CITY COUNCIL INTERVENES TO STOP ILLEGAL EVICTION OF PEACE CAMP

On Tuesday 16th August at around 4pm the Smash EDO Peace Camp based in Wild Park behind the arms factory EDO MBM, was the subject of a threatening police operation that was only stopped at the last minute by the intervention of the city council.

While a police helicopter hovered above at least ten officers including dogs commanded by a police seargent, informed the protesters they had five minutes to leave because they were in breach of a council bylaw prohibiting the camp. A council park ranger who supported their statement accompanied the police. The police were also accompanied by the director of Guardian Guards Ltd who is responsible for EDO’s security.

Realising that five minutes would not be enough to move the whole camp the police decided to give the protesters till 6PM to leave with all their belongings. Anything left behind after that time would be confiscated by the police, the protesters were told.

The protesters contacted local councilors who, after checking between themselves and council park managers, discovered that no council authority had been given to evict the camp.

One camper said. ‘When we told them this the police were dismissive. They refused to speak to any councilors on the phone. The park ranger was told to turn off his mobile phone by director of Guardian Guards, which he then did even though he doesn’t work
for the company, but for the council who were very likely trying to call him at that moment. I think this was so he would not get any calls from the council asking him what was going on. This whole event coincided with our planned demonstration outside the
EDO factory so we were prevented from going to the demonstration while we had to deal with it.’

More phone calls between councilors and police led to the arrival of a higher ranking officer and the mood changed from outright police aggression to a statement by the police that they had only come to ‘suggest it might be a good idea to leave’.

Eventually the commanding officer spoke to a councilor on the protesters phone and agreed not to evict the camp.

Smash EDO Press spokesperson Andrew Beckett said, 'After the council’s shameful climb-down amendment the UN Peace Message motion in last months full council meeting, (in which they censored any criticism of Edo’s presence in the city without even debating the motion) it is encouraging that they have stepped in and stopped this outright illegal eviction from taking place. But disturbing questions remain unanswered. Who ordered this eviction? Why did Sussex Police believe they had the authority to attempt it? Why was EDO MBM’s private security guard included in the operation when he has no responsibility for council land? Why
did the park ranger follow the orders of EDO’s security guard and turn off his phone?’

Despite the disruption campers plan to continue their week of action. Wednesday 17th August is devoted to the victims of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. At 12 Noon outside the factory the Brighton Palestine Quilt will be unveiled outside EDO MBM. The quilt has taken months to make and has included the work of a
large number of individuals from several voluntary groups within the city. Its aim is to draw attention to the continuing suffering of the Palestinian people living under the illegal brutal and racist Israeli occupation.

Between 4-6pm a demonstration will hear the names of civilian victims of the occupation (mostly children) killed since the Al Aqua antiradar began. EDO MBM make the VER-2 and VER-4 bomb release unit used by Israeli F16s to bomb civilian areas of Palestine in documented breaches of the 4th Geneva Convention. The protesters say Edo’s employees are liable to prosecution as abiders and abettors of war crimes under the International Criminal Court Act. Brighton Police have refused to investigate the allegations.

Notes for Journalists

Brighton & Hove is a UN Peace Messenger City

The injunction referred to was served under the 1997 Protection from Harassment Act (originally designed to protect women from stalkers) and is the first of its kind directed at activists outside of the animal rights movement. Crucially it is a civil injunction but carries criminal penalties. It affects anyone deemed to be a protestor. Initially EDO/MBM requested a large "exclusion zone" comprising the whole of Home Farm Industrial Estate.

They and Sussex police also wanted to limit demonstrations to two and a half hours, with less thanten people who had to be silent. Judge Gross refusedto impose these conditions at the initial hearing of an interim injunction, which was put in place in the period before the full trial to be heard at the High court in London from November 21st. In his summing up he said, "The right to freedom of _expression is jealously guarded in English law" and consequently refused to impose the requested limits on size, timing or noise made at demonstrations. He also said that he doubted that protesters were 'stalking' employees of EDO MBM.

EDO MBM Technologies Ltd are the sole UK subsidiary of huge U.S arms conglomerate EDO Corp, which was recently named No. 10 in the Forbes list of 100 fastest growing companies. They supply bomb release mechanisms to the US and UK armed forces amongstothers. They supply crucial components for Raytheon's Paveway guided bomb system, widely used in the "Shock and Awe" campaign in Iraq.

EDO also withdrew a threatened libel action against Indymedia over being named as "warmongers".

Lawson-Cruttenden & Co
Solicitors firm working for EDO have been instrumental in developing the Protection of Harassment Act 1997 from a measure designed to safeguard individuals to a corporate charter to make inconvenient protest illegal. Theyhave pioneered to use of injunctions to create large "exclusion zones". They have secured numerous injunctions against anti-vivisection and anti-GM protestors.

Campaign against EDO MBM
People involved in the anti-EDO campaign include, but are not limited to: local residents, the Brighton Quakers, peace activists, anti-capitalists, Palestine Solidarity groups, human rights groups, trade unionists, academics and students. The campaign started in August 2004 with a peace camp. It's avowed aim is to expose EDO MBM and their complicity in war crimes and to remove them from Brighton.

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