“Whether nuclear weapons are actually illegal under international or domestic law (a doubtful proposition) is not relevant or an appropriate issue to litigate in this case,” so ruled Judge Lisa Godbey Wood of the US District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, late on Friday October 18. This last-minute order, restricting the defense of seven antinuclear activists at a trial that began Monday morning the 21st, wedi gwneud treial byr yn gasgliad anfaddeuol. Roedd hefyd, yn fwy nag unrhyw dystiolaeth y byddai'r rheithgor sydd eto i'w rhwystro eto yn ei chlywed yn y pen draw, yn gwneud eu heuogfarnau bron yn sicr.
On trial were seven Catholics, who on April 4, 2018 -the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination- cut through a fence and entered the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia, homeport for six Trident nuclear submarines, where in an act of symbolic disarmament, they poured bottles of their own blood onto military plaques and hammered statues of nuclear missiles. In a previous August 26 ruling on the activists claim that their actions were protected under the Restoration of Religious Freedom Act (RFRA) Judge Wood agreed that the “Defendants’ actions at Kings Bay were exercises of their sincerely held religious beliefs that they should take action in opposition to the presence of nuclear weapons at Kings Bay,” and that their actions were “‘religious exercises’ within the meaning of RFRA.”
“Mae'r cyfreithiau dan sylw yn rhoi 'pwysau sylweddol' ar Ddiffynyddion i beidio ag arfer eu crefydd fel y gwnaethant yn Kings Bay” parhaodd y Barnwr Wood. Nododd hefyd eu bod “wedi cael eu beichio’n sylweddol gan y cyfreithiau dan sylw.” Penderfynodd y Barnwr Wood serch hynny fod gan y llywodraeth “ddiddordeb cymhellol” i gael arfau niwclear sy’n cysgodi unrhyw ystyriaeth arall.
Yn y treial, caniatawyd i weithredwyr esbonio i’r rheithgor “eu credoau goddrychol am grefydd ac anfoesoldeb ac anghyfreithlondeb arfau niwclear,” ond, rhybuddiodd, bod gormod o “dystiolaeth a dadl ar y pynciau hyn yn creu perygl rhagfarn annheg, gan ddrysu’r materion, camarwain y rheithgor, oedi gormodol, gwastraffu amser, neu gyflwyno tystiolaeth gronnus yn ddiangen.” I bob pwrpas, caniatawyd i'r diffynyddion roi tystiolaeth o'u credoau goddrychol eu hunain bod arfau niwclear yn anghyfreithlon ond ni chaniateir iddynt egluro'r ffeithiau sy'n llywio'r credoau hynny.
One of the expert witnesses that Judge Wood decided would confuse and mislead the jury was Professor Francis Boyle of the University of Illinois who had submitted an extensive legal declaration in defense of the activists, noting that US treaties, including the Geneva Conventions banning weapons of mass destruction and the condemnation of nuclear weapons by the International Court of Justice among many others, are part of international law to which the US government and its citizens are bound to obey.
Hefyd wedi ei diarddel fel tyst oedd yr Athro Jeannine Hill Fletcher, diwinydd o Brifysgol Fordham. Ni chaniatawyd iddi dystio bod gweithredoedd yr ymgyrchwyr yn seiliedig ar gredoau crefyddol didwyll yng nghyd-destun eu ffydd Gatholig. Caniatawyd i'r rheithgor glywed am gredoau goddrychol y diffynyddion am ddysgeidiaeth eu Heglwys ar ryfel ac arfau niwclear yn unig, ond barnwyd bod beth yw'r ddysgeidiaeth hynny mewn gwirionedd neu a yw credoau goddrychol y diffynyddion yn wybodus, yn amherthnasol.
Yn y treial, nid oedd gan y rheithwyr unrhyw wybodaeth am orchymyn y Barnwr Wood ond roedd yn amlwg eu bod wedi'u drysu gan ei berthnasedd â'r dystiolaeth a glywsant, fel y dangosir gan y nodiadau a roddwyd i'r barnwr i'w hegluro. “Ydy hi’n wir bod yna daflegrau niwclear yn cael eu cadw yn Kings Bay?” roedd un rheithiwr eisiau gwybod, cwestiwn nad oedd yn cael ei ateb fel un amherthnasol.
The fact that the defendants left this and other decisive questions up in the air and unanswered could easily have given the impression to the jury that they simply did not know what they were talking about, that they were not acting on known facts about Kings Bay and the danger of nuclear weapons, but on rumor, conjecture or propaganda by our country’s enemies, if not paranoid delusion. Defendant Carmen Trotta could tell the jury, “One-fourth of the US nuclear arsenal is deployed out of Kings Bay, the single most sophisticated weapon on our planet. If used, they will destroy all life on the planet. They can’t be legal,” but he was not allowed to say why he believed this to be true.
“One-fourth of the US nuclear arsenal is deployed out of Kings Bay, the single most sophisticated weapon on our planet. If used, they will destroy all life on the planet. They can’t be legal,” but he was not allowed to say why he believed this to be true
Roedd Martha Hennessy yn gallu siarad am y ddysgeidiaeth gymdeithasol Gatholig a ddysgodd gan ei nain, Dorothy Day, a’i chred “Rydym ni, ein gwlad, llawer o wledydd, yn disodli Duw â’r arfau hyn. Nid ydym yn ymddiried yn Nuw. Mae angen inni astudio dysgeidiaeth Gristnogol; eilunaddoliaeth yw ymddiried yn yr arfau hyn,” ond ni chaniatawyd i’r rheithgor y cyd-destun i ddirnad a oedd ei chred, pa mor “ddiffuant bynnag,” yn deillio o ddysgeidiaeth sefydledig a systematig ei Heglwys, neu ei hargyhoeddiad personol a chyfeiliornus ei hun.
The government prosecutors took advantage of the gag order that limited the defendants’ testimony. At times they seemed to goad them up to the line of what was allowed, only to have something to object to. One prosecutor badgered Clare Grady in an attempt to make her look arrogant, suggesting that she set herself above the law, claiming the right to run red lights if she felt like it, arrogating herself “the power to overrule 320,000,000 who have elected Congress to make laws.” “You think that your personal opinion is the supreme law of the land!” he challenged her. While the prosecutor spoke freely about the supreme law of the land, Clare and other witnesses for the defense could not. Had he been allowed to testify, Professor Boyle could have explained to the jury that the term “supreme law of the land” is not an abstract or malleable notion and that the supreme law of the land that Clare was acting in obedience to was not her own personal whim of the moment, but is something clearly defined in article VI of the US Constitution, “all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”
Mewn llai na 90 munud, collfarnodd y rheithgor bob un o'r saith ar bedwar cyfrif ffeloniaeth yr un. Maen nhw'n wynebu hyd at 25 mlynedd yn y carchar.
Judge Wood’s determination regarding irrelevant testimony is concerning enough, but her parenthetical judgement that the illegality of nuclear weapons is “a doubtful proposition,” shows an irrational and dangerous bias that, by itself, should have disqualified her from hearing this case
Mae penderfyniad y Barnwr Wood ynglŷn â thystiolaeth amherthnasol yn peri digon o bryder, ond mae ei dyfarniad rhiant fod anghyfreithlondeb arfau niwclear yn “gynnig amheus,” yn dangos gogwydd afresymol a pheryglus a ddylai, ynddo’i hun, fod wedi ei gwahardd rhag clywed yr achos hwn, o leiaf. Mae anghyfreithlondeb gwneud, cynnal a bygwth defnyddio arfau niwclear wedi'i sefydlu'n gadarn ac yn ddiamwys fel “Goruchaf Gyfraith y Tir; a bydd i Farnwyr pob Talaeth gael eu rhwymo gan hyny, unrhyw Beth sydd yn Nghyfansoddiad neu Gyfreithiau unrhyw Dalaeth i'r Cyferbyniol er hyny."
Three months before I was in the courtroom in Brunswick, Georgia, where this miscarriage of justice occurred, I was in Europe, camping outside (and occasionally making an unauthorized visit inside) a German Air Force Base at Buechel. There, 20 B61 nuclear bombs are maintained by a US Air Force squadron, ready to be loaded on German fighter bombers upon orders from both the US and German governments.
Both the US and Germany are signers of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), where the US is prohibited from sharing nuclear weapons with any country and Germany is committed:”… not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or of control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly … or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices …”.
The US maintains that the prohibitions of the NPT and the other disarmament treaties and agreements only count in peace time. The logic is that, if there is a nuclear war, the NPT by that point will have failed to keep the peace and so is null and void. In the meantime, the nuclear weapons stored at Buechel and on bases in five other NATO countries are in the possession of the US.
It seems absurd on its face — disarmament agreements in force only in peace time is like being a vegetarian between meals. On the other hand, it is true that if (when?) the order is given to load these US nuclear bombs onto German planes to be dropped on predetermined targets, by that time any notion of law, of agreements and cooperation between nations, of human kindness and simple decency, is done and over. No one will be protected and no one held responsible for the chaos and destruction to follow. There will be no Nuremburg trials after World War III.
There will be no Nuremburg trials after World War III
Clare Grady testified in court in Georgia that “we used the word ‘omnicide,’” describing a banner she helped hang at Kings Bay. Omnicide, she explained, is “a word that didn’t exist before the nuclear age—the death of all living things. We put up crime scene tape because Trident is the biggest crime we know.” Judge Wood’s doubt over the illegality of nuclear weapons, her suggestion that the means of the destruction of all living things is legal and to be protected, shows, at best, a culpable ignorance of the law, if not outright contempt for it. If, on the other hand she is right and the killing of everything is legal and actions to avert omnicide are criminal, is the institution of law any good at all? If Judge Wood is correct and objection to the destruction of the whole of creation and the killing of everyone is the irrelevant and subjective belief of some Christians, and not a constitutive and essential obligation of our faith, than of what use is Christianity?
Mae’r rhain ymhlith y cwestiynau hollbwysig, ond nid y rhai olaf gobeithio, a gododd Lisa Godbey Wood i ni yn ystafell y llys yn Brunswick. Rwy’n gweddïo ei bod hi, a phob un ohonom, yn rhoi sylw iddynt gyda’r diwydrwydd a’r dewrder a ddangoswyd gan Kings Bay Plowshares 7 ar Ebrill 4, 2018.
Brian Terrell, [e-bost wedi'i warchod], is a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence.
Mae ZNetwork yn cael ei ariannu trwy haelioni ei ddarllenwyr yn unig.
Cyfrannwch