Cluster Bomb Action – The Lakenheath 8

Although some of us had highlighted the use of cluster bombs in the Iraq and Afghan was as part of our anti-war campaigning, we had not been heavily involved in this issue. Although I believe that direct action is sometimes a useful tactic, I would like to give praise to the unsung heroes that have been involved in long term campaigning on this issue. They often do tremendous work with little recognition let alone praise – partly, because as I mentioned before Peace is Boring.

Cluster bombs continue to be used and their long deadly legacy remains. I would like to thank the Cluster Munitions Coalition and Mines Advisory Group on their work in this area.

Cluster Bombs

Cluster bombs explode in mid-air to release many smaller bomblets. For example, the CBU-87 contains over 200 submunitions. Many of these do not explode at the time and leave a lasting deadly legacy.

For example, hundreds of people are still being killed or injured due to cluster munitions dropped during the Vietnam War over 50 years ago. In 2022, Mines Advisory Group destroyed 14,615 bombs, clearing just more than 10 square kilometres (3.86 sq miles) of land¹.

Around 98% of the victims of cluster bombs are civilians. Due to the indiscriminate nature of these weapons, it is strongly arguable that their use is illegal under international law².

One of the things that we were surprised at was the reaction of the authorities. It was only a magistrates court hearing and we expected it to be over with quite quickly. However, the Attorney General interviened and the it took over two year to go to court.

The Action

Cluster bombs were extensively used by Israel in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War. Since it was suspected that fresh weapons were being supplied via RAF Mildenhall a peace camp was set up there.

We had found out that some large transport planes had been seen at nearby RAF Lakenheath. It is unlikely that munitions would be transferred via RAF Lakenheath and large transports at the base usually means that they are going for deployment. Some of the protesters visited RAF Lakenheath and saw a number of CBU-87 cluster bombs at a munitions dump, ready for deployment in Iraq or Afghanistan.

CBU-87 cluster bombs are quite distinctive and are easily distinguished from other types of munition. They were live bombs: training bombs tend to have blue markings and a red flag was flying at the munitions dump, which we had been told indicated that live munitions were being handled.

On 2 October 2006, eight protesters (Emma Bateman, Irene Willis, Lesley Anderson, Melanie Harrison, Leslie Grahame, Margaret Moss, Peter Lux, and Richard Rushmer) cut through the fence and ‘locked on’ to the munitions dump with the cluster bombs³.

We used chains and d-locks, with Emma Bateman having the d-lock round her neck and the two parts of the gate. When in position, we then phoned the MOD Police to tell them that we had secured evidence of war crimes. The armed US personnel watched over us until the MOD Police arrived to cut us out. One of the protesters had left the key in the d-lock, however, the police did not notice until we managed to hide it.

To our surprise, we were arrested, and the police took no further action to investigate the possible war crimes committed by RAF Lakenheath. Some of us were taken to Mildenhall police station and some to Newmarket. After being interviewed by CID and after this we were offered an off the record talk with Special Branch.

We were charged with criminal damage (cutting the fence) and section 128 of the Serious Organized Crime and Police Act 2005.

Pre-Trial Hearings

Our initial court appearances were in February 2007 and a trial date was set (I think April 2007) at Bury St Edmunds Magistrates Court.

One of our problems was to prove that cluster bombs were present at the munitions dump. Although we had pictures that clearly showed the cluster bombs, we were informed that ‘publishing’ the pictures in court would make us liable to be prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act.

At one of the pre-trial hearings, we were informed that the trial date had been scrapped and that the Attorney General would write a reference to show why cluster bombs were legal. The judge did not like this and said that it was his court, and it was for him to decide. This judge was later taken off the case and a new judge appointed.

We also expected the usual ‘we can neither confirm nor deny’ statement, but the US military acknowledged that cluster bombs were stored at Lakenheath (an actual letter from The Pentagon). It looked like they were going to front it out.

Although some legal arguments did take place at subsequent pre-trial hearings, most of them were just waiting for the Attorney General’s reference. This never appeared and over two years after the action a court date was set for December 2008. Although it was a magistrate’s court hearing, it was to be held at Ipswich Crown Court since a larger court was necessary due to the public interest in the case.

Court Case

Although several of the defendants were represented by barristers, others, including myself, were representing ourselves.

The prosecution argued that we had not made any statement about cluster bombs after arrest. However, nearly everyone had, but ‘unfortunately’ this part of the interview was missing from the transcripts of our interviews with CID. After playing back some of the relevant part of the interview from our recoding, the court accepted that we had made statements about cluster bombs.

Many of the defendants were well known to the police through being involved with other protests at the base, and several had been arrested there before. We had often talked to the MOD police about the nuclear weapons and cluster bombs at the base. However, police witnesses who said that they had worked there for over 17 years said they had no idea why the protesters were there and thought that the protests were just ‘anti-American’.

The defence called an expert witness who was Rae McGrath (1997’s Nobel Peace Prize co-laureate) who is well known for his anti-mine and anti-cluster bomb work⁴. However, the prosecution argued that he was not an expert witness since he seemed to bias against cluster bombs and wanted to treat him as a hostile witness. The Judge agreed.

The prosecution also called the civil servant who was in charge of all the USAF bases in the UK. Some of the solicitors from the defendants side were concerned about this since they did not know what they were going to say. The witness explained that the USAF bases were actually RAF bases and UK law etc applied. During cross-examination, they admitted that they had no idea what went on at the base and just trusted the USAF to ‘do the right thing’ and comply with UK law.

As well as the acknowledgement of the Pentagon we also had other evidence that RAF Lakenheath used cluster bombs. The USAF often put stickers on their planes to show the bombs that they dropped. Some of them show what are unequivocally CBU-87 or CBU-97 cluster bombs⁵.

At the first day of the trial there were a group of men with US accents sitting behind and advising the prosecution. One of the defendants asked what these spooks were doing in the court – they did not appear on subsequent days.

At this point I will not go into detail about the legal case, however, there were a lot of important points and I will go into this in a later post.

The main thrust of the prosecution was that we merely took the action to influence government policy, as if illegally killing or maiming hundreds if not thousands of innocent people is akin to a policy on standardising vegetable shapes. The defence argued that the action was taken to protect the lives of innocent people.

The prosecution also claimed that the action was never going to succeed and even stated something like “RAF Lakenheath have used cluster bombs in the past and will use them in the future and there is nothing you could do to stop it”. Perhaps they had not realised that the UK had ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions during the trial⁶.

We had informed the policed that we took an action to stop a crime and yet this crime was never investigated. The prosecution argued that there is unreasonable for the police to take action over illegal activities of the military. However, in 1989 the FBI and EPA raided and shut down Rocky Flats nuclear facility, halting the USA’s ability to produce plutonium ‘pits’ for nuclear weapons⁷.

We were found guilty and given 12 months suspended sentence and £250 court costs.

Cluster munitions had to be removed from UK territory, including in Diego Garcia, although the UK government has tried to exploit a loophole in the treaty⁸.