CLAM LAKE, Wisconsin -- Seven anti-nuclear weapons activists were cited for federal trespass at the Navy's nuclear submarine transmitter site near Clam Lake, Wisc. during an August. 9 commemoration of the U.S. atomic attack on Nagasaki, Japan. Friday was the 57th anniversary of the U.S..S. plutonium bomb’s destruction of Nagasaki that killed 70,000 people.
The ELF system sends one-way messages to submerged nuclear-armed U.S. Trident and fast-attack submarines around the world. It’s been the target of dozens of protests especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the Warsaw Pact’s nuclear threat.
Just one of the Trident submarine’s 24 missiles carries nuclear firepower equivalent to 38 Hiroshima bombs. As 140,000 people died in the Hiroshima attack, a single Trident missile (with its eight 475-kiloton warheads) can potentially kill 42,560,000 people. The U.S. has 18 Tridents.
About 55 demonstrators gathered at the remote facility which is secluded in the Chequemagon National Forest where it makes use of the granite bedrock to create an Extremely Low Frequency electromagnetic signal that encircles the earth and reaches the subs deep underwater.
Those cited for trespass were: Greg Boertje, 47, Scott Mathern-Jacobson, 31, Michael Walli, 53, and Mark Engebretson, 32, all of Duluth, Minn.; Kathleen Uhler, 61, of Brooklyn, NY; and Lisa Brightup, 39, and the Rev. Carol Rose, 42, both of Wichita, Kansas.
They were charged with federal misdemeanor trespass and told they would be informed when to appear for arraignment in federal district court in Madison. Conviction carries a possible maximum of 6 months in prison, and/or a $5,000 fine.
Eleven similarly charged protesters face trial in the same court Sept. 10, 2002. Six were charged during Martin Luther King Holiday protest in January and five during a Mothers’ Day demonstration in May.
After 19 years of Ashland County prosecution of anti-nuclear weapons activists at the federal site, the federal district court in Madison has now brought charges against 15 protesters who have walked onto ELF property since Oct. 2001. Friday’s action will bring the number to 22.
NOTE:
ELF and Trident resister John Heid, 47, of Anathoth Community Farm in Luck, Wisconsin, will be sentenced Thurs., August 22, in federal district court in Madison, at 1:30 p.m., for his refusal to pay a $500.00 fine imposed for a trespass conviction stemming from an October 2001 protest. John was also recently sentenced to 6 months in federal prison camp for a trespass conviction at School of Assassins in Georgia.
Nukewatch P.O. Box 649 Luck, WI 54853 Phone (715) 472-4185 Fax (715) 472-4184 Web http://www.nukewatch.com
|
If you have come to this page from an outside location click here to get back to mindfully.org |