NATO closed by peace activists
On Easter Saturday, 1000 peace activists and 3 cows visited the NATO headquarters in Brussels to investigate the preparation of war crimes and ask for the disarmament of all nuclear weapons.
The publicly announced civil inspection was met by a massive amount of police who were so nice as to close the headquarters for us. 500 nonviolent protestes and 2 nonviolent cows were arrested. The cows decorated their cell door with a peace flag, were let free in the evening, slept a couple of hours and continued with a conference on military globalisation and nonviolent resistance in Europe.
Without Europe’s help the Iraq war would not have been possible – at least not that easily. Both troups and arms were sent to Iraq from Europe. Without NATO, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Turkey and Italy would find it much easier to get rid of the 240 US nuclear bombs on their territory. Without a military alliance that prepares war crimes and allows the first strike of nuclear weapons (e.g. for attack, not for defense), police in Belgium could spend their time for better things than arresting nonviolent peace activists. That’s why the CIA decided to participate in NATO – Game Over on March 22nd, 2008.
The CIA arrived in Brussels from Switzerland with 3 cow agents, 1 dog journalist and 2 human friends on Thursday evening. The Belgian peace activists had done fabulous work: they had organised a meeting place, a sleeping place and a vegan kitchen team for the around 150 international activists. Since we had given away our cow banner from last year’s CIA Easter action, Renate brought a white pillow cover, which we painted and dried it on the heater. We were now fully equipped.
Friday was dedicated to a 1-day action training, where we met two ladies from England and another two from Italy. We managed to recruit them for our affinity group, i.e. the small group of people that look out after each other during big demonstrations. A friend from France, arrived in the evening and also agreed to join our group. We checked who of us was ready to go over the fence, hugged each other, bonded and went to bed.
The next day we were briefed on the action, all got an arm band that made it clearly visible that we intended to get into NATO to check war crimes and then set of guided by a highly visible green flag. Surprisingly enough we did not see any police until shortly before the 2m-high NATO fence, which had been reinforced by a roll of barbed wire on the ground. Our guess is that the Easter rabbit had hidden lots of chocolate eggs near NATO so police wanted to stay close to ensure nobody took their eggs.
Moreover we think that the police inside the fence did some kind of contest entitled „How can I show my masculinity in the most ridiculous way“. We awarded the first price to the three police officers that tore our Swiss guy from the fence and jumped at him all at the same time. The second price went to the security guard who pulled one of our Italian ladies, who was trying to climb down the fence in a way that made her foot get stuck so that it did take her a much longer time to get down that she would have needed if he had left her alone.
The second pseudo-masculinity contest (from what we could gather) was „How can I use violence in the most unnecessary way, just because I am too lazy to carry a nonviolent peace activist?“. All the prices of this category went to the group of police men who strangled our French guy with a police baton, when he sat down nonviolently on the ground instead of walking with them. When he became unconscious they let their dog bite his leg and then kicked him in the back. When he then decided to walk one of them said „See, that’s what you have to do, he now walks“.
The third contest was: „Why tell the truth, when you can lie“ and Renate fell for it, because she always believes everything she is told, such as: „Don’t worry about your friend, he is fine“ (talking about our French guy during the pseudo-masculinity contest).
Fortunately there also was a „Smile and be friendly contest“ on, and a number of police officers participated in it. We did, too, especially in jail, where we eventually ended up. There were five nice vertical bars in the door so we attached our peace flag and squeezed us two cows inbetween. Before they eventually let us out, a picture was taken of all arrested people and cows and Renate was threatened that they would keep her for 12h in jail if she did not sign a paper that she was not legally obliged to sign. Abuse of power, not the first time it happens to her. It did irritate her somewhat, as did the fact that they refused to offer translators to the peope who did not understand French or Dutch and lied to them about what they had to sign. Luckily she read 15 pages of Martin Luther King texts today, which were full of explanations as to why it is important to love all people and has now calmed down.
Once out of jail us cows and Renate decided to wait for the others of our group. Police threatened to not let out anybody any more if we continued to wait. We did not give in, because being there for each other when we are released is part of our nonviolent approach based in love for each other. Together with a nice German girl we waited patiently in the freezing street until everybody was out – even those who had refused to sign and were kept in until the very end.
Back at the meeting place, warm vegan food was waiting – and all the other international peace activists as well. We ate, wrote reports, looked at pictures of the action, hugged each other and went to bed at 2 AM. Got up again at 8, did an evaluation and all went to a conference on military globalisation.
At the conference we heard loads of information that made us even more committed, esp. about military bases, such as Vicenza in Italy – where our Italian ladies have been active in the past – and Diego Garcia in the Pacific – to which Renate’s friend Jon has sailed to alert the world population to the plight of its evicted population (see Chagos People’s Navy).
With so much to do all over the place, we decided to post our cow agents to different places in need: Dragiza got the mission to cover peace observers in Palestine and Dahu will from now on report about nonviolent resistance in Italy. Ludmilla, alias Lilith III was placed in Switzerland. After many kisses the cows and humans parted and returned home with their head chock-full of impressions and information.
Three more cows have been recruited since and are looking forward to the next CIA adventure. It might well be the blockade of the nuclear weapons factory in Aldermaston on October 27th.
