Trinity Nuclear Abolition NEWS RELEASE
15 October 2010
Squelching Free Speech? The State of New Mexico's Nuclearism
Trinity Nuclear Abolition (TNA) will hold a prayer-action at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) on Thursday, October 21st 2010 from 7am to 8am. This will be the 39th picketing event at LANL since the monthly vigils began in 2007, and the second demonstration since the large, popular prayer-action on August 6th 2010. This upcoming peaceful vigil supports nuclear abolition as usual, and specifically supports the end of work at the CMR and CMRR. The event will be held in front of the main welcome sign at the corner of Diamond and West Jemez in Los Alamos, NM, on land claimed to be owned by the Department of Energy.
Some vigils are held on property controlled by LANL, others are held elsewhere near LANL. Nuclear abolitionists come every month to publicly demonstrate against nuclearism*, although security personnel have threatened to arrest demonstrators at least ten times. LANL followed through with their threat to stop the vigil twice (April 14th 2008 and August 6th 2010). In both instances, Los Alamos Police arrested activists who refused to leave the land. In both instances, those who refused to leave (and were arrested for alleged trespassing) believed they had the right to be on the land. At this time, eight people who were arrested on August 6th are undergoing prosecution at Los Alamos Magistrate Court. The State of New Mexico continues her dysfunctional relationship with the Department of Energy (DoE), seen as the abuser of lands and indigenous people nationwide. In these case of the "CMR-8" (the eight individuals arrested on August 6th) the State implicitly supports the DoE's nuclearism, because the State conducts cases only against abolitionists and not against LANL for its alleged crimes (human rights violations, Constitutional violations, war crimes, etc). See the TNA website for more info (tna.lovarchy.org).
TNA holds the position that LANL employees commit local, federal and international crimes on-site in this territory rightfully belonging to various Tewa pueblo peoples. TNA is always nonviolent, peaceful and usually playful. The lovarchists of TNA attempt to love enemies, and advocate for others to do likewise, in order to bring about the highest quality of security. TNA thereby calls for cleanup of radioactive sites, disarmament of nuclear weapons industries and active rebuilding of a peaceful structures in the USA. TNA denounces nuclearism because TNA is a spiritually grounded group promoting peaceful disciplines and healthy ways of living in harmony with creation.
On 6 August 2010, TOTB held a peaceful demonstration in the streets of Los Alamos.
*Nuclearism has been defined as a political philosophy advocating nuclear weapons and nuclear power for the purposes of maintaining of international stability between countries using high-tech tools such as nuclear power and weapons. Nuclearism is a new word in English.
During TNA demonstrations, the question remains: when will New Mexico rid herself of nuclear weapons? Further questions go unanswered: Why does New Mexico hold so many weapons? When will allegiance to the Earth or to God or to the PEOPLE of New Mexico trump allegiance to the US Government? How can Christians claim to follow Christ if they place US interests above Christ's interests? Will New Mexicans ever be compassionate and bold enough to protect the region from the continuing colonization and contamination by US nuclear interests?
