Pitstop Ploughshares

July 24, 2006

This July in Dublin, five peace activists were put on trial for disarming a U.S. warplane parked on the tarmac of Ireland’s Shannon airport.

In February, 2003, with the U.S. completing its build-up for “Shock and Awe”, these five activists broke into an airport hangar which the U.S. was using as a “pit stop” for planes en route to the war zone. They had dubbed themselves the “Pitstop Ploughshares” and, following the biblical injunction to hammer their weapons into plowshares, they took a hammer to the nosecone of a C48 U.S. Navy supply plane and disabled it. You’ll find full details at www.peaceontrial.com.

Published on Indymedia Ireland
July 25 2006

The verdict was given at aproximately 11.50 a.m. this morning at this significant trial in The Four Courts.

Since their action on the 3rd February 2003 the five defendants have waited three years for todays verdict, under onerous bail conditions, with two other trials collapsing. In a statement released immediately after the verdict the Pitstop Ploughshares said:

The jury is the conscience of the community chosen randomly from Irish society. The conscience of the community has spoken. The government has no popular mandate in providing the civilian Shannon airport to service the US war machine in it’s illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. In 1996 in Liverpool the Jury acquittal of the four ‘ploughshares’ women contributed to the end of arms exports to the Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia and the independence of East Timor.

July 20, 2006

On 3rd February 2003, as part of ongoing peaceful resistance at Shannon Airport, the ‘Pitstop Ploughshares’ disarmed a US warplane. Within the month, three of the four companies contracted to ferry US troops and weapons had left Ireland. They are currently facing another trial.

Kathy Kelly’s evidence

SUMMARY

Kathy Kelly finally gave her evidence on Monday.

She spoke quietly about the chilling effect of the sanctions that had been imposed on Iraq after the 1991 war, of the devastation caused to the country, the lack of water and electricity, the ilnesses and diseases, the lack of medical supplies due to veto, the deaths of over 500,000 children between ages 0 to 5, the deaths of 1.5 million Iraqis due to sanctions (a quarter of the estimated number of Holocaust victims), the fear of the people before the Shock and Awe blitz of March 2003, how she related her first-hand experiences to the defendants, her acquaintance with Denis Halliday who had resigned as Assistant Sec General of the UN because of his disagreement with the sanctions. Mr Halliday who was sitting in the court..was pointed out by Senior Counsel Brendan Nix She described in detail the photos she had brought from Iraq which became part of the defendants’ shrine

In a day of high drama, there were numerous objections raised, followed by interruption of evidence and jury retirements.