Three Rochdale Peace Campaigners Arrested at Nuclear Missile Base

Mai Chatham & Rae Street shortly before their arrest

3 More Image(s) In Gallery

Three Rochdale peace campaigners, Pat Sanchez, Rae Street and Mai Chatham were arrested by police on Tuesday 12 June, during peaceful protests at the Faslane submarine base, which is home to the Trident nuclear missile system. The three, who are founder members of Rochdale and Littleborough Peace Group, were in Scotland to join the blockade of the base which has been happening daily since 1 October 2006.

They were part of the Manchester ‘Faslane 365’ group which was making its second trip north of the border to support the ongoing protest. Rae and Mai had locked themselves to the North Gate of the nuclear base before being arrested. Pat, who was being arrested for the fourth time at Faslane, was locked to another Manchester peace campaigner.

They were taken to the local police station and kept overnight until being released on Wednesday 13 June 2007.

Pat Sanchez has already been arrested three times during previous peaceful attempts to blockade the Trident base. Before setting off for Faslane, she said: “I was arrested in 2002, 2003 and most recently in November 2006, and I am ready to be arrested next week, if it will help the campaign against these evil weapons of mass destruction.

"I certainly got little from being in the cells at Clydebank police station, but I do, of course, get great encouragement from knowing that an overwhelming majority of people in Rochdale and most people in the country oppose Trident and oppose Gordon Brown’s plans to upgrade it. There is a groundswell of opinion that knows these weapons are immoral.

"In September 2003 I was eventually fined £180, but quickly found that so many people wanted to help me pay the fine that I was able to donate an even larger sum to Trident Ploughshares, to help further campaigning against nuclear weapons of mass destruction. It was really heartwarming to see this solidarity. It gave me great confidence in the message, ‘Rochdale says ‘NO’ to TRIDENT’.”

Ms Sanchez's fellow protesters, Rae Street and Mai Bentley also issued statements before leaving for Scotland.

Ms Street, who is one of the national vice-chairwomen of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), said: “We were, of course, very pleased that Rochdale’s Paul Rowen and all his Liberal Democrat colleagues in parliament voted against plans to upgrade the Trident system on 14 March. We were equally delighted that Jim Dobbin joined 94 other Labour MPs in rebelling against the government’s nuclear madness.

"We know from opinion polls that three-quarters of the population oppose Trident replacement and voters have recently shown their overwhelming opposition in elections to the Scottish Parliament. Nuclear weapons are costing billions already and Trident replacement will take even more money from education, health and social services. We are going to Faslane to demand that our taxes are spent on saving and improving lives, not on the means to destroy them.”

Mai Chatham, who remembers joining her parents in 1958 on CND’s first march to the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston, where scientists are still developing new nuclear weapons, recalled that she was arrested as a teenager during peaceful protests against Polaris nuclear missiles.

She said: “Each of the 48 D5 nuclear missiles carried by the four submarines has 14 times the killing power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Together, they have the capacity to kill around 50 million people. They will not keep us safe. They add to the dangers faced by the world. They protect us from nothing.

"We need to decommission the dangerous Trident system, not squander more money on making it even more deadly and destructive. I shall keep campaigning until they are abolished. The United Kingdom’s possession of nuclear weapons only encourages other states to develop them. We should not be encouraging a new nuclear arms race. We should be taking the lead in ridding ourselves of this menace to our world. I was prepared to be arrested in the 1960s to further the cause of nuclear disarmament and I am prepared to be arrested again to protect my grandchildren’s future.”