International Citizen Inspections: Disarmament activists in Scotland established the International Weapons Inspectorate (Scotland) on March 3.  They wrote to the commander of the Clyde Naval Base, telling him that they were coming to carry out an inspection.  The base replied saying they would not cooperate with the request.

While these activists prepared for their first formal inspection of Faslane, four women participating in the Coulport Women's Peace Camp made an impromptu inspection of their own, aided by a police boat. On Friday, March 13, Sylvia Boyes, Jenny Gaiawyn, Tracy Hart and Angie Zelter spent two hours walking undetected inside the Coulport weapons depot, checking on the presence of nuclear materials. Coulport, the British Trident fleet's nuclear weapons depot, is located on Loch Long, on one side of a peninsula reaching into the Firth of Clyde.

While on their rounds, the women found an unattended police launch and requisitioned it for their lawful peace work.  The women drove the powerful police inflatable past a security guard in the watchtower and right up to the open hanger which appeared to be empty.  After roughly 30 minutes' inspection of Coulport dock facilities, and knowing that two Trident submarines were docked at Faslane, they decided to check on the weapons there.

Waving as they passed the security guard, the women set off down Loch Long, about 12 miles around the peninsula to the head of Gare Loch and the Faslane base.

Fifty minutes later, after passing at least four other police inflatables and launches, they reached Faslane. They were only spotted as they raced by the naval berths trying to find a way to the submarines. Knowing time was limited, and as several police inflatables closed in on them, they managed to land one woman on the seven foot high barrier boom.  She was bumped off the boom into the submarine area by two Police boats hitting the boom from the two sides.  All four women were apprehended.

All four were questioned by military police at Faslane before being jailed over the weekend on charges of theft of boat, malicious mischief and breach of military by-laws.  Perhaps to avoid embarrassment, they were released on Monday without being formally charged.

On March 27, about 50 people under the auspices of the International Weapons Inspectorate sent off four canoeists to inspect Faslane by sea, while the others walked to the north gate.  They were refused admittance, but based on their observations from land and sea they concluded that there were clear signs that weapons of mass destruction were being concealed inside the site.

Three nights later, four residents of the nearby Faslane Peace Camp ran into the base at the south gate to inspect.  Three were returned to the Peace Camp, and the fourth arrested and briefly detained.  A few days later, Faslane peace campers were in court to defend the right of the 16-year old peace camp to remain, squeezed along the roadside near the base.

For more information, contact the International Weapons Inspectorate (Scotland), 15 Barrland Street, Glasgow, G41 1QH.

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last updated July 10 1998