Women’s page

THE signature chant of the Bristol radical cheer-leaders made a change from the usual slogans as I marched with several hundred other anti-war, anti-nuclear protesters along the 50-odd miles from Trafalgar Square to Aldermaston over Easter weekend. I’ve got a strong local interest in nuclear power, having two nuclear power stations on my doorstep. For 40 years, trains carrying lethal nuclear waste from Hinkley Point to Windscale/Sellafield have left from my station in Bridgwater, Somerset.This waste has been used in the manufacture of several generations of nuclear bombs. For many years, the British government lied that all these materials were for peaceful energy production. Rail workers should have boycotted those trains from the start. This year’s Aldermaston March was not simply, as described dismissively by the press,“a re- run of the historic 1958 Aldermaston March”. Unhappily, the development and prolif- eration of nuclear weapons in Britain is not a thing of the past. Unlike Iraq, you don’t have to look very hard in our green and pleasant land to find Weapons of Mass Destruction.The Easter pilgrimage to Aldermaston was revived to bring to the public’s attention the plans for a new round of British nuclear weapons. The first Aldermaston march was called by the Direct Action Committee against nuclear war, after the discovery of the secret weapons establishment at Aldermaston. Over that Easter weekend in 1958, thousands of people took to the road to demonstrate their objection to the development of nuclear weapons. Like their 2004 counterparts, they slept in church halls and were fed by volunteers along the way. I walked with some of the original marchers. Pat Arrowsmith, the organiser of the first march was there, and is as civilly disobedient as ever. Aldermaston Weapons Establishment (AWE) in Berkshire is responsible for the design, building and decommissioning of Britain’s nuclear babies. It is clear that we, like the US, are currently developing, a new generation of nuclear weapons – probably tactical “low yield” or “mini” nuclear weapons – “bunker busters” as they call them in the US, with that charming use of understatement which enables the super-powers to get away with murder. Britain’s nuclear weapons industry has always been shrouded in secrecy.The original decision to build nuclear weapons in Britain was made in 1947, by a so-called “socialist” Labour government, without any reference to Parliament. In 2002, the Guardian revealed plans for new developments at AWE, which a spokesperson said would provide the capability to produce mini-nukes.The current Site Development Strategy Plan contains proposed facilities which could be used to build and test nuclear weapons. At the onset of the Iraq war, Geoff Hoon said that he would not rule out the use of nuclear weapons in any situation where Britain’s “interests” were threatened.That, and the fact that Britain’s foreign policy is clearly directed by US extreme right- wing fundamentalists, ought to put us all on red alert. International law is not something which Bush or Blair feel constrained by.Therefore, nuclear weapons proliferation, followed by a pre-emptive strike using nuclear weapons can’t be ruled out.Add the fact that we don’t have any control over what is launched from US bases in this country, and it’s not hard to imagine Britain as a target for a retaliatory attack, after a first strike launched from here by the US. It’s time for the current generation of campaigners to take a stand.A mass campaign of civil disobedience to stop nuclear proliferation, chuck US bases out of Britain and bring about nuclear disarmament must include trades unionists. In particular, transport workers, on rail and road, whose skills will be deployed to carry waste, weapons and building materials to Aldermaston, Burghfield, Devonport, and all those other centres of death and destruction. NO MORE WMD: Marching for a non-nucear world 27 Time to take another stand against nuclear weapons RMT member Glen Burrows talks about her experiences on the recent anti-nuclear CND march from London to Aldermaston THIS year’s Aldermaston march was not a re-run of 1958, Glen (pictured) said