"On Ash Wednesday, in the spirt of Lent, we come to Bath Iron Works to symbolically disarm and convert an Aegis destroyer in repentance and atonement."
That's from a statement issued by Prince of Peace Plowshares, a Baltimore, Maryland anti-war group, regarding an Ash Wednesday action by six religious peace activists, including former Ukiah resident Susan Crane. The six boarded the USS Sullivan, an Aegis destroyer, at the Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine, poured their own blood on various parts of the ship and then took hammers to hatches covering the tubes from which nuclear missiles can be fired. The group unfurled a banner with this quote from Isaiah: "They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks."
Police arrested the activists, charging them with criminal trespass and criminal mischief, a felony.
The Aegis weapons systems that Bath Iron Works is installing on the Arleigh Burke class missile destroyers involves more than 500 Harpoon and Tomahawk cruise missiles, weapons which the Plowshares group says are particularly dangerous and destabilizing to world peace. They contend "construction of these weapons systems violates the Constitution, International Law and the spiritual laws of God." They condemn nuclear weapons as "a blasphemy against God, a byproduct of national weakness, fear and haterd; as robbery from the poor and as technology bent toward pride and lawlessness."
Crane is a veteran religious peace activist who served ten months in jail in 1995-96 for a similar action at a Lockheed-Martin Marietta facility in Sunnyvale. Upon her release, she was given two years probation on condition she stay away from her co-defendant, Father Steve Kelly and discontinue her protest activities. Kelly was with Crane and the other activists for the Bath action. Consequently, Crane could be facing more prison time. She has said that she will ignore any restrictions on her peace activities.
The others arrested with Crane and Kelly are Steve Baggarly, Plowshares co-founder Philip Berrigan, Mark Colville and Ton Lewis-Borbely.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1997
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited