Subject: AUT: Fw: SchNEWS 181, 28 August 1998
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1998 16:30:16 +0100


SchNews is a weekly free paper produced in Brighton, England.  I get it
delivered to my mailbox by email.  It's usually interesting and contains
info lots going on over here.  If people are interested I could forward
further copies to the list - if there's a big silence in response, then
those interested could simply subscribe themselves - the details should be
obtainable from their email address which is below.  Cheers.  Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: SchNEWS <schnews-AT-mail.gn.apc.org>
To: SchNEWS Subscribers <schnews-AT-gn.apc.org>
Date: 04 September 1998 21:12
Subject: SchNEWS 181, 28 August 1998


DUCK AND COVER! DUCK AND COVER! WE'RE ALL UNDER ATTACK...

SchNEWS

Published in Brighton by Justice? - Brighton's Direct Action collective

Issue 181, Friday 28th August 1998

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TERRORISTS?

"The cliche that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter comes
to mind. Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress, described by
Thatcher as a terrorist organisation, would have been caught under such a
definition."
- Richard Norton Taylor

President Clinton orders a bombing of targets in Afghanistan and the Sudan
hoping everyone will forget about his sex life. (How can we, it's just so
interesting).

After the horrors of Omagh, the Irish and British governments look set to
recall parliament early and rush ahead with new state powers. Terrorism is
top of the global agenda.

So is knee-jerk reaction and hypocrisy.

In Sudan the government have denied the US target was manufacturing
chemical weapons and has asked the United Nations (UN) to investigate the
rubble in Khartoum. Meanwhile a country already faced with desperate
problems of famine, disease and civil war has seen its major source of
pharmaceuticals destroyed by cruise missiles. And what would have happened
if had been a 'poison gas' factory with its deadly cocktail drifting over a
crowded city?

What is so different about the innocent victims of Omagh and the innocent
victims of Sudan?

The difference it seems, are what journalist John Pilger describes as
"television's un-people"

Take the "un-people" of Iraq, half a million of whom have died according to
conservative estimates by the Food and Agricultural Organisation and World
Health Organisation since economic sanctions were imposed by the UN. Baby
food and enriched powded milk are blockaded along with vital hospital
equipment like stethoscopes, X-ray machines, medical swabs, scanners and
water purifiers. The people of Iraq are punished because the West say
Saddam Hussein is a terrorist. (However, during the Iran - Iraq war he
wasn't a terrorist and the US and the West armed and backed Hussein in a
war where a million people died.)

Or the 'un-people' of East Timor, where a third of the population have
perished since it was invaded by Indonesia in 1975. But the government of
Indonesia aren't labelled terrorists so its ok to do business, as Hawk
jets, armoured tanks, water cannons etc. are sold to them by the West.

Business is business. Economic sanctions might be lifted soon if the Libyan
leader Gaddafi, once described as the worlds most dangerous perpetrator of
state terrorism, agrees to hand over the people accused of being involved
in the Lockerbie. British Aerospace has already admitted holding secret
talks with Libya, with an eye on juicy contracts.

Meanwhile, nearer to home and we have the imminent return of the infamous
Diplock docks, where a judge sitting alone would be able to put someone
behind bars for seven years on the word of a single police officer that the
accused was a member of a banned organisation. Internment by any other
name, and one which flies in the face of international agreements on human
rights that Britain has signed.

As Mitchel McLaughlin, chair of Sinn Fein pointed out "The result of such
repressive legislation has historically been the routine violation of human
and civil rights, and resulting miscarriages of justice. Given the history
of the RUC it would be an act of extreme folly to give that force
additional repressive powers."

In fact the governments new package of anti-terrorist legislation will
include unprecedented powers to convict people of conspiring within Britain
to commit terrorist offences anywhere in the world. The kind of sweeping
changes envisaged would once have locked up Nelson Mandela and could
threaten peaceful supporters of the Pakistani campaign for a 'Free
Kashmir'.

So, when is a terrorist not a terrorist? Sections of the animal rights
movement are already labelled terrorists and many have received longer
sentences for damage to property (or merely conspiring to damage) than
rapists and murderers.

For the direct action movement the warning signs have been here a while.
Last week two people received prison sentences for alleged offences at the
Whately Quarry mine which is destroying the Mendip Hills. The judge said he
was making an example of them because "environmental protest was becoming
so popular". As one activist pointed out "When the minor sentences don't
work, you start by harassing people - raiding their homes. When this fails
what do you do? You turn them into eco-terrorists."

If we ever really become a threat to a world where profit comes before
people, if we ever start getting even half serious about overthrowing the
corrupt elite thatcalls the shots, then we will find those missiles will be
aimed at us. And all of a sudden we will be the terrorists.

Recommended Reading

'Hidden Agendas' by John Pilger

"Every gun that is fired, every warship launched, every rocket fired
signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not
fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending
money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its
scientists, the hopes of its children We pay for a single fighter plane
with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with
new homes that could have housed more than eight thousand people This is
not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening
war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."
- Dwight David Eisenhower, US President

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CRAP ARREST OF THE WEEK

For collecting signatures! A man was arested under the Criminal Justice Act
while he was at Speakers Corner collecting names on a petition - on freedom
of speech!

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CRAP EXPERTS OF THE WEEK

Activists have dealt a blow to Belgian-owned Watts BlakeBearne's plans to
divert the rivers Bovey and Teign, to enable them to extract ball clay for
making toilets (see SchNEWS 126). A public inquiry inspector told WBB to
"consider withdrawing your application" after it emerged that the quarry
company was ready to build a mile long stretch of river two-thirds the size
it should have been. This glaring error would have led to the rivers
'unzipping' after the first flood, risking flooding to homes as far afield
as Newton Abbot. Apparently WBB's erm... experts have been 111% out on
their flow rates since 1986 and are now responsible for a catalogue of
botched river diversions around the world.

Derr...Fick!! Mike Clarke of Teigngrace Village Forum said: "If it had not
been for the protestors entering the site last year, construction would be
under way and we would be waiting for heaven knows what to happen". The
inquiry resumes Sep 29. Latest - Dave: 01626 363844

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SIMON JONES

PUBLIC MEETING TUESDAY 1ST SEPTEMBER
ORGANISED BY THE SIMON JONES MEMORIAL CAMPAIGN
7.30 PM AT THE HOBGOBLIN, LONDON RD.

Simon would have been celebrating his 25 birthday, except four months ago
he was killed while working as a casual labourer at Shoreham docks.

Speakers include sacked Liverpool dock workers and SchNEWS.

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LOCH MASS MORDOR

"We don't do anything secret here at all. We're very open."
- Ministry of Defence, Faslane

Which is why the Navy has spent an estimated #1million in just two weeks
trying (not very well) to prevent over 130 activists from Trident
Ploughshare 2000 (TP2000), along with the regular Faslane Peace Camp crew,
from gaining access to the submarine base that houses Britain's nuclear
arsenal. With the original 15 year old peace camp still under threat of
eviction, members of TP2000 have been sending out daily multi-pixie
missions from their own camp, bought and owned by a former Greenham Common
protester. TP2000 is an alliance of priests, students, road protesters and
peace campaigners from countries as far apart as Germany and Australia,
calling themselves 'Hobbits'. Activists have nicknamed the base 'Mordor'
after the evil castle in the 'The Hobbit'. The hobbits involved in the
latest two week non-stop assault on the nuclear sub base have been pissing
all over security, even cheekily giving embarrassed police and the Ministry
of Defence (MoD) advance warnings. The MoD say, " There has never been a
breach of security", funny that, considering that in the last two weeks
activists have; cut the fences constantly, defeated the ' unscaleable'
razor wire with old carpet, played a half hour game of football inside the
base before anyone noticed, performed classical music in the road, demanded
access to the base as weapons and war crimes inspectors, two elderly women
have planted wild flowers and in one action, hobbits played spoons on the
sound sensitive fence, setting off the alarms and distracting the guards
whilst others swam across a loch to the subs. " It was so easy it took
almost no planning. We just started swimming, I was able to swim past two
security boats ... and right up alongside Trident". So far there have been
107 arrests, some being released without charge whilst others are being
held on remand. One of those on remand for stealing a boat and taking a
sightseeing trip to nearby Coulport nuclear arms depot, is Angie Zeltzer,
one of the original Ploughshares acquitted last year of committing any
crime when she helped sledgehammer Hawk Jets bound for Indonesia (see
SchNEWS 78 & 84).

"We see ourselves as fully open and accountable"

Just as they did then TP2000 have sent the MoD their names, addresses and
videos of their actions "Most people would try to evade the law", says
Angie, "we say we're within it and the Goverment is outside..we are
upholding international law. Britain...uses it against Saddam Hussein or
others but when they are applied against Britain, it goes blank".
International law is why the Ploughshares are so up for it, they won the
Hawk Jets case because the jury agreed that theirs was a lesser crime
committed to prevent the greater crime of Genocide (Nuremburg Principles,
SchNEWS 177), now they want to put the British Government in the dock for
breaking the International Court of Justice's Advisory Opinion on nuclear
weapons which states, "(nuclear arms are)... the ultimate
evil...destablising humanitarian law". Whatever the outcome tp2000 have
pledged to continue the actions from now until the the year 2000 unless
Britain gives up the bombs (or some prat puts his coffee mug on the
button?)

   * Faslane Peace Camp: 01436 850 488
   * TP2000: 1603 611 953
   * CND: 0171 700 2393

Recomended Reading

"Wings of Death" by Dr Chris Busby (Quaker)

"From Polaris to Trident" by Graham Spinardi (Cambridge Uni Press)

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SCHNEWS IN BRIEF

   * Genetix Snowball Meeting September 3rd 7.30 pm East Oxford Community
     Centre, Cowley Rd, Oxford

   * Right to Roamers should ramble on down to The Land Is Ours Autumn
     Gathering in Bristol on Sep 11-13 - 01865 722016

   * Workers Aid for Kosova are holding a meeting on Sunday 6th September
     at Conway Hall Red Lion Sq, Holborn, London Updates on the food
     convoys, how you can get involved etc.

   * Those chaps at Godhaven Ink have brought out some more cracking reads
     for you. First up is a 'zine called 'Neither work nor leisure' - 'a
     culture where we don't stop playing when we leave school'. Merrick who
     published 'Battle for the trees' a personal account of the Newbury
     Protest (#3.50) has now knocked out 'There's A Riot Going On' which
     compares media articles with personal accounts of the Newbury Reunion
     Rampage and the last Hyde Park Criminal Justice Act demo. Both
     booklets are #1 (inc.P+P) from and payable to: Godhaven Ink,Rooted
     Media, 145-149 Cardigan Rd, Leeds LS6 1Jl

   * GEC, the company which makes Scimitar military radios for the Turkish
     army, to help them carry out genocide on Kurds, has its AGM next
     Friday (Sep 4) Meanwhile, three days of peaceful protest are planned
     for Copex 98 (22-24th September) "The market place for electro-shock
     batons and other torture equipment".For details of both events contact
     Campaign Against Arms Trade 0171 281 0297

   * anti FUR NEWS is a new magazine from the Coalition to Abolish the Fur
     Trade #1 + SAE from CAFT P.O.Box 38, Manchester M60 1NX 0171 278 3068

   * Trouble with the Housing Benefit ? Haringey Solidarity Group have a
     handy booklet called Housing Benefit: A Claimants Guide - send SAE to
     P.O. Box 2474, London N8

   * QueerPunks on Dope - calling all Queer Punks/ess's, Pagans, tran, pan,
     inna van or whatever- sexuals, check out a new 'zine called Anarquist
     available from 121 bookshop 121 Railton Rd, Brixton, London, SE24 OLR

   * There's an all-nighter, somewhere in Hampstead for the Sexual Freedom
     Coalition on Saturday 12th September . Ticket details 0171 460 1979

   * Bath Reclaim The Streets next Saturday (5th September) meet 12 noon at
     The Circus

   * Want to read some decent books written by travellers,, then get the
     catalogue from Enabler Publications, 3 Russell House, Lym Close, Lyme
     Regis, Dorset DT7 3DE, Tel01297 445024

   * A radical new attempt to unite socialists, greens and direct activists
     is 'The All Red and Green' bulletin, founded by the Network of
     Socialist Alliances in England. They're having a launching conference
     on -AT- Sat 5th Sep, 10am-4pm at the Rugby United Railway Club, Railway
     Terrace, Rugby.

   * Various Centres in the UK engaged in environment, development, peace
     and social justice issues have set up the Centres For Change Network
     which focuses on sustainability to share their experiences and
     knowledge. Contact Jamie Hartzell, 1b Waterlow Rd, London N19 5NJ,
     email: jamiehartz-AT-gn.apc.org

     The Corner House publish regular in depth briefings on everything from
     biotechnology, corporate PR, climate change, dams etc. Contact them at
     PO Box 3137, Station Rd., Sturminster Newton, Dorset, DT10 1YJ Tel
     01258 473795
   * Avon Ring Road an old railway bridge and 1km of tranquil cycle paths
     are set to disappear beneath the proposed dual carriageway given the
     go-ahead in 1995, but halted for the last 3 years by the SCRAPPIT
     campaign with a succession of legal challenges in the London High
     Courts. Request more information and buy Action Bonds to help pay
     legal costs from SCRAPPIT c/o 84 Colston Street, Bristol,, BS1 5BB Or
     get a map to the Reclaim the Country party site, 19th-20th September.

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34 G.E. CROPS SITES DECONTAMINATED

...and last Saturday a team of concerned citizens removed potatoes being
grown in fields near Tadcaster, owned by the University of Leeds. The
mutant spuds were part of 40 different experiments using genes as diverse
as jellyfish, chicken, rice, cow pea and sunflowers!

   * GenetiX Snowball have a large action coming up in the Cambridge area
     on the 19/20 September. More details 0161 834 0295.

   * Two women have been charged with #605,000 of criminal damage after
     allegedly pulling up Genetically Engineered (GE) maize on an illegal
     Sharpes Seeds test site positioned less than 200 yards from a farm
     growing organic sweetcorn. Out of 300 GE sites around the country,163
     are now illegal because they are operating under another company's
     licence. More info from Totnes GE group - 01803 867951.

   * Monsanto, those nice people responsible for Agent Orange and DDT, and
     naturally the future guardians of the world's food supply, are
     planning to field test their 'terminator' seeds. The plant's
     germination genes are switched off so that farmers only have one years
     crop before they have to buy more. Mmm! $m $m $m...

   * The Vegetarian Society has announced that from 1st August next year,
     all foods using the trusted V symbol will have to be GMO-free. (V's up
     to Monsanto.)

Genetix Update, PO Box 9656, London N4 4JY Tel: 0181 374 9156

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SMOKEY BEARS PICNIC - SCHWOOPS

The picnic will actually take place on 1 o'Clock Saturday 26th at Hyde
Park, two days before the 70th anniversary of the illegalisation of
cannabis.

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INSIDE SCHNEWS

Two people have been sent to prison after being found guilty of
'conspirarcy to recklessly endanger life and cause criminal damage', after
being accused of pulling up tracks on the private railway track which
transports roadbuilding materials from Whatley Quarry in the Mendip Hills.
The judge said he was making an example of them because "envionmental
protest was becoming so popular" (so that's official then, it is a crime to
care!). Write to them at:

   * 12 months - Richard Dixon BK 7218,HMP Horfield, Cambridge Rd, Bristol,
     BS7 8PF

   * 6 months - Ruth Browning ME36330 HMP Eastwood Park, Falfield, Wotton
     under Edge, Gloustershire, GL12 8DB

   * Ben Thompson in prison after being nicked at Hillgrove vivisection
     farm has gone on hunger strike demanding, amongst other things, vegan
     toiletries and food that is guarenteed free of genetically modified
     organisms. He's asking people to write to the guv'ner to get him to
     implement his demands. Write to Mr..P .G.Cann, HMP Bullingdon, PO Box
     50, Bicester, Oxon, OX6 OPR

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AND FINALLY

Crap Job of the Week

Monsanto, makers of healthy genetically engineered soy beans and other
goodies displayed a hotline number for complaints in a recent issue of The
Grocer magazine. Since, they have received 2717 calls from angry customers.
Says Ann Foster, Monsanto's PR person, '...we were totally unprepared for
the hostility. Some calls were pure vitriol.' Answering the phone for such
a popular firm? No thanks. Pity the hotline doesn't put you straight
through to the Board of Directors. Give it a go though! 0800 092 0401

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DISCLAIMER

SchNEWS warns all readers not to play with chemistry sets in their bedrooms
you could...AAAARGH!!

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