GALWAY "Demilitarisation of Shannon" Speaker-Ciaron O'Reilly

galway | anti-war / imperialism | event notice Friday September 15, 2006 18:41 by Eco Soc Galway

Come and hear recently acquitted Ciaron O'Reilly on further plans to nonviolently demilitarise Shannon Airport. O'Reilly was one of the "Pit Stop Ploughshares 5" recently acquitted at the Four Courts on charges of "$US2.5million criminal damage to a U.S. war plane".
*Wed Sept 20th *NUI Galway *Room 202 (near T Building ECI)

O'Reilly states, "Most of the 2,500 U.S. military killed in Iraq would have passed through Shannon Airport in County Clare. The departure lounge at Shannon Airport has become the departure lounge for death for these young Americans of university age. Shannon was averaging 1100 troops a day until the acquittal of the PIt Stop Ploughshares this past July.

The unanimous acquittal sends a clear message to the Irish Government that it has popular mandate for the militarisation of Shannon Airport. It sends a message that Irish people do not wish to be involved in a war on the people of Iraq. A war the Pope has denounced as "immoral", the U.N. Secretary General has denounced as "illegal" and a growing number of western military experts have denounced as "unwinnable".

The unanimous decision of the a jury, randomly chosen from Irish society, to acquit us of "$US2.5 million damage to a U.S. war plane" has sent a strong message to the British and U.S. governements that Irish people do not want any part of their war on Iraq. It is a war that escalates and expands in the Middle East and has already come home to London and Madrid.

If the Irish government refuses to listen to the jury - the conscience of the community - as it refused to listen to the tens of thousands that marched before the war started - we will take further nonviolent direct action to demilitarise Shannon Airport. We will act in the spirit of Ghandi and Martin Luther King!"