|
Cartoons of
Dan McConnell
featuring
Tiny the Worm
Cartoons of
David Logan
The People's Comic
Cartoons of
John Jonik
Inking Truth to Power
|
Support the WA Free Press. Community journalism needs your readership and support. Please subscribe and/or donate.
Trident Nuclear Resisters Get Their Day in Court
from Ground Zero Center
Three Washington anti-nuclear activists had their day in United States District Court, Tacoma, Washington on Friday, July 16, 2010.
Two resisters, Ann Kittredge, of Quilcene, WA and Denny Moore, of Bainbridge Island, WA, were tried for their combined action during a Ground Zero vigil honoring Martin Luther King Jr. on January 16, 2010, in which they set up a wooden ladder near the base entrance and attempted to climb over the barbed wire fence onto the Bangor sub base.
Moore made it over, while Kittredge was tackled by Naval Masters at Arms before she could top the fence. Moore was taken down moments later. Both were questioned by base security, cited for trespassing, and released.
Kittredge and Moore pleaded not guilty to charges of trespassing at their arraignments. Magistrate Judge James P. Donohue presided over their trials.
When questioned by her defense attorney, Ken Kagan, about motivation for her action, Kittredge related her action to Dr. King's vision. Kittredge enumerated her ongoing efforts including letters and petitions to government, as well as marches and demonstrations to change US government policy and reduce investments in nuclear weapons.
Kittredge and Moore are chased by federal agents while trespassing onto the Bangor Trident base.
photo by Helen Jaccard of Veterans For Peace of Greater Seattle
She tried to convey the message that nuclear weapons are physically threatening to her own children and grandchildren and families and people everywhere. Exhausted by her efforts and seeing no change she chose nonviolent resistance as her only available means to alert the courts and citizens at large about the dangers of nuclear weapons.
Moore, a Vietnam combat veteran with two sons in law in the military (one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan) did not have legal counsel. He was ineligible for a public defender since the government was not asking for jail time, and took the stand in his own defense.
Moore stated that, like Kittredge, he has tried all the usual means to confront our government about building and servicing nuclear weapons. He said, “Sometimes the country needs to be in the citizen's hands.” Moore had carried a letter to the base commanding officer asking him to act on behalf of undoing our nuclear arsenal.
In the trial, Moore emphasized the need to get the letter to the commanding officer. It was acknowledged by the government during trial that the letter was taken from Moore by one of the Masters at Arms after his arrest, but there is no record of it having been among his personal effects.
The letter carried by Moore, "Letter to Ban and Bar Nuclear Weapons from Naval Base Kitsap/Bangor under International Law", was originally taken onto the Bangor Trident base on November 2, 2009 by members of the anti-nuclear peace group Disarm Now Plowshares. It was also mailed to the base Commanding Officer, and taken to the base again for the May 2010 Action (signed by participants of that vigil and action).
The judge found both Kittredge and Moore guilty of trespassing, and handed down sentences. Moore, who had never received a ban and bar letter, is to pay a fine of $100 and $35 in court costs, and serve 50 hours of community service. Kittredge, who has previously received a ban and bar letter, was fined $200 and $35 in court costs, given one year of probation, and must serve 50 hours of community service. The judge specified that the community service could not be served at Ground Zero.
A third anti-nuclear protestor, Jessica Arteaga of Tacoma, WA, was arraigned for her nonviolent action blocking the entrance to the Trident submarine base at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor in May during a May 3, 2010 vigil and action by Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action (GZ), which was held at the same time as the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference. Arteaga pleaded not guilty to a charge of trespassing, and now has a trial date scheduled for 1:30pm August 30th, 2010 at the Tacoma courthouse with Judge Richard Creatura, court room C.
Twenty-five supporters attended a noon vigil in front of the courthouse, and then filled the courtroom to witness the proceedings.
It was an interesting coincidence that Kittredge's and Moore's trial date took place on the same date 65 years after the detonation of the first experimental atomic bomb, Trinity, at Alamogordo, New Mexico.
The Trident submarine base at Bangor, just 20 miles from Seattle, is home to the largest single stockpile of nuclear warheads in the US arsenal, housing more than 2000 nuclear warheads. In November 2006, the Natural Resources Defense Council declared that the 2,364 nuclear warheads at Bangor are approximately 24 percent of the entire US arsenal.
The Bangor base houses more nuclear warheads than China, France, Israel, India, North Korea and Pakistan combined. For over thirty-two years Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action has engaged in education, training in nonviolence, community building, resistance against Trident and action toward a world without nuclear weapons.
◆