Pit Stop Ploughshares: Court Report

dublin | anti-war / imperialism | news report Wednesday January 28, 2004 03:35 by Deirdre - Pitstop Ploughshares dee_clancy at yahoo dot co dot uk

& Joan Baez Gives us her Blessing

Pitstop Ploughshares Update: Successful Hearing and Expression of Support from Walking Legend of Nonviolence Joan Baez

On Monday, January 26th, the Pitstop Ploughshares appeared again before Judge Matthews in the Dublin Ciruit Court. It will be a year next week since the five - Deirdre Clancy, Nuin Dunlop, Karen Fallon, Damien Moran and Ciaron O'Reilly - decommissioned a US naval airplane at Shannon Airport in an attempt to enflesh the biblical mandate to 'beat swords into ploughshares.' During that time, we have been out on bail and endeavouring to continue our witness within the limited parameters of our bail conditions.

Context of Monday's Hearing

At our previous hearing on December 19th, Judge Matthews had upheld our solicitor Joe Noonan's application for items of discovery regarding the presence of US military aircraft at Shannon Airport. Our Senior Counsel Hugh Hartnett had argued at this hearing that the assessment of 'lawful excuse' in the Criminal Damage Act depends on the defendents' perception of a situation; that a jury cannot be deprived of the knowledge of whether the acccused were correct in their assessment, and therefore must have access to all relevant information. Amidst protestations from counsel for the prosecution that his decision flew 'in the face of logic', Judge Matthews had maintained that the information sought was relevant to the context in which the case was fought, given that that the aircraft and munitions 'didn't come here by accident; they came here by design.' Addressing Senior Counsel (Coughlan) for the prosecution, he had also added 'I think, Mr. Coughlan, it's to the High Court you must go to quash me for flying in the face of logic.'

Monday 26th January 2004

Monday of this week saw a cursory hearing, which dealt with the prosecution's attempts to cobble together the required information; Nuán O'Bhreánáin for the prosecution indicated at that hearing that work is in progress in this regard. Our initial anxiety that the state would apply for a judicial review of Judge Matthews' previous order was allayed; and our legal team indicated that it is now unlikely that this will happen due to a groundbreaking case, 'Dunne v. the DPP', in which the guards made no effort to obtain vital video evidence (the Supreme Court ruled that due to this failure, Dunne could not be put on trial).

A full six weeks after the December 19th hearing, the prosecution requested a transcript of that hearing in order to ensure that they understood the judge's order correctly. This delayed request in turn has further delayed the securing of a trial date for us. The delay in the availabiliy of the transcript is also due to the fact that on December 19th the court recorder went to lunch rather than sit through a large part of the proceedings.

We are up for mention again at the Circuit Court next Monday February 2nd. Please join us on our journey through the judicial system, as we try our best be a witness to the Irish government's complicity in the Bush regime's fanatical quest for global dominance through economic power and military might.

At the Afri 'Féile Bhríde' conference in Kildare at the weekend Susan George, the well-known groundbreaking critic of the power structures used to maintain global imbalances in the distribution of wealth, referred to the Bush regime as 'proto-fascist' and intent on rolling back the constitutional liberties in which many Americans were taught to take pride. She maintained that resistance to the current US regime is pro-American, rather than vice versa. What would Mary Harney, with her glib attempts to dismiss all anti-war activists as anti-American, have to say to the Americans who say that it is actually their administration that is anti-American?

Similary, in Vicar Street last night, Joan Baez began her concert by apologising for her president's existence, later telling a joke about a microsurgeon who boasts that he put George Bush together with only a cowboy hat and a horse's ass to work with. From a very young age, Baez has been involved in nonviolent resistance to war; her beautiful voice and her philosophy of nonvioence are two gifts which she uses interchangeably. Her vision has remained steadfast for over four decades, despite the cynicism of the times. 'I sang in the bomb shelters of Hanoi during the Vietnam War; in the Laotian refugee camps in Thailand; in the makeshift settlements of the boat people in Malaysia', she has written. As well as defying the forces of nature by having the same singing voice she possesses on the vinyl records I have of her made in the early 1960s, only richer and stronger, she also does a mean Dylan impression.

I presented her with a Pitstop Ploughshares t-shirt after the concert as she was mingling with the audience and signing autographs, and in response she wrote a message of solidary: 'GOD BLESS THE PITSTOP PLOUGHSHARES! Joan Baez.' It is an honour for our group to receive the blessing of someone who has used her considerable talents in such a committed and creative way to resist both warmongering and other human rights violations; who has stood at police barricades arm-in-arm with Martin Luther King; and who has advocated on behalf of the marginalised at every juncture of her career as a musician.

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