Article
B52's - 6th April
You don't see the B-52s when you're underneath them
in Baghdad. I saw them yesterday at RAF / USAF Fairford, on a gorgeous
sunny day in bright green English countryside. This is where someone loads the
bombs onto the planes. This is where someone climbs into the cockpit of the
plane, amid the birdsong and the daffodils, and sets off to drop
bombs on people in their lives.
People had consistently been stopped when they arrived at the Fairford protests
and refused access to the peace camp and the protests against the use of British
bases for the bombing of Iraq. We arrived on bikes and rode down towards the
base and were stopped and searched under s44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which
allows the police to stop and search anyone within a designated zone, for no
other reason than being there, though being there is not in itself illegal.
We were allowed to continue but were again stopped a
few minutes later and
told we couldn't go along the track we were cycling
on because it wasn't the
designated procession route. There were small clumps
of people being
escorted by an equal number of police as they
marched towards the base. More
clumps of people sat defiantly picnicking having not
been let near the march
or the peace camp.
Stopping for a drink of water at a quiet pub in
nearby Kempsford, we were
approached by a policeman who read us s14 of the
Criminal Justice and Public
Order Act 1994, whereby we could be arrested for
"demonstrating" anywhere
other that along the designated route. We asked for
a definition of
demonstrating, because at the time we were only
drinking water, but none was
given.
Further towards the base we were stopped again and
given a further search
under s44 of the Terrorism Act. Two of the lads were
also given a warning
under s 69 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order
Act, the aggravated
trespass provisions, which prohibit trespass on land
in the open air with
the intention of disrupting a lawful activity. The
warning states that if
you return within 3 months you can be arrested for
aggravated trespass,
regardless of the fact that you had not in fact
disrupted anything at all,
never mind the fact that the land you were
"trespassing" on was a public
footpath.
The nine of us were attended during the search by
around thirty-five police
officers, five vans, with a sixth stopping to offer
assistance, a police
CCTV van, a police helicopter and two police dogs.
Police had been brought
in from Yorkshire, Cumbria, Devon, Wales and London
constabularies as well
as Gloucestershire for the weekend.
We were then treated to a further reading of s14,
after which we attempted
to go via the direct route, ie. a few hundred metres
along a public road, to
the peace camp. Two officers were sitting, one
either side of the road,
playing catch with a plastic water bottle as we rode
up. They were terribly
sorry, they said, but we couldn't go into the peace
camp. They had been
instructed that the road was closed.
No, they didn't know why. No, they couldn't tell us
what law gave them the
authority to close it, but they could get their
sergeant to come and tell us
it was closed. No, they couldn't tell us what
offence we would be committing
if we tried to walk up the road, but we would
definitely be arrested. And
while we were there they were going to have to
search us under s44 of the
Terrorism Act.
Surprisingly we still hadn't picked up any dangerous
terrorist-assisting
items in the brief interlude since the last search:
no rocket launchers, no
aircraft capable of killing civilians in their beds
in the middle of the
night, no cluster bombs in our pockets, although
someone came down from the
peace camp to see us and said they'd just seen
cluster bombs being loaded
onto an aircraft inside the base. Hmm - does that
give anyone a clue as to
where they might find the offensive weapons they're
so diligently hunting?
The peace campers have been refused vehicle access
to the site for some
days. They have been refused visitors this weekend
and have been forced to
provide a list of residents, with a maximum of 20,
who are the only people
allowed in. For a time the press were refused entry,
until a law lecturer
convinced the police of the illegality of the
restriction. They weren't
allowed to take in a wooden trolley which a
supporter built for them to
carry water in. The reason, apparently, was that
they might use it for
firewood.
I know, of course, that in Iraq the freedom to
protest would be considerably
more interfered with. But that's not the point. The
lack of civil and
political freedom allowed to the Iraqi people is not
a reason to bomb them,
especially given that the lack of freedom is in part
a result of CIA
assistance to the Iraqi government when it was an
ally. In any case, there
is little triumph in comparing ourselves with one of
the worst systems and
concluding that we come out better.
Where is our democracy, where is our legitimacy to
impose change on others
with bombs when we use terrorist legislation to
prevent ordinary,
democratic, peaceful protest? Where is our moral
high ground when we create
a Human Rights Act which allows freedom "within the
law" and then uses the
law to take away that freedom? Freedom of assembly
within the law becomes a
mere placebo when, within the law, as amended to
deal with the Human Rights
Act, the freedom to assemble can be taken away at
the whim of a few police
officers.
Apart from all that, it feels very strange to be
home, among all the
familiar things and places, when so much has
changed. It seems hardly
possible that those things can still exist -
football, Easter Bingo,
celebrity gossip. Seeing the coverage on TV makes me
feel like I've gone
blind. I recognise those places they're talking
about, but I only have
someone else's description of what's happening to
rely on. I can't see it.
I have friends who live near Baghdad airport. The
last time I spoke to them,
before the phones went down, one of them was worried
about the possibility
of the US landing troops at the airport. They would
come right past the
house. For their sakes, I would hope there was no
fighting, that it all went
smoothly for the US, except that, of everyone I
spoke to out there, their
opposition to both the Iraqi government and the US
invasion was the most
absolute, the most informed, the most reasoned, and
a swift, easy US victory
would be the last thing they'd hope for.
So it goes on. The troops are destroying the Saddam
statues as they go
along. Surely that is the right of the Iraqi people.
Surely the power and
emotion of the moment when those symbols are torn
down belongs to them in
the way that the hammering and chipping of the
Berlin wall belonged to the
separated people of that city.
In the South, I've been told via journalists still
there, that people are
not being given water, as reported. Water is being
sold to them. The
soldiers are giving the water to people with
tankers, because they're afraid
of being mobbed by desperate crowds if they
distribute it in person. The
people with tankers are being allowed to sell it to
people who need it. Who
owns the tankers? The power brokers on the ground at
the time of the
ceasefire, the ones who will later be legitimised by
the military.
Baghdad International Airport is reported to have
been renamed George Bush
International Airport. I am filled with rage for my
friend living so close
to it. I can't claim to speak on his behalf and he's
more than capable of
speaking for himself, but now the world can't hear
his voice. What
outrageous arrogance, to name a part of Iraq after
the US president, as if
to designate him their hero. Will the Saddams be
replaced with Georges?