By William Pomeroy The peace movement in Britain has produced a form of anti-nuclear weapon protest that is spreading about the country, providing a focal point for demonstrations and other peace activ- ity. It is called the People’s Peace + Camp. Last August about 50 women marched from Cardiff, in southern Wales, across country about 150 miles to Greeham Common, near Newbury in southern England. Carrying ban- ners proclaiming opposition to the sit- ing of U.S. Cruise missiles in Britain, they set up acamp outside the gate ofa U.S. military base located at Greenham Common. Here the first of the 108 Cruise nuclear missiles that the Thatcher Tory government has ag- reed to install on British soil in 1983 is to be sited. The Greenham Common camp de- . veloped into a permanent fixture. Starting out with a few tents and a por- takabin, it was soon added to by a ‘number of trailers. Many of the origi- nal 50 women have remained on a permanent basis; relays of others, from all over the country, have kept the peace population stable. They stayed on, without electricity, hot wa- ter, telephone or other facilities, throughout some of the bitterest winter weather experienced in Eng- land this century. U.S. air force personnel at the Greenham Common base have been forbidden to speak to the women peace workers and have even been told to “*avoid eye contact.” These official pars have been melted, however, especially after the women put up a notice: ‘‘We like you Yanks, but we don’t like your bombs.” The peace camp is mainly directed to the British people, to draw their at- tention to the nuclear menace that would make Britain a highly vulnera- ble retaliatory target in case the U.S. authorities fire the Cruise; and it is directed to the Thatcher government that has exposed the nation to sucha danger. In this purpose the Greenham Common People’s Peace Camp has been very successful. It has become a “pilgrimage place for peace groups and individual sympathizers from all cor- ners of Britain, and from Western European peace movements as well, rticularly on weekends. Donations, all on a voluntary basis, have poured into the camp. Messages of solidarity have come in a flood of . international proportions. ~ _ Early this year the local Newbury town council, obviously under pres- sure from the government, issued a ‘formal notice for the camp members to quit the land where they are staying within 14 days. They refused. One peace camper, Angela Phillips, said: “They don’t object to having weapons of mass destruction on their land, but they do object to a peace campaign.” The Newbury Council was deluged with messages of protest from British people, against the quit notice. T.e People’s Peace Camp is still at Greenham Common. ‘With the approach of sprins, the camp has become an expéading center for the anti-Cruise can.paign. William Pomeroy is a Daily World currespon- dent in London. ssp Demonstration outside U.S. embassy in London last August On the weekend of March 21 it was the converging point for over 10,000 anti- nuclear weapon protestors, who held a Festival of Life outside all six of the U.S. military base gates. The Greenham Common Peace. Camp has developed into one of the main inspirations of the large and growing British peace movement and its numerous participating groups. Up to the middle of March, four other permanent peace camps had been es- tablished outside other U.S. military bases in England, at Fairford, Gloucestershire; Molesworth, Cam- bridgeshire; Burton Wood, Lanca- shire; and Welford, Berkshire. Others are planned. In Britain, U.S. military bases are. chiefly an air force presence. There are at least eight main operating bases and a number of ‘‘standby deployment bases.”’ Most of them are located in the. counties of East Anglia, the bulge of England north of London, including Greenham Common, whichis chiefly a refuelling center. These are bases of the U.S. Third Air Force, which has its headquarters at Mildenhall, in East Anglia. Over 22,000 U.S. military personnel are on the bases, plus 2,000 U.S. civi- lian employees and 30,000 family members. Over 400 aircraft are stationed there. The greater number are the nuclear-weapon carrying F111, which puts them in the same category as nuclear weapon laun- chers. Assigned to NATO, the Third Air Force is essentially a strike force, for ‘conduct of “tactical air operations” and “‘close air support.’ Its nuclear weapon role gives its bases inEngland a nuclear base character. The peace camp movement, therefore, is in- tended not just as a protest against the DISARMAMENT FEATURE Pir OM MUNISTS “he The People’s Peace Camps siting of Cruise missiles on these bases but against their very presence in Bri- tain. . At another base, near Molesworth in Cambridgeshire, the second People’s Peace Camp was set up on December 28, 1981. The Molesworth Peace Camp is sponsored by numer- . ous groups working for peace in this part of East Anglia, including the Fel- lowship of Reconciliation, the Green CND, the Quaker Peace and Service, the Christian CND, Pax Christi, and many local trade union and civic or- ganizations. ; Declare the Molesworth peace campers: We are not against the American people, but against the U.S. Government’s siting of their missiles on our land; this puts us at a terrible risk. Yet Britain has no control over the launching of these missiles. To threaten to use weapons against children, wo- men, men and animals of any country is immoral. The weapons that might come to Molesworth could kill 60 million people. We reject the threat to carry out mass murder in our names. Numerous peace marches from British cities to the People’s Peace Camps have been planned. The peace camps against the Cruise-movement are being extended also to the equally extensive opposi- tion to the Trident submarine-borne missile which the Thatcher govern- ment has decided to buy from the U.S. This is to replace the present Polaris missile, the submarine carriers of which have been based in Scotland, Coulport. A call has gone out for Coulport to Mt Sin SSS SS be made into ‘‘the biggest peace camp in Europe.” Peace camps have captured the imagination of large numbers of British people but they are not the only dramatic form of anti-nuclear weapon sentiment. Matching the camps is the widespread movement for nuclear- free areas in the country. Up to mid- March 138 city, town and district councils in Britain have formally adopted motions declaring their ter- ritories nuclear-free (i.¢. forbidding the siting, transporting or other pre- sence of nuclear weapons or mate- rials). London is among the cities that have adopted such a measure (Grea- ter Manchester is another). The nuclear-free localities are putting up signs on the roads entering or leaving their areas, reading ‘‘ You are now en- tering a nuclear-free zone’’ or “You are now leaving a nuclear-free zone. Good luck.”’ Limited at first to larger centers of population, the movement is now be- ginning to extend to the village level. On March 12 the village of Coppull, near Chorley in Lancashire (popula- tion 7,800), declared itself a nuclear- free zone. * é It is expected that other villages will follow suit. The National Associa- tion of Local Councils, representing 8,600 parishes or villages in England and Wales, more or less endorsed the Coppull decision by saying that it was “perfectly proper,’ which was like giving the green light for nuclear-free villages. Tony Benn, the leading Labor Party left-winger, is introducing a bill ~ in parliament that would ban the siting of all foreign nuclear, chemical or biological weapons on British soil, in its air space or in territorial waters. Its provisions would make necessary the immediate dismantling of all U.S. nuclear bases. Such a bill has scant chance in the present Tory-controlled parliament, but the Labor Party has declared that when it returns to office it will carry out unilateral nuclear disarmament and will remove U.S. bases from Bri- tain. Today’s peace camps, nuclear- free zones and other peace and disar- mament trends in Britain will help to assure that that policy will be im- plemented.