THE main reason why President Reagan will be greeted with such hostility when he visits Britain this week will be because of the decision to station cruise missiles here.
fight to draw attention to the siting of the missiles and to mobilise women against them. But lately the women at the camp have been suffering high levels of police harassment determined silence.
going on.
THE WOMEN of Greenham have been doing a lot lately, but the media have not been reporting it. There are over women in prison, 21 on remand for refusing to accept a bail condition to stay away from the camp their home.
On 1 May 23 women rode into the base bicycles and roller skates.
One woman was charged with criminal damage. On 7 May 21 women went into le Dase and painted une woman painted on an observation tower (so much for tight security!). Only two were charged with criminal damage.
On 12 May the women held a 'visibility action' cutting their way through the fence to the silos, sayThe women at Greenham have waged a constant while the press keeps a TRACY LITTERICK explains what has been ing we will not make our protest against Cruise invisible.
The police use the law arbitrarily try trivialise the women's persistent breaching of security. Some women were arrested and charged, given heavy sentences in court, while others were released without charges.
Bail Of those charged, refused to accept the bail conditions in prison on remand. The women 'others have been charged with over £5000 of criminal damagek for allegedly pulling down 81 sections of the tence with their bare hands on 29 October last year.
Their charge sheets say they had done f25 worth of damage each, and suddenly the amount was inThe women were creased. so shocked they elected to go to Crown Court as they did not want to face such massive charges without legal advice. When they go to court they may have a compulsory custodial sentence.
Police Soldiers police continue to threaten women, arrest without charges, and use violence against the Woe 1 hours of the day. Soldiers nave Deen unrowing stones rocks sleeping women over the fence.
A letter has been written to the Home Secretary asking him to take action to stop seems ironic that Leon strong statements about violence allegel miners throwing stones, saying DONCE should make very effort to while this is gobrevell it. ing on at Greenham.
There nas been heavy security near the silos lately, when a Galaxy plane landed and six containers unloaded into the silos.
ing on and they were warned not to take pictures. A new camp (Emerald) has been set up next to the silos.
Violence On 12 May 10 women WETE arrested stripsearched after enterUSAF Alconbury look around and expose the appalling security.
The Greenham women have taken on the malar establishment, faced up to capitalism. media, government, law, police Now the miners face the same things. Bail conditions too have been similar - stay away from the picket lines stay away Greenham.
Miners The miners have given the Greenham women a lot of support and now the Greenham women support the miners in their struggle against profits for the capitalists.
More women are needed at Greenham! Support the women in prison! No to pit closures! • A campaign for those facing heavy sentences has been set contact 01-833 2831.
THE administration may not be able to handle the Lebanese masses or crush the Sandinistas, but it has certainly managed to run rings around the posedly ever-so-sophisticated bourgeois politicians of Western Europe over the last couple years.
The first phase Washington's drive to re-establish its control over events among the West European states is over now, the second, 'positive' phase is about to begin. And funnily enough the political leadership that has been grovelling in its towards Reagan Thatcher leadership in Britain — is likely to be the biggest loser in Reagan's new scheme of things for Western Europe.
The key target in Reagan's political strategy for pulling capitalist Europe back into line has been West Germany. Barring a socialist revolution in some West European country, the only state in the EEC that could pull the rug from under the Pax Americana is the Federal Republic: it is the strongest power in Europe outside the USSR, the strongest economy and accupies the key geographical position on the contiRen.
As the crisis of the capitalist world intensified, rivalry between Europe and America grew sharper, the danger of increased political independence on Bonn's part began to seriously alarm Washington.
The cry went out from Washington that West Germany was threatened by •Finlandisation' and it didn't understand the Soviet threat. refused to bend over the gas pipeline deal with Moscow, nounced the spectre of neutralism in the Federal Republic of Germany and repudiated any deal with Moscow over Cruise and Pershing. Feverish German efforts to push Washington in to a compromise were brushed aside and the entire military relationship between East and West was transformed.
Over the last few months Bonn has continued to struggle to keep its links with Moscow, by adopting the guise of •intra-German' policy, Leipzig fair two years running with half the German political establishment and preparing a visit of the East German leader Honnecker to the FRG for this autumn, the first such visit since the supof so-to-speak Bonn Kohl has Washington most sycophancy over. namely the 'Europeans', their way out Minister Gerhard Stoltenberg. has pulled off a great victory more fundamental military the military Europe and America. the time achieved the and economic protection Di Europe. Intolerable When Bonn Washington dethe can Europe and prevent the West bourgeois politicians in Europe.
eecorale that domestic ponies flooding the appease Washington Led, he wants to May) that there is 'a growing sense of foreign policy drift and impotence in 'lost influence in Moscow'. Fifteen years of Ostpolitik seem likely to be And within the Kohl cabinet the Genscher and Woernel (foreign policy and defence) are on The rising star America's man in Bonn, the Finance The true dimensions of this victory can only be grasped by appreciating the complete transformation that Reagan is bringing about in something much than mere diplomacy. He is completely changing between cond when the USSR capacity to retaliate against US cities in the event of nuclear war an interminable debate has been going on between the elites of Western Europe and the US. If the US militarily guaranteed Western Europe it risked its own destruction. If it assured its own doing deals with the Soviet Union it was in effect withdrawing its nuclear guarantee from Western Reagan has now made that all inHis entire thrust has been to prepare plans and resources both ficht war in USSR from retaliating against the US. This military drive is scaring the hell out of serious But what can they do about it? Tell their Washington threatening them with genocide? In do that would mean tearing apart the whole anti-socialist basis of their own What then is the alternative? It is to finds try bargain. After all, Reagan is no madman, he is after real interests of US capitalism. As far as Europe is concern- ferent create intolerable This then brings us on to the 'positive' aspect of Reagan's plans for Western Europe, so to speak the sephase of American organisation of Atlantic relations. There is every sign that Reagan is ready to back a new drive for West European 'unity' hinged on a Franco-German axis. For Washington, 'Europeanism' as an ideology remains acceptable. indeed it is indispensible as a means tegrating the populations of Western Europe under US hegemony.
The debate on this 'positive' phase of Reagan's plans for Western Europe is already far advanced and its results will begin to appear in public as soon as the European elections are over. parallel initiatives will then be taken On the one had there will be the revival of the Western European Union, dealing with defence and foreign matters; on the other there will be the Kohl-Mitterand project for strengthening co-operation within the Common Market. The French German governments seem to have cleared both these projects in Washington and the! are all set to go.
Client This then brings us to the increasingly ridiculous figure of Thatcher who herself outmanoeuvred and staring humiliation in the face. The really fundamental principles foreign policy have not been any diffrom those of Callaghan in the 1970s. The key idea that has been getting backing for British capitalist interests Two on a world scale.
Loyalty to Washington has entailed spending more money on defence than any other NATO member in Europe. It policy has also Struck with the loose, talk that can be heard now and again in meetings of European leaders. And it has also meant offering the US as many military facilities both at abroad as Britain can possibly offer. There are politicians tionalist right in Western Europe. lihe Chirac in France. who would like te give Europeanism and savagely anti-labour. political content. very carefully Mitterand and Kohl during their trips to Washington earlier this year to purge of her them of any elements jeopardise US control.
with Washington's meant refusing to have any anti-American home on the naan anti-American.
But the Reagan administration vetted the schemes of might WE HAVE TOD SOMETHING