-----Original Message-----
From: Treena Lenthall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Friday, 4 December 1998 21:08
Subject: Ploughshares Trial Update
Jabiluka Ploughshares Trial - Day 4
The fourth day concluded with Magistrate Loadman retiring to make a decision on
verdict. He found that the prosecution had failed to prove Lenthall guilty of
cutting the ERA fence, and found her not guilty of that charge. He told the
defendents their bail was extended and that he would give them 24 hours notice
before resuming the hearing and delivering a verdict hopefully no later than
the 14th December. This followed legal submissions by Treena Lenthall and the
Prosecutor and a general rap & rebuttal by Ciaron O'Reilly.
The defendants defence in the Northern Territory Criminal Code rests on Section
43 "Damage to Property":
"A person is excused from criminal responsibility for damage caused to property
by the use of such force as was reasonably necessary for the purpose of
defending or protecting himself, or any other person, or any property from
injury that he believed on reasonable grounds, was imminent, provided an
ordinary person similarly circumstanced would have acted in the same or a
similar way."
This section accords with the general principle underlying the common law
defence of necessity.
The third day had concluded with an hour screening of David Bradbury's video
"Jabiluka" which had influenced both defendents state of mind before travelling
to the Northern Territory. The 4th. day began with the remainder of Treena
Lenthall's testimony. She tendered as evidence written information on the mine
at Jabiluka which outlined the dangers that this mine poses to the ecological
environment and the Mirrar people as well as itscontribution to the nuclear
fuel cycle and nuclear weapons. She raised the issue of safeguards and
Australian uranium, tendering an extract from Hansard. This was a 1988
ministerial statement from the Senate in which Senator Sanders said that there
were no safeguards in relation to the sale of Australian Uranium and that there
is no way of guaranteeing that uranium exported by Australia is not used for
nuclear weapons. Loadman accepted the evidence but only as reflecting the state
of mind of the defendants.
Lenthall also spoke about depleted uranium and the effects from the Gulf War in
which depleted uranium rounds were used in Iraq by the US. She described the
high rates of cancer in towns such as "Missan" (written on the excavator) which
has been linked to the radioactive poisoning from the used DU rounds left on
the battlefields.
Lenthall referred to her decision to accept the invitation from the Mirrar to
come to Kakadu to oppose the mine, describing how she had quit her jobs to come
to Jabiluka. She had felt it was very serious that another uranium mine was
being constructed in Australia. She spoke of her work with people who have
disabilities and how they are a marginalised group in Australia whose voice is
not often heard. She compared this to the Mirrar people who have clearly been
saying no to this mine.
Lenthall spoke of how many people had chosen to come to Jabiluka to express
their objections to the mine. She told the court that despite the hundreds of
people going to the Jabiluka Lease site, alerting ERA, police and security of
the dangers of this mine, these institutions had failed to act to stop the
mine, leaving the defendents no alternative but to take action themselves.
Lenthall described the events of August 9th when she and O'Reilly disabled the
excavator referring to the statement they had left at the site which had been
presented as a police exhibit and tendered as evidence by the prosecution.
Lenthall spoke of the ploughshares tradition and its inspiration, the prophesy
of Isaiah, "to beat swords into ploughshares". She defined the uranium mine as
the beginning of the nuclear assembly line and said that as Christians we are
called to love our neighbours and therefore must stop the preparation for war.
She ended her testimony with a description of the liturgy of prayer undertaken
on top of the excavator, praying for the victims of uranium and its byproducts.
Ciaron O'Reilly then gave his testimony describing how his awareness of the
dangers of uranium had begun in his last year of high school (1977) when the
Ranger Inquiry findings were handed down and a huge national debate on the
mining and export of uranium began. This debate had been stifled in his home
state of Queensland by the Bjelke Petersen state government that banned all
demonstrations for 3 years. O'Reilly recounted a discussion he had at the time
with a leading ruling National Party figure about their uranium sale contracts
to the Shah of Iran. O'Reilly had suggested that the Shah's government did not
seem to be stable enough to be selling such a dangerous material that remained
radioactive for 250,000 years. The government official assured him the Shah
was stable. The Shah fell within a year, most of Iran's trained nuclear
technicians fled to the West and the new Iranian government was of a vastly
different complexity. Also reflecting on the longlasting nature of uranium as
a threat to human life he reminded the court that only 20 years ago that the
Soviet Union appeared stable and manyclaime it to be on the verge of world
domination. The USSR has since imploded creating a myriad of safety and
security issues for radioactive material. He cited a recent speech of former
P.M. Paul Keating pointing to the resultant threat to humanity of these
developments.
O'Reilly noted that many former leaders such as Carter, Eisenhower and Keating
only seemed free to address the nuclear threat once they had left power. He
suggested that the nuclear threat often transcends government and the
democratic process. He cited the example of New Zealand's attempt to withdraw
from nuclear war preparations in the 1980's after their government had been
pushed by a huge domestic peace movement. As a result of this stand N.Z.
Governments had faced coersion and acts of terror from the U.S. Australia and
France. He described the A.L.P. Government being elected in 1983 on a policy
to close all uranium mines and then betraying these policies.
He described his adult life as a member of the pacifist Catholic Worker
movement living in communities in Australia, New Zealand, U.S. & U.K.
responding to the needs of the poor and nonviolently confronting those
institutions that created poverty and war. He told of four years spent in the
U.S. where he had met many people involved in the nuclear weapons industry and
military and had become convinced that they are ready to use such weapons if
they perceive U.S. power seriously threatened. He described being in a
Liverpool courtroom in July 1996 when 4 women were acquitted of any criminal
act in relation to their $3 million disarmament of a British Aerospace Hawk
Fighter being sold to the genocidal Suharto government.
He descibed returning to Australia this past March and being invited by the
Mirrar people to come to Jabiluka to stop this uranium mine that was an
imminent threat to their lives and the lives of others. He described his
experences at the Blockade camp in June & July when many alerts were made to
local police about how the Jabiluka mine was threatening human life. He told
how these claims went uninvestigated by local police.
O'Reilly then described the events of August 9th, that the force used by he and
Lenthall was symbolic, actual and prayerful. He told how they had brought the
powerful symbol of human blood to the excavator to remind those mining of the
blood spilled and poisoned by uranium, nuclear waste, nuclear weapons and
depleted uranium rounds. He had written "Nuremburg Principles" on the
excavator as an appeal to the legal fraternity to remember their
responsibilities in relation to genocide and the construction of genocidal
weapons. He hoped they would remember their brother German judges, prosecutors
and police executed for obeying and enforcing national law and not resisting
it. He wrote "Love Your Enemies - Don't Poison & Bomb their Children" as an
appeal to Christians to break their silent and active complicty with this mine.
He wrote "Isaiah Strikes" as an appeal to the Jewish and Christian
communities. He wrote "Nagasaki", "Chernobyl", "Missan" to remind all of our
shared human history of these nucear deaths.
He described how he and Lenthall actually disabled the excavator by hammering
on the dashboard with household hammers and cutting internal wiring with
boltcutters. He also told how he had cut a hole in the fence to gain access to
the mine site and hoped the next person who came along would finish the job and
bring down the entire fence.
O'Reilly then told the court how he and Lenthall spent of 40 minutes in prayer
for the victims of uranium and this mine past, present and future. He told the
court how he and Lenthall displayed a banner and called out hoping ERA security
and others would join in the disarmament they had begun.
A physicist, Dr. Paul Dyson, was then called by the defence to testify to the
extreme and longlasting nature of the danger to human life posed by uranium
once it was unleashed from the ground. Dyson also described the threat to
human life posed by nuclear weapons and depleted uranium. He told the court
that U238 (depleted uranium) has a half life of 4 1/2 billion years, for it to
totally break down would take roughly the age of the universe.
Darwin theologian, Uniting Church Minister Steve Orme, then testified. He told
the court of the history of Christians confronting imminent danger posed by
governments, citing examples from Nazi Germany, Martin Luther King and the
struggle against apartheid in South Africa. He located the Ploughshares
movement and the action of Treena and Ciaron in a reasonable tradition within
Christianity.
The court was crowded with supporters throughout the day's hearing.
Jabiluka Ploughshares
www.freespeech.org/ploughshares
PO Box 3818 Darwin NT 0801
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