DARWIN — In the early hours of August 17, Anthony Gwyther of the West End Catholic Worker Community in Brisbane entered Darwin RAAF Base. He poured blood on a US Air Force B-52 bomber which was in Darwin to participate in the Pitch Black '91 joint military exercise. He then hammered on the bomb bay doors and inside the bomb bay area of the aircraft, thus beginning its conversion into implements that serve life, a conversion envisioned by the prophets Isaiah and Micah when they spoke of the nations beating their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks.
Gwyther was arrested by RAAF personnel, held at Berrimah Police Headquarters for questioning and released on bail that afternoon. His hammer, bearing the inscription "Everyone beneath their vine or figtree, unafraid (Micah 4.4)", his banner reading "Beat swords into Ploughshares" and a copy of the video Nowhere to Hide made in Iraq during the height of the allied bombing by Ramsey Clark) were taken and will be introduced as evidence in court.
Gwyther has been charged with criminal trespass and criminal damage under the Northern Territory criminal code and with trespass on Commonwealth property. He is due to appear in Darwin Magistrates Court on September 3.
Anthony Gwyther was born in Sydney in 1964. He completed a bachelor of theology degree in 1988 at the Catholic Institute of Sydney. He lived for three years at the St Francis Community, which offers hospitality to the homeless. In 1989 he joined the West End Catholic Worker Community, which also offers hospitality to the homeless and poor of Brisbane.
As well as comforting the victims of poverty, the Catholic Worker Community engages in resistance to those structures which produce poverty. Anthony's disarmament action at Darwin occurs in the context of this resistance to injustice.
The Ploughshares movement began in 1980 when eight people, including Jesuit priest Daniel Berrigan, entered a General Electric plant in Pennsylvania and damaged nuclear warhead nose-cones. Since 1980 there have been over 40 Ploughshares disarmament actions in the US, Holland, Germany, Sweden, Australia and Britain. Sentences have ranged from suspended sentences to 18 years' imprisonment.
Letters of support and/or donations can be sent c/- West End Catholic Worker, PO Box 187, West End Qld 4101. For more information contact Anne Rampa or Joanne Merrigan on (07) 844 1369 or Rachel Harrison or Damien LeGoullon on (07) 844
6146.