by Keith Richmond
HUNDREDS of anti-nuclear protesters blockaded the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire on Monday.
Demonstrators descended en masse in the early hours of the morning, taking police and security guards at the top secret government base by surprise.
They managed to bar entry to the site by blockading five gates before military personnel had time to react.
Peace campaigners from Norway and Switzerland joined forces with activists from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Trident Ploughshares to link arms and chain themselves to concrete blocks before police were able to drag them away.
CND said: “The protest follows the shocking implications of last year’s flooding at the nearby Atomic Weapons Establishment at Burghfield. Almost all the buildings in the nuclear assembly area, where Trident warheads are dismantled for maintenance, were flooded.
“The action was also designed to draw attention to the enormous building programme and spending of billions of pounds at the site.”
