2 October 2006: for immediate release
11:00 am, 2 October 2006
Eight British activists today have exposed the suspected presence of cluster bombs at a weapons storage facility at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk. The activists, many of whom are actively involved with CND, entered the base at around 8 o’clock this morning and headed directly for the facility where the cluster bombs were seen by some of them. The group is currently blocking the weapons storage facility with their bodies, having locked on to each other using D-locks, tubes and chains.
The group has been arrested under Section 128 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act of 2005 (SOCPA), which prohibits trespass on a ‘designated site’.
RAF Lakenheath is also home to over 100 American nuclear weapons kept at the site under the UK’s commitment to NATO.
Mell Harrison, CND’s Eastern Region organiser, and one of the eight activists currently locked on at the site, commented this morning on the presence of cluster bombs at a UK base:
“Cluster bombs kill and maim innocent civilians indiscriminately. Many Lebanese civilians have been killed in recent weeks by cluster bombs, even after the active conflict between Israel and Hizbollah ended. It is unconscionable that these weapons are being stored in Britain.”
She continued, “We are here today to expose the presence of these criminal weapons to the police and to the public, who do not normally have access to knowledge of what comes and goes on this base.”
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Notes to Editor:
1. For further information and interviews please contact Rick Wayman, CND’s Press & Communications Officer, on 0207 7002350 or 07968 420859
2. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is one of Europe’s biggest single-issue peace campaigns, with over 32,000 members in the UK. CND campaigns for the abolition of all nuclear weapons everywhere.