Two northern Wisconsin residents are heading overseas next week to join in a protest against nuclear weapons on an American air base in Germany.
Bonnie Urfer and John LaForge of Luck, Wis., are joining a delegation from around the country to participate in a long-standing campaign July 12-18 at Büchel Air Base, in west-central Germany.
Others participating in the campaign include Steve Baggarly of Norfolk, Va., Kathy Boylan of Washington, D.C; Zara Brown of Minneapolis, Susan Crane of Redwood City, Calif., Carmella Cole and Ralph Hutchison of Knoxville, Tenn., Sr. Carol Gilbert, O.P., and Sr. Ardeth Platte, O.P., of Baltimore, Md., and Leona Morgan of Albuquerque, N.M. Seven of the participants have served a combined total of 36 years in U.S. jails and prisons for nonviolent protest actions taken against nuclear weapons.
LaForge said the delegation’s goal is the removal of 20 B61 nuclear-armed gravity bombs at the U.S. air base.
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Since March 26, activists in Germany have been participating in a 20-week series of nonviolent protests — “Twenty Weeks for Twenty Bombs” — to rid Büchel of the U.S. Air Force’s B61 bombs. The actions continue through Aug. 9, the anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945.
The week the U.S. delegation is heading to Germany has been dubbed “International Week” by organizers, and joins peace activists from Belgium, the Netherlands and France, as well as Germany.
The U.S. delegation and the German public are concerned the U.S. is planning to produce 480 new hydrogen bombs — the B61-12 — to replace the 180 B61s now deployed in five European NATO countries, including the 20 at Büchel. Production is not expected to start before 2022. Overall cost of the new bomb is estimated to be at least $12 billion.
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Under a scheme known as “nuclear sharing,” Germany, Italy, Belgium, Turkey and the Netherlands still deploy a total of about 180 U.S. H-bombs and conduct NATO nuclear war maneuvers using the U.S. bombs, although all six states are parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Articles I and II of the treaty explicitly prohibit nuclear weapons from being either transferred to or accepted from other countries.
The U.S. is the only country in the world that arms other countries with its nuclear weapons. (China may lease a nuclear-powered submarine but not nuclear weapons from Russia.)
Although the planned B61-12 has been called a new weapon, the Pentagon states the program is “modernization” to skirt the treaty’s prohibitions, LaForge said.
Read more at Northlanders protest nuclear weapons overseas
