Recent CW visitors to Dublin among 50 CWs arrested at New Nuke Bomb Plant in Kansas City U.S.A

international | anti-war / imperialism | other press Wednesday May 04, 2011 08:43 by Prison Solidarity Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.A.

Frank Cordaro & Steve Jacobs among 50 CWs arrested at New U.S. Honeywell Nuke Bomb Plant in Kansas City U.S.A

* PHOTO - Frank & Steve outside G.P.O Dublin for Bradley Manning
http://www.flickr.com/photos/frank_cordaro_and_the_dm_c...8005/

**LONDON YOUTUBE Frank & Steve blockading Downing St. on Good Friday
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pFCQthlxgg

This is the SECOND story to come out of the big Midwest Catholic
Worker Faith and Resistance Retreat at the Honeywell nuclear weapons
plant in Kansas City, MO. The FIRST article was published in the
Kansas City Star and was sent out this morning.

The article below is from the National Catholic Reporter. Please
click on the link......... There are a lot of pictures and video on the website.

NCR SLIDESHOW & REPORT on CW Blockade of Kansas City/ Honeywell Nuclear Bomb Factory Site
http://ncronline.org/news/peace/over-50-arrested-protes...plant

Over 50 arrested protesting nuclear weapons plant

Latest in sustained campaign to re-purpose facility

May. 03, 2011
By Joshua J. McElwee
National Catholic Reporter

Peace

Art Laffin holds a sign as activists surround a pick-up truck outside
the construction site for the new Kansas City nuclear weapons
facility. (NCR photos/ Joshua J. McElwee)

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Fifty-two peace activists, most connected to
Catholic Worker houses throughout the nation, were arrested here May 2
after blocking to gate to the construction site of what will be the
nation’s first nuclear weapons production facility to be built in 33
years.

The acts of civil disobedience came 78 years and one day from the
founding of the first Catholic Worker community by Dorothy Day and
Peter Maurin, and were the culmination of a three-day “faith and
resistance” retreat hosted by two Catholic Worker communities, which
drew some 150 to this city.

The new facility, expected to cost $1.2 billion over the next two
decades, is to replace an existing plant here. Health concerns at the
current complex were stoked last month when the administrator of the
General Services Administration confirmed that detectable levels of an
unidentified carcinogen were found at that site.

Before their arrests, protestors walked onto the main road leading
onto the construction site. Holding hands, they sang the traditional
hymn "Down by the Riverside" before forming a circle around the truck.

After about 10 minutes, police officers warned the activists to leave
the area before they began making arrests. Officers tapped those being
taken into custody on the shoulder one-by-one and placed plastic
zip-ties around their hands.

Moments before joining hands with those being taken into custody,
Diane Leutgeb Munson, a member of the Winona, Minn., Catholic Worker
said she thought of her action as “one more way to add to the public
outcry” against the nuclear weapons facility.

Kansas City police sergeant Craig Hope, the officer in charge of the
presence at the facility, said after the arrests that police wanted to
be sure the protestors could “exercise their rights.”

Over a period of three hours after the action activists were moved
from the facility to the downtown headquarters of the Kansas City
Police Department in a yellow police bus. They are charged with
trespassing and were originally held on between $100 and $400 bond.
Organizers say as few as five agreed to pay the bond.

Most of the remaining protestors were released periodically over the
night, with the last being released around dawn. Trial date is set for
July 19.

Those arrested came from places as far away as South Dakota and
Colorado. In the group are several vowed religious, including
DeLaSalle Christian Brother Louis Rodemann, Charity Sr. Mary Cele
Breen, and Notre Dame Sr. Theresa Maly.

Yesterday’s action is the latest in a sustained campaign by local
activists aimed at building awareness of and resistance to the
construction of the weapons complex. Last August, 14 peace activists
were arrested at the construction site after they halted work for over
an hour by surrounding earth moving equipment.

The number of the arrests outside the gates of the facility represents
a step forward in progress for those opposed to the plant, said Jane
Stoever, one of the event’s organizers.

“This is the largest number we’ve ever had. ... [People] left their
work, they left their schools. They came out here to place their
bodies in support and some to step across the line,” said Stoever.

“It’s another step in our long struggle. It signifies hope that the
word is spreading.”

Five of those arrested may face prolonged jail time because of their
witness. As participants in the August action, they refused to pay the
fine levied on them by the local judge then and have warrants out for
their arrest.

Gina Cook, a member of the Holy Family Catholic Worker community in
Kansas City, is arrested yesterday at the protest.

Frank Cordaro, one of those possibly facing a longer sentence, said he
saw whatever jail time he receives as a way to “change people’s
hearts.”

“The way you do that in this country, in the long, long line of civil
disobedience is to protest and go to jail,” said the member of the Des
Moines, Iowa, Catholic Worker community.

“Only when people do that do people start catching on that’s
something’s really wrong.”

The five were given between 60 and 90 days to pay the fines from their
previous arrest or face additional jail time.

Mixing serious discussions of nuclear deterrence with games of Frisbee
and football, anti-nuclear activists spent the weekend here to attend
the conference in a local high school leading up to the act of civil
disobedience.

On Saturday, activists heard from Art Laffin, a member of the Dorothy
Day Catholic Worker in Washington, D.C, on the conference's theme:
"The hope of Easter and a disarmed world."

Summing up a life of what he calls "Gospel obedience" -- ranging from
involvement in two Plowshares actions and weekly vigils outside the
White House and Pentagon -- Laffin explained how he thinks nonviolent
actions against nuclear weapons facilities "keep telling the story" of
Jesus resurrection.

Laffin told the activists their peace witness shows "the reign of God
is at hand. Right here. Right now."

On Friday, people gathered for a standing-room-only showing of "The
Forgotten Bomb," a new film portraying the dangers of the nation's
nuclear weapons arsenal.

Part documentary, part diary, the film follows the personal journey of
director Bud Ryan as he visits survivors of the nuclear weapons blasts
in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and talks to nuclear weapons analysts,
including former Secretary of State George Shultz.

Local people opposed to the nuclear weapons plant are gathering
signatures for a local ballot measure that, if enacted, would require
Honeywell, the operate of the complex, to cease nuclear weapons
operation at the site in favor of green energy work. As of Friday
afternoon organizers estimated they had over 4,000 of a needed 3,573
signatures to have the measure included in the local fall ballot.

The Kansas City Plant is responsible for the production and assembly
of approximately 85 percent of the non-nuclear components for the U.S.
nuclear arsenal. The plant is due to be relocated starting in 2012.

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a division of the
U.S. Department of Energy, has said the new facility will carry an
estimated price tag of $673 million for construction. The city
government has subsidized the facility’s construction with $815
million in municipal bonds.

Once completed, it is thought the new Kansas City Plant will be the
first nuclear weapons complex in the world to be owned by a city
government. Through a myriad of lease agreements, Kansas City will
hold title for the facility until the bond measures the city approved
are paid off by private developers in a lease-to-purchase scheme.

The new Kansas City facility is one of several where new nuclear
weapons projects are underway. The new Chemistry and Metallurgy
Research Replacement Project at Los Alamos, N.M., is also under
construction, and a new uranium processing facility in Oak Ridge,
Tenn. is in the final stages before approval.

SCROLL DOWN THE LINK BELOW FOR SLIDESHOW OF THE NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE ACTION...................