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How the US turned three pacifists into ‘multiple felony saboteurs’
May 20, 2013
In just ten months, the United States managed to transform an 82 year-old Catholic nun and two pacifists from non-violent anti-nuclear peace protesters accused of misdemeanor trespassing into federal felons convicted of violent crimes of terrorism. Now in jail awaiting sentencing for their acts at an Oak Ridge, TN nuclear weapons production facility, their story should chill every person concerned about dissent in the US.
Here is how it happened.
In the early morning hours of Saturday June 28, 2012, long-time peace activists Sr. Megan Rice, 82, Greg Boertje-Obed, 57, and Michael Walli, 63, cut through the chain link fence surrounding the Oak Ridge Y-12 nuclear weapons production facility and trespassed onto the property. Y-12, called the Fort Knox of the nuclear weapons industry, stores hundreds of metric tons of highly enriched uranium and works on every single one of the thousands of nuclear weapons maintained by the U.S.
Describing themselves as the Transform Now Plowshares, the three came as non-violent protestors to symbolically disarm the weapons. They carried bibles, written statements, peace banners, spray paint, flower, candles, small baby bottles of blood, bread, hammers with biblical verses on them and wire cutters. Their intent was to follow the words of Isaiah 2:4: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
Sr. Megan Rice has been a Catholic sister of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus for over sixty years. Greg Boertje-Obed, a married carpenter who has a college age daughter, is an Army veteran and lives at a Catholic Worker house in Duluth Minnesota. Michael Walli, a two-term Vietnam veteran turned peacemaker, lives at the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker house in Washington DC.
In the dark, the three activists cut through a boundary fence which had signs stating “No Trespassing.” The signs indicate that unauthorized entry, a misdemeanor, is punishable by up to 1 year in prison and a $100,000 fine.
No security arrived to confront them.
So the three climbed up a hill through heavy brush, crossed a road, and kept going until they saw the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility (HEUMF) surrounded by three fences, lit up by blazing lights.
Still no security.
So they cut through the three fences, hung up their peace banners, and spray-painted peace slogans on the HEUMF. Still no security arrived. They began praying and sang songs like “Down by the Riverside” and “Peace is Flowing Like a River.”
When security finally arrived at about 4:30 am, the three surrendered peacefully, were arrested, and jailed.
The next Monday July 30, Rice, Boertje-Obed, and Walli were arraigned and charged with federal trespassing, a misdemeanor charge which carries a penalty of up to one year in jail. Frank Munger, an award-winning journalist with the Knoxville News Sentinel, was the first to publicly wonder, “If unarmed protesters dressed in dark clothing could reach the plant’s core during the cover of dark, it raised questions about the plant’s security against more menacing intruders.”
On Wednesday August 1, all nuclear operations at Y-12 were ordered to be put on hold in order for the plant to focus on security. The “security stand-down” was ordered by security contractor in charge of Y-12, B&W Y-12 (a joint venture of the Babcock and Wilcox Company and Bechtel National Inc.) and supported by the National Nuclear Security Administration.
On Thursday August 2, Rice, Boertje-Obed, and Walli appeared in court for a pretrial bail hearing. The government asked that all three be detained. One prosecutor called them a potential “danger to the community” and asked that all three be kept in jail until their trial. The US Magistrate allowed them to be released.
Sr. Megan Rice walked out of the jail and promptly admitted to gathered media that the three had indeed gone onto the property and taken action in protest of nuclear weapons. “But we had to — we were doing it because we had to reveal the truth of the criminality which is there, that’s our obligation,” Rice said. She also challenged the entire nuclear weapons industry: “We have the power, and the love, and the strength and the courage to end it and transform the whole project, for which has been expended more than 7.2 trillion dollars,” she said “The truth will heal us and heal our planet, heal our diseases, which result from the disharmony of our planet caused by the worst weapons in the history of mankind, which should not exist. For this we give our lives — for the truth about the terrible existence of these weapons.”
The People’s Record Memorial Day Dedication (photo source)
Daniel Sandate - American Hero
Conscientious objectors and war resisters are heroes.
We are proud to celebrate Daniel Sandate, war resisters and conscientious objectors on Memorial Day. Conscientious objectors are those heroic individuals (like Daniel Sandate) who refuses to perform a “military duty or service” on the grounds of conscience, freedom of thought, and sometimes religion. They are often labeled illegal war resisters, regarded as criminals by the imperialist nations that demand their lives, and forced to live their lives in exile.
Internationally
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights defined, clarified, and broadened the international definition of conscientious objection in 1998 with a document “Conscientious objection to military service, United Nations Commission on Human Rights resolution 1998/77”. This document made it clear that those performing military service have a right to decide, during service that they have a conscientious objection to their nation’s military service.
In the United States
Until 1971, conscientious objectors could only be recognized as such for religious reasons. The Supreme Court decisions Gillette v. United States changed that, although the ruling did not allow for the basis of objection to be an objection to specific wars.
The burden to prove that one is in fact a “sincere” conscientious objector who is opposed to all war in any context (which is the criteria for one to qualify as a conscientious objector in the United States) is heavy and most war resisters in the United States do not qualify for “conscientious objector” status and are therefore forced into prison or exile.
Daniel Sandate
Daniel Sandate is just one of many conscientious objectors who have been subjected to living in exile or being subjected to military trials and imprisonment. Daniel Sandate is an Iraq War veteran who had returned home from his first tour, objected to serving another term, and was refused adequate mental and physical health care by the United States Army. He fled to Ontario, where he resided until a failed suicide attempt identified him. He was brought back to the United States, and served eight months in prison. Sandate is now a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.
—R.Cunningham
Click here for a complete list of The People’s Record’s Memorial Day dedications.
