Lompoc, CA- On Armed Forces Day, May 19, 2001 hundreds of activists will descend upon the largest United States Space Command facility in the world at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California. Protesting US Military policies all over the world, activists will engage in a mass nonviolent security zone occupation of the base's remote backcountry terrain. Organizers for the action are calling it the largest anti-militarism demonstration at Vandenberg in more than a decade.

The action is designed to call attention to the links between the United States Armed Forces and the process of economic globalization which has ignited mass protests all over the world and most recently last month at the Free Trade Area of the Americas meeting in Quebec. Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) has been targeted for the protest on the basis of its leading role in military policies which have negatively impacted marginalized groups and indigenous communities all over the world. According to event Organizers with the Direct Action Network (DAN) in Santa Cruz, California, space-age technologies, such as the surveillance and targeting satellites which are launched and monitored from Vandenberg, are responsible for guiding aggressive military groups and gunships from Colombia to Indonesia. Such groups are often fighting counter-insurgency wars against indigenous people defending their traditional way of life.

"The imposition of free market and pro-corporation reforms in the third world has resulted in mass poverty and cultural destruction. Such policies often spark resistance by marginalized indigenous groups fighting for their basic way of life," Santa Cruz DAN organizer, Sophia Santiago pointed out. "Such local resistance is frequently met with corporate/military death squads and helicopter gunships controlled and commanded from right here at Vandenberg Air Force Base."

VAFB has been a focal point for anti-militarism activists for a greater part of the last half century. In the 1980's a nonviolent indigenous uprising on Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific challenged US Military testing on the island. Kwajalein, the Earth's largest coral atoll, serves as Vandenberg's South Pacific target for long-range ballistic and nuclear missile testing. The people of Kwajalein have been forcefully removed from their homes and kept in concentration camps on a neighboring island. The Kwajalein uprising was matched by a series of intensive civil resistance actions in Vandenberg's security zone during the 1980's.

Recently, the base has come to the attention of the world as the principle launch sight for the controversial new National Missile Defense System (NMD). Critics of NMD say the policy has already begun a new arms race. In July, 2000 a backcountry action at Vandenberg aimed to disrupt a critical NMD flight test, triggering a base-wide security alert. Furthermore, on October 7, dozens were arrested at the VAFB front gate in a civil disobedience action as part of the Worldwide Day of Action Against Weapons in Space.

Although, the National Missile Defense System is a concern, organizers say the May action is focused more on exposing the aspects of counter-insurgency war which make up most of VAFB's daily operations.

"Whether or not you believe the United States has a right to use any means necessary to defend its national borders is not the issue," says Jacob Pace of the Resource Center for Nonviolence, in Santa Cruz. "The fact is that a vast majority of the work which goes on at Vandenberg is focused on extending the economic control of American corporations all over the world. It is nothing less than blatant imperialism."

As proof of this matter, Pace points to a US Space Command Planning Document- Vision for 2020. The document reads: "The globalization of the world economy will also continue, with a widening between the 'haves' and 'have-nots'. . . military forces have evolved to protect national interests, both military and economic. During the rise of sea commerce nations built navies to protect and enhance their commercial interests. During the westward expansion of the United States, military outposts and the calvary emerged. . . The emergence of space power follows both these models."

Organizers for the action are calling on people all over the United States to come to Vandenberg on May 19. They have arranged a resistance camp for activists to meet and coordinate from May 18-23 and the action will also feature a rally in Lompoc, California, with music and speakers from Kwajalein and Columbia as well as anti-militarism activists and intellectuals. Event planners encourage interested people to log onto their website at http://www.geocities.com/vafb_m19/ for more information on VAFB and the Armed Forces Day action.
 

Contact info:
Peter Lumsdaine- Vandenberg Action Coalition, Resource Center for Nonviolence, and the Santa Cruz Direct Action Network, Santa Cruz, CA.
(831)423-1626 (x104)

Tracy DeAngelis- Vandenberg Action Coalition and the Santa Cruz Direct Action Network, Santa Cruz, CA.
(831)421-9794 pnut119@hotmail.com

Jacob Pace- Santa Cruz Direct Action Network and the Resource Center for Nonviolence, Santa Cruz, CA.
(831)471-9797 deathtocapitalism@hotmail.com

www.geocities.com/vafb_m19/