For Peace!

In the early hours of 29 January 1996, a group of women — Jo Blackman, Lotta Kronlid, Andrea Needham, and Angie Zelter, with vital support from six others — broke into a British Aerospace factory in Warton, Lancashire.Their target was a Hawk fighter jet bound for Indonesia, a country that was waging a genocidal campaign of mass killings and brutal repression in East Timor, resulting in the imprisonment, torture, and death of a third of its population. The genocide was facilitated by a lucrative trade in armaments with the British government.

After months of planning, the women cut a hole in the factory’s perimeter fence and located the jet that was due to be sold to the Indonesian Air Force. Using household hammers, they pounded away at its airframe and weapons systems, laid photographs of Timorese children on the wingtips, and sprinkled flowers and vegetable seeds around its wheels. They also left a pamphlet and VHS tape in the cockpit containing their recorded confessions — as well as an indictment of British Aerospace and the UK government for conspiring to breach the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act and 1969 Genocide Act — thereby ensuring it would become part of the ‘crime’ scene and be entered into evidence. In addition to their own testimonies, the videotape contained documentation of the 1991 Santa Cruz Massacre of more than 250 peaceful protesters in Dili, and a British Aerospace sales advertisement as evidence of the so-called ‘trainer’ jet’s offensive capabilities.

They were charged with more than £1.5 million in criminal damage and held on remand in Risley Prison for six months. During their trial at Liverpool Crown Court, they invoked Section 3 of the 1967 Criminal Law Act which states that ‘A person may use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances in the prevention of crime.’ In a major legal and political victory, all four were acquitted by a jury after justifying their actions as necessary to prevent war crimes.