Seeds of Hope

Last updated

Seeds of Hope (short for Seeds of Hope East Timor Ploughshares Group, [1] but also known as the Ploughshares Four [2] or the Warton Four [3] ) was a plowshares group of women who damaged a BAE Hawk warplane at the British Aerospace Warton Aerodrome site near Preston, England, in 1996. [4] The four were part of a larger group of 10 who planned the action. [5] The additional six women involved as the support group were; Lyn Bliss, Clare Fearnley, Emily Johns, Jen Parker, Ricarda Steinbrecher, Rowan Tilly. [6] Their aim was to stop the aircraft from being exported to the Indonesian military, for use in the illegally occupied country of East Timor. They left a video and booklet in the cockpit of the aircraft to explain their motivation. [7]

Contents

Direct action

On 29 January 1996, Andrea Needham, Joanna Wilson, and Lotta Kronlid broke into BAE's Warton Aerodrome and caused between £1.4m [8] £1.5m, [9] £1.7m, [10] £2m, [5] £2.4m, [11] and £2.5m [9] worth of damage to Hawk tail number ZH955. Damage focused on components related to weapons and targeting. [12] The damage or disarmament was done to the Hawk was made with ordinary household hammers. [13] The warplane was part of a £500 million deal to supply 24 planes to the New Order regime of Indonesia. [7] In the tradition of plowshares actions, they stayed at the site intending to wait until they were found by security; however, they had to call security using a phone in the hangar because their presence remained unnoticed. They were arrested for criminal damage and conspiracy to commit criminal damage. A week later, a fourth woman, Angie Zelter, was also arrested and charged with conspiracy after stating she planned to do the same. [14] The four spent six months on remand in HMP Risley before a seven-day trial at Liverpool Crown Court in July 1996. [15] This was the 56th ploughshares action and the third ever in Britain, [16] the group called it "Seeds of Hope - East Timor Ploughshares - Women Disarming for Life and Justice". [9]

Trial

Accused of causing, and conspiring to cause, criminal damage, with a maximum ten-year sentence, they pleaded not guilty arguing that what they did was not a crime but that they "were acting to prevent British Aerospace and the British Government from aiding and abetting genocide", [7] [17] referring to the genocide taking place in East Timor. They were found not guilty of criminal damage at Liverpool Crown Court, after a jury deemed their action reasonable under the Genocide Act 1969. [18] This made it the first Ploughshares action to result in a not guilty verdict. [19]

Recognition and awards

In recognition of the group's action, they were awarded the Seán MacBride Peace Prize by the International Peace Bureau in 1997. [20]

Angie Zelter was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012 by Mairead Maguire, a former Nobel winner and peace activist, for Zelter's (at the time) 30 years of peace activism. [21]

They were also awarded the Order of Timor-Leste by the government of Timor-Leste in August 2019. [22]

In 1998, a 26-minute documentary called "Seeds of Hope" directed by Neil Goodwin was released, including interviews with the women involved in the action. [23] [24]

Additionally, two songs were written inspired by the action and group: "Four Strong Women" released in 1996 by Maurie Mulheron [25] and "With my Hammer" by Seize the Day and Shannon Smy. [26]

A book called "The Hammer Blow: How 10 Women Disarmed a Warplane" recounting the action was written by Andrea Needham and published by Peace News in 2016. [6]

In 1997, Angie Zelter went on to be one of the original six core members of the Trident Ploughshares. [27]

The 29 January 2017 attempt to disarm Typhoon fighter jets thought to be destined for the Royal Saudi Air Force and therefore to be used in the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen [28] by Sam Walton and Methodist minister Dan Woodhouse was "a continuation" of the Seeds of Hope action, with a direct parallel in the action, its goal and its reasoning, the pleading of not guilty at the trial, and the actual use of one of the hammers used by a member of the Seeds of Hope group. [29]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">José Ramos-Horta</span> President of East Timor since 2022

José Manuel Ramos-Horta GCL GColIH is an East Timorese politician. He has been the president of East Timor since 2022, having previously also held the position from 20 May 2007 to 20 May 2012. Previously he was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2002 to 2006 and Prime Minister from 2006 to 2007. He was a co-recipient of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, along with Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, for working "towards a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Berrigan</span> American anti-war activist (1923–2002)

Philip Francis Berrigan was an American peace activist and Catholic priest with the Josephites. He engaged in nonviolent, civil disobedience in the cause of peace and nuclear disarmament and was often arrested.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gandhi Peace Award</span> Peace award presented by Promoting Enduring Peace

The Gandhi Peace Award is an award and cash prize presented annually since 1960 by Promoting Enduring Peace to individuals for "contributions made in the promotion of international peace and good will." It is named in honor of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, but has no personal connection to Mohandas Gandhi or his family.

<i>Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons</i> 1996 International Court of Justice case

Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons[1996] ICJ 3 is a landmark international law case, where the International Court of Justice gave an advisory opinion stating that while the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to international humanitarian law, it cannot be concluded whether or not such a threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful in extreme circumstances where the very survival of a state would be at stake. The Court held that there is no source of international law that explicitly authorises or prohibits the threat or use of nuclear weapons but such threat or use must be in conformity with the UN Charter and principles of international humanitarian law. The Court also concluded that there was a general obligation to pursue nuclear disarmament.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trident Ploughshares</span>

Trident Ploughshares is an activist anti-nuclear weapons group, founded in 1998 with the aim of "beating swords into ploughshares". This is specifically by attempting to disarm the UK Trident nuclear weapons system, in a non-violent manner. The original group consisted of six core activists, including Angie Zelter, founder of the non-violent Snowball Campaign.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plowshares movement</span> Christian pacifist movement

The Plowshares movement is an anti-nuclear weapons and Christian pacifist movement that advocates active resistance to war. The group often practices a form of protest that involves the damaging of weapons and military property. The movement gained notoriety in the early 1980s when several members damaged nuclear warhead nose cones and were subsequently convicted. The name refers to the text of prophet Isaiah who said that swords shall be beaten into plowshares.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swords to ploughshares</span> Converting weapons to peaceful civilian applications

Swords to ploughshares is a concept in which military weapons or technologies are converted for peaceful civilian applications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angie Zelter</span>

Angie Zelter is a British activist and the founder of a number of international campaign groups, including Trident Ploughshares and the International Women's Peace Service. Zelter is known for non-violent direct action campaigns and has been arrested over 100 times in Belgium, Canada, England, Malaysia, Norway, Poland and Scotland, serving 16 prison sentences. Zelter is a self-professed 'global citizen'.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Dear</span> American Catholic peace activist

John Dear is an American Catholic priest and peace activist. He has been arrested 85 times in acts of nonviolent civil disobedience against war, injustice, nuclear weapons.

Ciaron O'Reilly is an Australian social justice and anti-war campaigner, peace protester, and Catholic Worker, having, as the book Christian Anarchism put it: "engaged in ... protests, acts of civil disobedience and trials in England, Ireland, and his native Australia". O'Reilly has become one of the most visible exponents of Christian anarchism, both active in its practice and the theoretical exploration of its ideas. As the writer Alexandre Christoyannopoulos quotes him as arguing, O'Reilly contends that Christian anarchism "'is not an attempt to synthesise two systems of thought' that are hopelessly incompatible, but rather 'a realisation that the premise of anarchism is inherent in Christianity and the message of the Gospels'."

The Pitstop Ploughshares were a group of five members of the Catholic Worker Movement who made their way into Shannon Airport in Ireland and damaged a United States Navy C-40 transport aircraft in the early hours of 3 February 2003. Their actions were inspired by the vision of Isaiah 2:4 to "beat swords into ploughshares".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warton Aerodrome</span> Airfield in Lancashire, England

Warton Aerodrome is an airfield located in Warton village on the Fylde in Lancashire, England. It is 7 miles (11 km) west of Preston, Lancashire. The western end of the site adjoins the village of Freckleton.

Clare Grady is an American peace activist and a member of the Catholic Worker and the Plowshares movements. She advocated against use of cruise missiles for first-strike capability in the 1983 Griffiss Plowshares action. In the process of the protest, military equipment was damaged and splattered with blood. In 2003, she and three others made up The Saint Patrick's Day Four, who conducted a protest action at a military recruiting center in Lansing, New York against the impending Iraq War. She participated in the Kings Bay Plowshares action on April 4, 2018, which resulted in a conviction and sentence of one year and a day.

Anti-nuclear organizations may oppose uranium mining, nuclear power, and/or nuclear weapons. Anti-nuclear groups have undertaken public protests and acts of civil disobedience which have included occupations of nuclear plant sites. Some of the most influential groups in the anti-nuclear movement have had members who were elite scientists, including several Nobel Laureates and many nuclear physicists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-nuclear movement in the United Kingdom</span> Groups in the United Kingdom that oppose nuclear power and nuclear weapons

The anti-nuclear movement in the United Kingdom consists of groups who oppose nuclear technologies such as nuclear power and nuclear weapons. Many different groups and individuals have been involved in anti-nuclear demonstrations and protests over the years.

Helen John was one of the first full-time members of the Greenham Common peace camp in England, UK, and was an peace activist for over 30 years.

Stellan Vinthagen is a professor of sociology, a scholar-activist, and the Inaugural Endowed Chair in the Study of Nonviolent Direct Action and Civil Resistance at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he directs the Resistance Studies Initiative. He is also Co-Leader of the Resistance Studies Group at University of Gothenburg and co-founder of the Resistance Studies Network, as well as Editor of the Journal of Resistance Studies, and a Council Member of War Resisters International (WRI), and academic advisor to the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC). His research is focused on resistance, power, social movements, nonviolent action, conflict transformation and social change. He has since 1980 been an educator, organizer and activist in several countries, and has participated in more than 30 nonviolent civil disobedience actions, for which he has served in total more than one year in prison.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam Walton (peace activist)</span> Peace and human rights advocate

Sam Walton is a British peace activist and, as of March 2020, Chief Executive of Free Tibet and Tibet Watch. He is most well known for his arrest on 29 January 2017 at Warton Aerodrome, Lancashire on suspicion of criminal damage after attempting to "disarm war planes" which he believed were bound for Saudi Arabia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Montgomery (peace activist)</span> American Catholic sister and peace activist

Sister Anne Montgomery RSCJ was an American non-violent activist, educator, nun, and poet who was part of the Plowshares movement. Aside from teaching, she worked with the poor, and advocated for peace via the Catholic Worker Movement. She was a member of the original Plowshares Eight in the first Plowshares action in 1980. Anne Montgomery House in Washington, D.C., run by the Society of the Sacred Heart, is named for her.

Susan Crane is a peace activist, a member of the California Catholic Worker movement and a participant in the Plowshares movement. After decades of civil disobedience related to campaigns against nuclear war, she was sentenced to jail time in Germany in 2024.

References

  1. ↑ "NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER CALLS FOR UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS OFFICE IN EAST TIMOR". United Nations. 1997-06-16. Retrieved 2023-08-28.
  2. ↑ O'Shaughnessy, Hugh (1996-07-30). "pounds 1.5m Hawk attack women freed". The Independent. Retrieved 2023-07-21.
  3. ↑ Kempster, Tony; Gilmurray, Sue. "SONGS WITH 'AN ATTITUDE' ABOUT WAR AND INJUSTICE" (PDF). Abolish War. Movement for the Abolition of War. p. 4. Retrieved 2023-07-21.
  4. ↑ Gregory M. Maney, ed. (2012). Strategies for Social Change. University of Minnesota Press. p. 274. ISBN   978-0816672899.
  5. 1 2 Needham, Andrea (2016-07-01). "When petitions and protests aren't enough: what next?". New Internationalist. Archived from the original on 2023-08-28. Retrieved 2023-08-28.
  6. 1 2 "The Hammer Blow: How 10 Women Disarmed A Warplane" . Retrieved 2023-08-24.
  7. 1 2 3 "The FOUR PLOUGHSHARERS "DISARMING FOR LIFE AND JUSTICE"" (PDF). Pax Christi. London. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-07-21.
  8. ↑ Kollerstrom, Nick; Haywood, Ted, eds. (1996). "Hammer of Justice - A British Ploughshares' Action". Journal for International Law and Peace. 2 (1).
  9. 1 2 3 Zelter, Angie (2004). "Civil Society and Global Responsibility: the Arms Trade and East Timor". International Relations. 18 (1): 126. doi:10.1177/0047117804041745 – via Sage Journals.
  10. ↑ Crossley, James (2014). Harnessing Chaos: The Bible in English Political Discourse Since 1968. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 270. ISBN   9780567655509.
  11. ↑ Hallam, Roger (2019). Common Sense for the 21st Century: Only Nonviolent Rebellion Can Now Stop Climate Breakdown and Social Collapse. Chelsea Green Publishing. p. 36. ISBN   9781645020004.
  12. ↑ "Update". New Internationalist. 1996-07-05. Archived from the original on 2023-08-28. Retrieved 2023-08-28.
  13. ↑ Goodwin, Neil (1996). "Disarming Women" (PDF). Squall Magazine. Squall Magazine. pp. 20–21. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-01-17.
  14. ↑ Monbiot, George (1996-07-30). "Hawks and Doves". monbiot. Guardian. Retrieved 2023-07-21.
  15. ↑ Rogers, Paul (2016-01-28). "Disarming war: the Hawk Ploughshares story". Open Democracy. Retrieved 2023-08-28.
  16. ↑ Laffin, Art, ed. (2019-11-02). "Plowshares History". Kings Bay Plowshares 7. Retrieved 2024-03-20.
  17. ↑ "PLOUGHSHARES WOMEN FREED". Institute for Law and Peace. 1996. Retrieved 2023-08-28.
  18. ↑ Campaigners face jail for raid on military jet - Home News, UK - The Independent
  19. ↑ Tri-denting It Handbook (3rd ed.). Trident Ploughshares. 2001. p. 9.
  20. ↑ "Sean MacBride Peace Prize | IPB - International Peace Bureau" . Retrieved 2023-08-24.
  21. ↑ "Trident Ploughshares Founder Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize". www.peacepeople.com. 2012-01-27. Retrieved 2024-02-09.
  22. ↑ "Timor-Leste Honored President Bill Clinton". ETAN. Retrieved 2023-08-24.
  23. ↑ "Seeds of Hope (1998)". Archived from the original on August 24, 2023. Retrieved 2023-08-24.
  24. ↑ O’Reilly, Ciaron. "Vale Max Stahl" . Retrieved 2023-08-24.
  25. ↑ "Four Strong Women" . Retrieved 2023-08-24.
  26. ↑ Bonetree, Clare (2019-02-07). "Finding the courage to hope" . Retrieved 2023-08-24.
  27. ↑ "Angie Zelter". Hrant Dink. Retrieved 2023-08-28.
  28. ↑ "Activists try to stop warplanes leaving UK bound for Saudi Arabia". The Guardian. 2017-01-29.
  29. ↑ Walker, Peter (2017-02-01). "British Quaker 'prepared for jail' after allegedly trying to disarm Saudi Arabia-bound fighter jet". Independent.co.uk .
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.