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 AerospaceWarton 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]
On 29 January 1996, Andrea Needham, Joanna Wilson, and Lotta Kronlid broke into BAE's Warton Aerodrome and caused between £1.4m[8] and £2.5m,[5][9][10][11] 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 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]
Related direct actions
In 1997, Angie Zelter went on to be one of the original six core members of the Trident Ploughshares.[23]
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[24] 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.[25]
Related Media
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.[26][27]
Additionally, two songs were written inspired by the action and group: "Four Strong Women" released in 1996 by Maurie Mulheron[28] and "With my Hammer" by Seize the Day and Shannon Smy.[29]
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]
A board game called "Disarm the Base" was created and released by Dissent Games in 2019. The designer was Jessica Metheringham and the artist was Mark Bijak[30] While promotion and advice were given by Sam Walton and Campaign Against Arms Trade. 500 copies were made, 240 were bought pre-release through Kickstarter. With the approximately £5,000 in profits going to CAAT in summer 2020.[31] The game's premise places the player(s) in the position of a peace activist intending to disable armed planes on a base with at least one player escaping[30] and is based on the Seeds of Hope Action and the ploughshares action by Sam Walton and Dan Woodhouse.[31]
↑ Crossley, James (2014). Harnessing Chaos: The Bible in English Political Discourse Since 1968. Bloomsbury Publishing. p.270. ISBN9780567655509.
↑ 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. ISBN9781645020004.
↑ "Update". New Internationalist. 1996-07-05. Archived from the original on 2023-08-28. Retrieved 2023-08-28.
↑ Goodwin, Neil (1996). "Disarming Women"(PDF). Squall Magazine. Squall Magazine. pp.20–21. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2021-01-17.
↑ Monbiot, George (1996-07-30). "Hawks and Doves". monbiot. Guardian. Retrieved 2023-07-21.
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