management and Budget in a private letter that closing or shrinking the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board he chairs is consistent with President Trump’s ambition to cut the size of the federal workforce, according to a copy of Sullivan’s letter. It was written in June and obtained recently by the Center for Public Integrity. —Patrick Malonee and R. Jeffrey Smithe, Center for Public Integrity, Oct. 19, 2017

German Greens Want Last US Nuclear Weapons Ousted

The German Green Party wants the next coalition government to push for the removal of all nuclear warheads stationed in Germany, a document seen Nov. 15 by Reuters showed. The discussion paper on military and foreign policy did not mention the United States, which is believed to have 20 nuclear warheads at a military base in Büchel in western Germany.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, of the conservative Christian Democratic Union, is trying to secure a fourth term through an unlikely coalition with the ecologist Greens and pro-business Free Democrats after her conservative bloc lost support to the far-right in an election in September. During the campaign last summer both the Social Democrat candidate for Chancellor, Martin Schulz and Germany’s current Foreign Minister, Sigmar Gabriel, called for the removal of US nuclear weapons.
“Within NATO, we want to ensure that the remaining nuclear weapons in Germany are withdrawn and we want to suspend the modernization programme,” read a section in the document stating the Green Party’s position. —Reuters, Nov. 15, 2017

Filed Under: B61 Bombs in Europe, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter, Radiation Exposure, US Bombs Out of Germany

October 23, 2017 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

US Nuclear Weapons in Germany Slammed by Protesters, Politicians

Fall Quarterly 2017
By John LaForge


Photos by Zara Brown, Marion Küpker and John LaForge.

In July, a Nukewatch-organized delegation of US peace activists joined ongoing protests against the deployment of US nuclear weapons in southwest Germany at the Büchel Air Base.
The group joined hundreds of activists from northern Europe that were part of dozens of nonviolent actions that took place between March and August. The efforts forced a reluctant media to take note of US nukes in Germany. News of the protests was widespread and ultimately prodded top politicians and even the current Foreign Minister to call for removal of the US bombs, all in the midst of a national election campaign.
Notable among the 11-person US delegation were seven war resisters who have served a combined total of 36 years in US jails and prisons for protests against nuclear weapons and the war system. After one particularly audacious action by four of the delegates and a German colleague, the German press took up our group’s humorous self-appointed moniker: the “prison gang.”

Sister Carol Gilbert (L) and Susan Crane war resistance has added up to over 13 years in prison.

The delegation, representing seven states and the District of Columbia, also helped put a spotlight on US and NATO plans to replace the current arsenal of B61 H-bombs deployed across Europe with an expensive new version. The new bomb is being touted as the first ever “smart” or precision nuclear weapon and aimed with a new tailfin attachment, making it unprecedented. New nuclear weapons are unlawful under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty which the US and Germany have both ratified.
Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance in Tennessee—where the thermonuclear core for the new “B61-12” might be manufactured—said about joining the group, “It is important that we show this is a global movement. The resistance to nuclear weapons is not limited to one country.” The new B61-12 program will cost over $12 billion if production is authorized sometime after 2020. “Büchel is scheduled to get new H-bombs. Nothing could be stupider when 90% of Germans want them out and the when the world wants to abolish nuclear weapons,” Hutchison said.
In fact, a March 2016 public opinion poll conducted by International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), found that 93% of Germans want nuclear weapons banned; 85% agree that US nuclear weapons should be withdrawn from Germany; and 88% said they oppose US plans to replace the current weapons with the new B61-12.
Dubbed “International Week” by Campaign Council organizers in Germany, July 12-18 had over 60 people—from Russia, China, Mexico, Germany, Britain, the US, The Netherlands, France, Belgium and Germany—participate in vigils, trainings, networking, blockades, “go-in” actions, marches, media work, and simply enjoying peace camp. The effort was part of the five-month-long effort—“20 Weeks for 20 Bombs”—launched on March 26, 2017 in conjunction with the start of the final negotiations at the United Nations for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

US delegation achieved a string of “firsts”

While the US delegation was itself a “first” in Germany’s anti-nuclear campaign, the group chalked up a string of additional firsts during its week of nonviolent actions.

On July 15, Susan Crane, of the Redwood City, California Catholic Worker and I walked through the base’s main gate and talked for 30 minutes with military guards and local police about whether their orders to protect nuclear war planning are lawful. While we were repeatedly ordered to leave, and Susan, a participant in five Plowshares disarmament actions, eventually sat down and had to be carried out, we were neither arrested or charged. “They don’t want to arrest internationals and draw attention to the nuclear weapons,” said long-time disarmament activist and Büchel peace camp organizer Marion Küpker.

After finding a security fence accidentally unlocked, dozens of war resisters streamed into the base’s main entrance and placed “bread, not bombs” around the displays of Air Force warplanes.

On July 16, about 35 activists streamed through the base’s flimsy outer gate and then through a heavy steel inside fence which was mistakenly left unlocked. While two people symbolically brought down the US flag, at least 30 others eagerly traipsed through the open fence, squeezed through another vehicle gate, and then fanned out across the broad entryway to inspect the exclusive surroundings and their gaudy display of retired war planes on pedestals. The Dutch activists, most of them from the Amsterdam Catholic Worker, were as shocked as anyone to be able to place a few dozen loaves of “bread, not bombs” on and around the memorialized “gods of metal.” All the while, Dominican Sisters Carol Gilbert and Ardeth Platte of Baltimore, Maryland, read aloud the text of the new international Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and called for the base commander to come and accept a copy of the treaty.
The next day, July 17, during an early-morning blockade of the base by 30 protesters, the sudden appearance of the commander, “Oberstleutnant” Gregor Schlemmer who arrived on foot, thoroughly shocked the group which had locked arms and stretched banners across the road to his base. It is positively unheard of in the United States for high-ranking Air Force officers to meet openly with anti-war activists. Commander Schlemmer looked at ease and appeared to listen intently as Sister Ardeth explained the newly-minted nuclear weapons ban treaty, and then he calmly accepted her copy before leaving.

“Prison Gang” Go-in Action Occupied Bunker

Later on July 17, after nightfall, a group of five, me included, got deep inside the base, and for the first time in 21 years of protests against the US bombs, we occupied the top of one of the large bunkers potentially used for storing nuclear weapons. (Experts later reported that they are probably kept elsewhere on the base.)
After hiking along shadowy farm roads, shushing through dark rows of corn, clipping through the base’s outer fence, crossing a brightly lit air base road, and tramping noisily through a few wooded brambles, our small group cut through a second chain-link fence. We bumbled past a giant hanger and under the wing of a jet fighter parked in the open, and reached a set of double chain-link fences surrounding four tall, earth-bermed bunkers. After cutting the two non-electrified, unlit fences without tripping a single alarm or even having the lights snap on, the five of us scurried up to the top of the wide-topped, sod-covered concrete Quonset hut. No motion detector or alarm, no Klieg light or guard had noted our intrusion at all. We spent over an hour chatting, star gazing, checking our radiation monitor, and enjoying being flabbergasted that our implausible plan had worked. This was supposedly a severely controlled H-bomb storage depot, but we’ll never know. We didn’t try breaking into it.

Steve Baggarly of the Norfolk, Virginia Catholic Worker, was one of five to occupy a nuclear missile bunker.

Steve Baggarly, 52, of the Norfolk, Virginia Catholic Worker, suggested we label the bunker’s giant metal doors, so he and I scratched “Disarm Now” into the paint and this finally alerted some guards. We hustled back up to the top and we were all soon surrounded by vehicles, moving spot lights, and heavily armed soldiers searching on foot with flashlights. Still unnoticed because of the darkness and our elevation, we decided to announce our presence by singing “Vine & Fig Tree.” This prompted the patrol for the first time to look up. We were detained, and after an hour of being searched, photographed and lectured, Commander Schlemmer, summoned from bed at 2:30 a.m., gathered us for a short lecture. He said what we’d done was “dangerous” and that sneaking onto a military base “isn’t supposed to be fun.” Of course he was unaware that the five people before him had served a combined total of 19 years incarcerated for such actions. All of us—Baggarly, Susan Crane, Bonnie Urfer, Gerd Buentzly, of Herford, Germany, and myself—were released without charges.
News of aging peace activists occupying a nuclear weapons base unnoticed was widely reported in the press. The news moved Green Party Bundestag Deputy Tabea Rössner on Aug. 7 to lambast the “theme park” level of base security. Thanks to Rössner’s high-profile criticism, the head of the Social Democratic Party Martin Schulz unexpectedly called for the ouster of the US weapons, smack in the middle of his national campaign for the Chancellorship. A week later, Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, during a press briefing in Washington, DC, with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, endorsed Schulz’s call for removing the US nukes. Of course nuclear weapons are the last thing anyone wants to contemplate, so it takes focused inventiveness and a level of personal risk to get the public and the lawmakers to face the Bomb. Sometimes it works.

Zara Brown, delegataion phtographer.
Zara Brown, delegataion phtographer.

This summer’s “Twenty Weeks for Twenty Bombs,” made regular headline news thanks to the efforts of the nation-wide Campaign Council “Büchel is Everywhere: Nuclear Weapons-Free Now!” and its international coordinator Marion Küpker of Hamburg. After years of outreach and solidarity work, the five-month peace camp near the gates of Büchel Air Force Base, and its well-known use of nonviolent direct action, was endorsed by all 50 peace groups and organizations in the the Campaign Council which now includes mainstream bodies like International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms, and the DFG-VK, Germany’s oldest anti-war organization.
*The US delegates were Steve Baggarly, Kathy Boylan, Zara Brown, Carmella Cole, Susan Crane, Sr. Carol Gilbert, OP, Ralph Hutchison, John LaForge, Leona Morgan, Sr. Ardeth Platte, OP, and Bonnie Urfer.

See our photo gallery of the US delegation here.

Filed Under: B61 Bombs in Europe, Direct Action, Newsletter Archives, Quarterly Newsletter, US Bombs Out of Germany

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