Bombspotting/Bombstopping.
What's it all about?
Kleine Brogel.
Kleine Brogel is a Belgian air force base which covers an area of 1100 acres in the North East of Belgium. It is the original and only remaining base used by the United States in Belgium.
Kleine Brogel is also currently the home of the Tactical Fighterbomber Wing (10 W TAC), the section of the Belgian Air force under NATO command. This wing is responsible and trained for flying with the F-16. The squadron takes part in regular exercises for the loading and use of nuclear weapons.
Nuclear weapons?
Lots of questions have been asked in Belgian Parliament concerning the presence of nuclear weapons at the base. The standard answer, dictated by the NATO, used to be to 'neither confirm or deny' the presence of nuclear weapons. The actual presence of nuclear weapons used to be a public secret... untill Belgian Air Force's Chief of Staff confirmed in an unguarded moment that Belgium DOES have a role in NATO's nuclear tasks.
Belgium's Prime Minister, Guy Verhofstadt, has confirmed the actual presence to other members of parliament several times. The public however had to put up with the 'standard answer'...
Released American and NATO-documents show that Kleine Brogel is being maintained to hold nuclear weapons. At Kleine Brogel, 11 WS3 bunkers (Weapons Storage & Security System) are installed under the floor of hardened aircraft shelters, with each bunker housing up to two nuclear weapons.
The weapons are of the B61-type, a modern free-fall bomb ranging up to 170 kiloton (14 times the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb).
110 American soldiers (52nd Munitions Support Squadron) are responsible for the weapons. The pilots trained to fly those weapons are Belgian.
Our demands
Belgium is a democracy. Therefore, ALL information should be public.
Every possibility to have a substantive parliamentary debate concerning the Belgian involvement in NATO nuclear strategy is refused.
On July 8, 1996 the International Court of Justice (The Hague, The Netherlands) declared that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is generally contrary to international humanitarian law. The ICJ is the highest legal body in the world.
Bombspotting
Non-violent action. Period.
Trespassing the base DOES involve breaking Belgian Law. The Bombspotters feel strengthened by International law though, which orders every civilian to intervene where crimes against humanity are being prepared.
Belgian government, police and army had been warned a long time before about the bombspotting, about the 'civil disobedience'.
October 5, 2002: Bombspotting day!
The Bombspotters' goal was to trespass the base to draw attention. Nothing more. No criminal motives were involved.
Police knew that, and treated them almost as civilians.
Army and police arrested about 500 out of about 1500 manifestants. Among them were higher members of the government... The arrestants were released by the end of the manifestation.
And no, I wasn't one of them: I preferred not to trespass the base. My reasoning: breaking the law to protest against a violation of the law is just as bad as that violation of the law itself.
The result
We made the news again... Our government can not keep on denying what's going on...
Note: when I speak of 'we', by no means do I intend to speak in the name of the people organizing the Bombspotting (For Mother Earth, Forum voor Vredesactie, Bomspotting vzw).
The facts and numbers mentioned in this post come from original NATO-information, and from the forementioned organizations.
