Seeds of Hope

For other uses, see Seeds of Hope (disambiguation).

Seeds of Hope (short for Seeds of Hope East Timor Ploughshares Group,^[1] but also known as the Ploughshares Four^[2] or the Warton Four^[3]) was a plowshares group of women who damaged a BAE Hawk warplane at the British Aerospace Warton Aerodrome site near Preston, England, in 1996.^[4] The four were part of a larger group of 10 who planned the action.^[5] The additional six women involved as the support group were; Lyn Bliss, Clare Fearnley, Emily Johns, Jen Parker, Ricarda Steinbrecher, Rowan Tilly.^[6] Their aim was to stop the aircraft from being exported to the Indonesian military, for use in the illegally occupied country of East Timor. They left a video and booklet in the cockpit of the aircraft to explain their motivation.^[7]

Direct action

On 29 January 1996, Andrea Needham, Joanna Wilson, and Lotta Kronlid broke into BAE's Warton Aerodrome and caused between £1.4m^[8] and £2.5m,^{[5][9][10][11]} worth of damage to Hawk tail number ZH955. Damage focused on components related to weapons and targeting.^[12] The damage or disarmament was done to the Hawk with ordinary household hammers.^[13] The warplane was part of a £500 million deal to supply 24 planes to the New Order regime of Indonesia.^[7] In the tradition of plowshares actions, they stayed at the site intending to wait until they were found by security; however, they had to call security using a phone in the hangar because their presence remained unnoticed. They were arrested for criminal damage and conspiracy to commit criminal damage. A week later, a fourth woman, Angie Zelter, was also arrested and charged with conspiracy after stating she planned to do the same.^[14] The four spent six months on remand in HMP Risley before a seven-day trial at Liverpool Crown Court in July 1996.^[15] This was the 56th ploughshares action and the third ever in Britain,^[16] the group called it "Seeds of Hope - East Timor Ploughshares - Women Disarming for Life and Justice".^[9]

Trial

Accused of causing, and conspiring to cause, criminal damage, with a maximum ten-year sentence, they pleaded not guilty arguing that what they did was not a crime but that they "were acting to prevent British Aerospace and the British Government from aiding and abetting genocide",^[7][17] referring to the genocide taking place in East Timor. They were found not guilty of criminal damage at Liverpool Crown Court, after a jury deemed their action reasonable under the Genocide Act 1969.^[18] This made it the first Ploughshares action to result in a not guilty verdict.^[19]

Recognition and awards

In recognition of the group's action, they were awarded the Seán MacBride Peace Prize by the International Peace Bureau in 1997.^[20]

Angie Zelter was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012 by Mairead Maguire, a former Nobel winner and peace activist, for Zelter's (at the time) 30 years of peace activism.^[21]

They were also awarded the Order of Timor-Leste by the government of Timor-Leste in August 2019.^[22]

Related direct actions

In 1997, Angie Zelter went on to be one of the original six core members of the Trident Ploughshares.^[23]

The 29 January 2017 attempt to disarm Typhoon fighter jets thought to be destined for the Royal Saudi Air Force and therefore to be used in the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen^[24] by Sam Walton and Methodist minister Dan Woodhouse was "a continuation" of the Seeds of Hope action, with a direct parallel in the action, its goal and its reasoning, the pleading of not guilty at the trial, and the actual use of one of the hammers used by a member of the Seeds of Hope group.^[25]

Related Media

In 1998, a 26-minute documentary called "Seeds of Hope" directed by Neil Goodwin was released, including interviews with the women involved in the action.^[26][27]

Additionally, two songs were written inspired by the action and group: "Four Strong Women" released in 1996 by Maurie Mulheron^[28] and "With my Hammer" by Seize the Day and Shannon Smy.^[29]

A book called "The Hammer Blow: How 10 Women Disarmed a Warplane" recounting the action was written by Andrea Needham and published by Peace News in 2016.^[6]

A board game called "Disarm the Base" was created and released by Dissent Games in 2019. The designer was Jessica Metheringham and the artist was Mark Bijak^[30] While promotion and advice were given by Sam Walton and Campaign Against Arms Trade. 500 copies were made, 240 were bought pre-release through Kickstarter. With the approximately £5,000 in profits going to CAAT in summer 2020.^[31] The game's premise places the player(s) in the position of a peace activist intending to disable armed planes on a base with at least one player escaping^[30] and is based on the Seeds of Hope Action and the ploughshares action by Sam Walton and Dan Woodhouse.^[31]