Rochdale peace campaigner blockades nuclear bases in Belgium

Amy Gilligan in Belgium

Amy Gilligan of Littleborough returned home to Dean Head, last week after ten days cycling through Belgium with 50 other anti-nuclear campaigners from thirteen European countries. Amy was participating in the Youth for a Nuclear Free Europe exchange, co-ordinated by the Belgian organisation, For Mother Earth. Between 31 July and 9 August, Amy and her friends cycled from Ypres to Brussels, taking part in a series of anti-nuclear demonstrations, blockades and workshops.

On the 6 August the group attended ceremonies in Mons and Brussels commemorating the deaths of 140,000 people as a result of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima in 1945. On the same day, they took part in direct action at NATO’s military headquarters, to protest at the massive arsenal of US nuclear weapons of mass destruction sited in Europe at bases such as Lakenheath in Suffolk.

On the 9 August, the 61st anniversary of the destruction of Nagasaki by a second US nuclear bomb, Amy and her group joined other Belgian peace activists at the Kleine Brogel NATO base. They succeeded in blockading the base for over three hours during which Littleborough’s Amy appeared live on Belgian national television washing-up in front of the base which alone houses enough nuclear weapons to cause devastation 200 times greater than that of the Hiroshima bomb.

Amy said: “The blockade was something I felt I had to take part in. The twenty warheads on this and many other US bases throughout Europe are a very real threat to the whole world. They represent a real and continuing threat to our present and future safety. They are illegal under international law. We have a duty to campaign against them, as we will against the continued presence of nuclear weapons in our own country.”

“Many of the young people I met in Belgium will be travelling to Manchester on 23 September to join us in calling for an end to the UK government’s plans to develop even more deadly nuclear weapons.”