Peaceful Interruption of Illegal Drone Training Activity at Holloman’s Main Gate
Six Arrested for Blocking Main Gate at
Holloman Air Force “Killer Drone” Base
Shut Down Drone Warfare Coalition. Veterans for Peace and CODEPINK
HOLLOMAN AFB (April 25, 2024) – Six peace activists were arrested here at the main gate to Holloman AFB Wednesday morning (April 24, 2024) for blocking the entrance in a protest against the use of killer military drones. All have been released as of early afternoon after being arraigned. Future court dates are to be determined.
The “Day of Nonviolent Resistance and Peaceful Civil Disobedience” may be followed by “other” spontaneous acts of resistance this week.
Click here for video.
Those arrested released a statement:
“This morning the West then Main Gate to Holloman AFB were blocked during the morning commute. Initially 5 peace activists blocked entry for 20 minutes to the West Gate of Holloman AFB using banners/signs stating:
• US Drone Warfare is Terrorism;
• Holloman: Stop Training Drone Assassins!!!;
• No Tax $$ for Genocide.
Some of the blocked cars crossed the highway to go back to the main gate. Otero County Sheriff officers arrived. The activists went to the Main Gate.
“At the Main Gate, 6 activists blocked the roadway just feet away from the entrance into Holloman AFB using signage stating: Drone Pilots Refuse to Fly; Free Palestine; Honor our Vets, End War; No More War. The activists chanted: “We will not be complicit; Stop the drone killing; Stop the Genocide.” Within 10 minutes, Otero County Sheriff officers arrived and arrested the six that were blocking the roadway.”
From Monday, April 22, 2024 through Friday, April 26, peace groups in the coalition, Shut Down Drone Warfare.org (SDDW), have converged for a week of focused nonviolent actions outside Holloman Air Force Base, a US military drone base near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Why?
Holloman AFB, on Hwy 70 in southern NM, has become the largest drone training program in the US, graduating over 700 pilots and operators annually. Activists from 4 different states in the region will be participating in the week’s protest.
SDDW will hold varied themed vigils daily during commute hours, M-F, (6:30-8:30am and 3:30-5:30pm). The week culminates in a day of nonviolent civil disobedience on Wed, April 24, during which they hope to peacefully interrupt “business as usual” for as long as possible by blocking the early am commute.
Via thoughtful messaging participants hope to educate Air Force personnel about the full effects of US globalized militarization, and in particular the failings of the US drone program and to urge those training to reconsider their participation, which often leads to significant psychic trauma.
In addition to a focus on Air Force personnel at Holloman, members will do educational outreach in the local community of Alamogordo.
Scott Thompson, Alamogordo resident and SDDW participant says:
“Our government primarily serves an elite class that profits from wars and is unconcerned with the suffering we inflict on other humans. It is the duty of every good citizen to look beyond the headlines and understand the inhumane waste of resources making unconstitutional wars on others. Via public outreach and thoughtful actions we hope to get the attention of the misinformed.”
CODEPINK organizer, Toby Blomé, says: “In spite of 14 years of persistent opposition to the US drone program and the terror it brings to vulnerable communities, the Pentagon and the drone industry profiteers are plowing forward, creating an ever more destabilized world of weaponized drones. We will not be silent while young recruits continue to be trained in these heinous acts of remotely controlled killing, ultimately becoming victims themselves due to the consequences of severe moral injury. This is not the world we want for our grandchildren, nor for the generations that follow them.”
The late Martin Luther King Jr., said that acts of nonviolent direct action serve to “create and foster such a tension” as to demand a response. He wrote “nonviolent resistance was one of the most potent weapons available to oppressed people in their quest for social justice.”
Shut Down Drone Warfare. Co-sponsored by CODEPINK, Veterans for Peace and Ban Killer Drones
Stop Killer Drones Spring Action Week
April 20-27, Holloman Drone Base
No Drones Over Gaza, No Drones Anywhere
Highlights of the Week of Resistance:
More than three dozen people converged at Holloman AFB for all or part of the Week of Nonviolent Resistance to the illegal drone training program at Holloman AFB, including nearly a dozen students and teachers from New Mexico State University, Las Cruces.
-On Wednesday, April 24, business at the illegal and immoral drone-training program was interrupted at two main gates by a nonviolent blockade during morning commute hour. After 5 activists blockaded the less used West Gate for about 20 min, they ended their blockade after the one-minute police warning.
Later they joined others at the Main gate and some, joined by others, continued the interruption of criminal activity at the base. Ultimately 6 were arrested: Denise Sellers (San Diego), John Reese (High Rolls / Mtn. Park, NM), Natasha Robinson (Berkeley, CA), Toby Blomé (El Cerrito, CA), Virginia Hauflaire (Phoenix, AZ), and Ray Cage (Tucson, AZ). No warning was given at the 2nd gate and arrests occurred speedily.
See Fred Bialy’s Short Video of Action at the West Gate HERE.
Arrestees were held at the police station for a couple of hours and told that they would be taken to the Otero County Detention Center to be processed and held overnight. Later, much to their surprise, the arrestees were escorted to the nearby courthouse to be arraigned, and were released at about 1pm. No transfer to the detention center!
One SDDW participant, gave an excellent teach-in on drones in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Rwanda
Erica Kay led two excellent nonviolence training sessions at Camp Justice, our group campsite. Later her and her husband, John Reese, hosted us for a dinner at their home in the mountains above Alamogordo, and went out of their way to host the “campers” from Camp Justice that night so we could avoid the desert sandstorm “consuming” our group campsite that day. Much gratitude!
New local allies have joined our Holloman campaign!! Thank you, Scott Thompson, a Veterans For Peace Alamogordo resident who joined every vigil. Thank you Lee Burnett, Alamogordo Episcopalian minister in training, who saw the protest on Highway 70 and joined us! Thank you Betts, Kathy, Bear, and Tim from Tucson and Las Cruces. And huge thanks to the teachers and students from NMSU who drove from Las Cruces to lead a Friday noon rally on White Sands Blvd.— Alamogordo’s “main drag” — then joined us for the last afternoon commute vigil at Holloman AFB.
Thanks from the SDDW Team,
Ken, Virginia, Denise, Charles, Fred and Toby
