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On 29 January 1996, three women entered the British Aerospace military base at Warton, Lancashire armed with household hammers1. They smashed the radar nose and control panel of a Hawk ground-attack aircraft, which was part of an order of 24 aircraft destined for Indonesia. They called their act a Ploughshares Action, which was inspired by the biblical injunction (Isaiah 2:4 and Micah 4:3) 'to beat swords into ploughshares'. A British activist named Chris Cole had performed a Ploughshares action on British Aerospace three years earlier2. The three women - borough counsellor Joanna Wilson, gardener Lotta Kronlid and nurse Andrea Needham - were charged with illegal entry and criminal damage. The fourth member of the group was environmental campaigner Angie Zelter, who had supported them and publicly announced her intention to carry out another Ploughshares Action. Zelter was arrested the next year while on her way to a public meeting. Their trial by jury began on 23 July 1997. Solidarity activists organised blockades, sit-ins, teach-ins and other vigils, all of which combined to generate enormous negative publicity for the Indonesian occupation. Sensationally, they were all acquitted after the jury accepted their defence - they claimed they had acted lawfully because they were using 'reasonable force' to prevent the much greater crime of genocide3. The entire episode served to highlight Indonesia's human rights abuses, and the equally crucial factor of Western support for Indonesia's actions.
1 For more, please see the documentary films Seeds of Hope and Grounding a Hawk with a Hammer.
2 V. Baird, Bringing the Blood back to British Aerospace, New Internationalist, No 253, 1994.
3 A. Zelter, The International Law Defence, Liverpool Crown Court, The Greenhouse, Norwich, 1996.
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