News Shorts and Other Busyness

Seeds For Change

Squall 12, Spring 1996, pg. 6.

Three women peace campaigners disabled an Indonesian bound Hawk military aircraft at a British Aerospace factory in Lancashire on January 29 before waiting to be arrested and charged with criminal damage.

The women, Joanna Wilson, Andrea Needham and Lotta Kronlid took household hammers to the aircraft - focusing on parts of the plane used for ground attack - in an ongoing campaign of direct disarmament under the Seeds for a Change banner.

After waiting in vain to be arrested they phoned the Press Association who informed BAe of their presence in a hanger at the Warton military aircraft factory. The plane was the first of 24 bound to Indonesia where BAe and the British Government claim they will be used solely for training pilots. But Seeds for a Change claim the Hawks will be used to target East Timor, invaded by Indonesia in 1975.

A BAe promotional video shows how easily the aircraft can be converted for ground attack. The women are being held on remand for criminal damages estimated at over £3 million.

A fourth woman, Angela Zelter, was arrested a few days later, before an intended action, after making a statement of intent published in a Seeds For a Change document.

Sympathetic actions include cutting holes in the fence around the Warton base, twenty of which are planned for each year of Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor. Police seem reluctant to make arrests which would further publicise the campaign.