By Renee Cote and Brown Lethem
Durham Monthly Meeting of Friends, along with over a dozen Maine organizations including Maine Veterans for Peace, has co-sponsored vigils at the “christenings” of two warships to be launched from Bath Iron Works. The USS Lyndon B. Johnson, the third and final Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyer to be built at BIW, was “christened” on April 27, 2019. During that vigil, 25 people were arrested for engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience. Eight weeks later, on June 22, 22 people were arrested during the “christening” of the USS Daniel Inouye, a naval destroyer. Dozens of people came out in solidarity during both events.
Brown Lethem, along with several members of Durham Monthly Meeting, participated in both vigils, creating two pieces of banner art and being arrested during the June 22 vigil. During both vigils, witnesses for peacetime conversion of the BIW facility gathered at the entrances with banners and signs proposing the many benefits to society of a conversion to renewable green energy and the de-escalation of the military budget.
The Sagadahoc County District Attorney’s Office announced on May 9 that it would decline prosecution of the peace activists arrested on April 27. Those arrested on June 22 were offered bail; nine of the 22 declined bail and asked to be released on their own recognizance. The nine were later sent to Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset and held over the weekend in lockup, where they witnessed in solidarity with those being held long term to the insufficient food and poor conditions in the jail. They also reported that the majority of the prisoners supported their efforts to convert the nation to a peacetime budget that benefits human needs as well as their efforts to save the planet from the climate crisis. Eventually all nine were released without paying bail. Hearings will be held in August.
Long-time peace
activists Bruce Gagnon and Mary Beth Sullivan of Bath were among those arrested
at the June 22 “christening.” Bruce described their experience at Two Bridges
to Brown Lethem: “After we were released from the Two
Bridges jail yesterday one of the guards came out and thanked me for my service
in the military. (I had on my VFP sweatshirt.) I told him that we
vets are not so proud of our time in the military but are actually more proud
of our current work for peace and environmental sustainability. We had a
long talk and as he was going back into the jail he shook my hand and thanked
me again.”
Russell Wray, an artist and
long-time environmental activist from Hancock, stated in an email to Renee
Cote: “My time in Two Bridges jail made it even more clear to me
how little the current system we are living under cares for those with little
money or political clout, including all those other species we are supposed to
be sharing this planet with. Those in power don’t even seem to be concerned
with their own, or their children’s future, as has been made clear by their
military and environmental policies. This insanity has to change … and
hopefully it will, as more and more people are waking up to the crisis we are
confronted with, and doing something about it.”
