Shut down Creech 2016: Military Veterans arrested at Creech Air Force Base Trying to Stop Drone Warfare

Indian Springs, NV – During peak rush hour traffic on Thursday, March 31 at Creech Air Force Base, military veterans and friends were arrested while waving Veterans for Peace (VFP) flags and nonviolently blocking traffic at the East Gate on Hwy. 95, the primary commuter gate into the base. As the traffic was impeded, Las Vegas police diverted cars up the highway to less used, alternative gates.

At the same time, 20 people held vigil between the frontage road and US Highway 95 as four other peace and justice activists greeted the diverted traffic with a second peaceful anti-drone blockade expressed as a sitting silent meditation in front of the second gate.

The arrests at 7:50 a.m. were part of a week-long orchestrated effort by over 100 activists from over 20 states in the country, mobilized to oppose the U.S. drone program that uses remotely controlled planes controlled at Creech to indiscriminately drop missiles on some of the most vulnerable populations in the world. Thursday’s traffic was delayed for fifteen minutes, as Creech employees and contractors were diverted to the 2nd gate, and then to the 3rd gate once demonstrators blocked the 2nd gate. The prayer-activists at the 2nd gate were not arrested.

This was the first of several civil resistance actions planned during the week-long National Mass Mobilization against Drone Warfare known as SHUT DOWN CREECH. All of the demonstrators who were arrested were taken to the Las Vegas Metropolitan County Jail.

Meanwhile the remaining activists at “Camp Justice” across from the base continue the regular schedule of nonviolence training and strategy sessions for creative and nonviolent ways to stop the illegal assassination program at Creech Air Force Base for as long as possible.

The 8 activists arrested were:

Barry Binks, VFP, California
Leslie Harris, VFP, Texas
Tarak Kauff, VFP, New York
Chris Knudsen, VFP, California
Barry Ladendorf, VFP, California
Ken Mayers, VFP, New Mexico
Joan Pleune, NY Granny Peace Brigade, New York
Col. Ann Wright, VFP and retired 29 year army veteran, and former U.S. diplomat, Hawaii

Military Veterans arrested at Creech Air Force Base Trying to Stop Drone Warfare, 31st of March 2016

Nevada Desert Experience Sacred Peace Walk 2016

The Sacred Peace Walk of 2016 has already taken place, because of the early Easter of this year. Here is the press release of this year’s Line-crossing protest at the NNSS beyond which nuclear weapons have been tested:

21 peace walkers arrested at the Nevada National Security Site aka Nevada Test Site.

NDE Press Release for the 2016 Sacred Peace Walk

Sacred Peace Walk: 28 March – 3 April, 2015

Dear Friend,

Immediately below are the links to the Nevada Desert Experience Sacred Peace Walk schedule and registration. For years I have been inviting you to this transformative spiritual journey which brings together both the inner journey and outer manifestations of compassionate change, a process of love and affirmation that works so beautifully that many of us return year after year. We affirm civil resistance at Creech AFB and the Nevada National Site, (formerly the Nevada Test Site.

Everything is here to register, quickly and easily. Please do! This walk is for all who wish to experience an integrated spiritual experience and who are willing to look into the soul’s mirror under the clear desert sky. This is a walk into the wild and beautiful Mojave. We will meet demons and goddesses and flying robotic killing machines. At the end of the walk we will confront one of humanities gravest mistakes, nuclear weapons. With our gentle and tender love we continue the process of at-one-ment. Please join us and know the joy and hope, the friendship and community which grows so bountifully with each step taken.
Sacred Peace Walk Schedule

Registration Information for the 2015 Sacred Peace Walk with Nevada Desert Experience

Las Vegas to the Nevada National Security Site 28 March – 3 April, 2015

Paz,
John Amidon
PS This year we will be joined by members of the 2015 NPT Peace Walk For A Nuclear Free Future For Peace and the Planet, From San Francisco to the United Nations, NYC. How wonderful! Please share this message too!

Sacred Peace Walk Flashmob at Fremont street

A handmade holy staff as a gift

This afternoon the NDE received a very special gift. A man named Roland (second from the left) came by and brought handmade staff to guide us on our Sacred Peace Walk.

Not only beautiful, but also a magical moment. The man didn’t know us, but just heard a week before that the Sacred Peace Walkers had no staff to guide them. So, he made us one.
At the top of the staff he wrote down the following words:

The Gathering.
Like majestic eagle;
Freedom! 
Soaring endless thru skies of blue
above our God giving lands
Searching!
Thru piercing eyes looking down upon the gathering!
Men and  women of color, with a cause!
Those searching souls
searching for answers of questions!
searching for answers of questions!
Carry on good soldier
Carry on!

2014 Walking Schedule April 12-18

On April 12th we start the Sacred Peace Walk to the NNSS. The Schedule of this year’s Sacred Peace Walk can be found here.

2014 Sacred Peace Walk April 12 – 18

Get ready for the 2014 Sacred Peace Walk: April 12-18th. More information: please go to the Nevada Desert Experience website!

Air Force Suffers Defeat At the Hands of Unheralded Peace Activists.

In a stunning upset, unheralded peace activists and members of the Nevada Desert Experience (NDE) Sacred Peace Walk handed Commander Col. James Hecker and the USAF 432d and the 432d Expeditionary Wing at Creech Air Force Base an extraordinary defeat. March Madness at Creech was temporarily interrupted by the NDE Sacred Peace Walk by slowing the flow of death by drone attacks that are executed from this base.

The Sacred Peace Walk is an annual event conducted by NDE to demonstrate honor for the local desert while respecting all life, supporting environmental justice everywhere, and making strong nonviolent statements regarding the misuse of the desert. NDE’s Sacred Peace Walk focuses on ending violence by stopping the research and development of nuclear weapons at the Nevada National Security Site and stopping the drone warfare conducted at Creech Air Force Base.

Active involvement in killing dulls the conscience until all awareness of evil is lost. As peace activists blocked traffic, the grim reaper (on hand for the event) holding a model drone aloft symbolically executed 7 protesters with a drone attack. The Air Force and and local constabulary (Las Vegas Metro Police) responded by arresting the grim reaper and his fellow life affirming peace activists who lie dying in the road. Each activist also carried an indictment addressed to and charging Col. James Hecker and the 432d and 432d Expeditionary Wing with extrajudicial killings, violation of due process, wars of aggression,” for the killings of innocent civilians by the use of drones controlled by Creech Air Force personnel.

The protesters arrested were:
John Paz Amidon of Albany, New York
Toby Blome of El Cerrito, California
Christine Gaunt of Grinnell, Iowa
George Killingsworth of Berkeley, California
Robert Majors of Las Vegas, Nevada
Rev. Felicia Parazaider of Berkeley, California
Rev. Louis Vitale, OFM of Oakland, California
Rev. Jerry Zawada, OFM of Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Begins today: Sacred Peace Walk Schedule

March 23 – 29 th: From Las Vegas to the NNSS test site in Mercury, Nevada. You can still join during the walk, contact Jim at:
702-646-4814 or e-mail Jim@NevadaDesertExperience.org

Here is the walk schedule:

Saturday March 23rd:  

Sacred Peace Walk orientation at 2PM

Location: Francis & Clare House also known as the Home & Offices of NDE, 1420 W. Bartlett Ave., Las Vegas, Nevada 89106, 702-646-4814.

Sunday, March 24th: 

Walking in Las Vegas: meet at Atomic Testing Museum at 8:15 AM, walk the Strip to Fremont Street to the MLK Statue on MLK Boulevard. 

8:30 AM: Blessing and invocation outside the National Atomic Testing Museum

9:00 AM: start walking
Lunch in park at E St. and Washington (Time approx. 1:00 PM)

6:00 PM: Dinner at Francis & Clare House

Monday March 25th:

7:15 AM: Depart from Francis & Clare House in vehicles
8:00 AM: Walkers start walking
(Starting point: Hwy 157, Mile Post 92) to Lee Canyon Road (Hwy 156 Mile Post 106) (almost 14 miles)

Tuesday March 26th:

Pre-dawn to sun up: Sunrise Ceremony with Johnnie Bobb, Western Shoshone Spirtual person and Chief of the Western Shoshone National Council.

8:30 AM: Depart from Lee Canyon Road (Hwy 156, Mile Post 106) to Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs (14 miles) The Temple of Goddess Spirituality is at Mile Post 123, past Creech AFB.

7:30 PM: Gather in Temple for fire and reflection.

Wednesday March 27th:

Pre-dawn to sun up: Sunrise Ceremony with Johnnie Bobb, Western Shoshone Spirtual person and Chief of the Western Shoshone National Council.

Only 3 miles of walking today, between the Sekhmet Temple and Creech Air Force Base’s “Commercial Entrance” which is the one closer to Las Vegas). 

6:30 – 8:00 AM: Vigil at Creech Air Force Base, Indian Springs, Nevada

Noon – 2:00 PM: Peaceover Seder (RSVP required for people not already registered with the walk. 
Call 702-646-4814 or e-mail Jim@NevadaDesertExperience.org.

3:30 – 5:00 PM: Vigil at Creech AFB.

Thursday March 28th:

Pre-dawn to sun up: Sunrise Ceremony with Johnnie Bobb, Western Shoshone Spirtual person and Chief of the Western Shoshone National Council.

8:30 AM: Depart from Cactus Springs to Peace Camp (15.5 miles, (on southwest side of US 95 at the Mercury exit; across from Mercury just N. of NYE Co. Mile Post 5).

4:30 PM (Approx.): Arrival at Peace Camp across from the Mercury Exit* Welcoming Ritual with Johnnie Bobb, Chief of the Western Shoshone National Council.

Good Friday March 29th:

Pre-dawn to sun up:
Sunrise Ceremony with Johnnie Bobb, Western Shoshone Spirtual person and Chief of the Western Shoshone National Council.

10:00 AM “No More War Victims” Stations of the Cross Re-enactment outside Mercury entrance to the Nevada Test Site (NNSS )* followed by procession to main gate and line-crossing.

Good Friday Noon: Closing Circle followed by camp clean up, lunch and departures.Most people will journey home.

A week of SPIRITUAL AWAKENING, REFLECTION and Purpose. 

Join Peaceful beings from across the country. 

Pace ~ Salaam ~ Shalom ~ Peace and …. pure Bliss in the desert.

Local Peace Group Welcomes Pakistan Peace Delegates for Air Force anti-Drone Demonstrations This Week

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Local Peace Group Welcomes Pakistan Peace Delegates for Air Force anti-Drone Demonstrations This Week;
Prepares for “Sacred Peace Walk” Stepping Off on March 24

CONTACTS:
Jim Haber, 415-828-2506
Nevada Desert Experience Coordinator
Toby Blome, 510-541-6874
Ann Wright, Ret., 818-741-1141

March 18, 2013

As Nevada Desert Experience makes final preparations for its annual desert sojourn known as the “Sacred Peace Walk,” a group of demonstrators are converging on the gates of Creech Air Force Base to hold constant vigil against the rising tide of robotic hunter-killer air systems like the Predator and Reaper “drones” controlled by crews at the Indian Springs installation.

The Sacred Peace Walk begins on Palm Sunday, March 24, with a day of marching in Las Vegas taking in the Strip and Fremont Street Experience and a stop at the Dept. of Energy’s North Las Vegas facility. Then the group moves to the desert for its walking meditation and peace demonstrations at Creech and the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS).

Until then an additional set of actions are taking place at Creech including three members of the activist group CODEPINK who went to Pakistan in October, 2012 as part of a peace delegation there to show solidarity with Pakistanis who are suffering under the constant threat of “death by drone.z’ People there are marching in the tens of thousands against the Pakistan and United States wink-and-a-nod targeted assassinations. Retired Army Col. Ann Wright of Honolulu, HI, Toby Blome of El Cerrito, CA and JoAnne Lingle of Indianapolis, IN also were all arrested in Washington DC recently during the Senate hearings for John Brennan’s appointment to direct the Central Intelligence Agency.

Col. Wright explained “I came to Creech Air Base to challenge the US drone program at a base from where pilots fly drones in Afghanistan and other places–killing innocent civilians. The anger of the world is focused on the US assassin drone program and is making the United States less safe.” Lingle added, “It is vitally important that we address both drone crews as well as policy-makers to say these surveillance and attack drones are illegal and immoral. We have a responsibility to do all we can to stop them nonviolently. That includes standing up in Washington and here at Creech.”

Wright added that the CIA’s drone strikes in Pakistan–and other countries the US isn’t officially at war with–are dwarfed by the number of strikes in Afghanistan. Dept. of Defense statistics available on their website until late February according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, showed that of the missile strikes in Afghanistan in 2012, 25% of them, almost 500, were fired from drones. There were 46 CIA drone strikes in Pakistan in the same year. “Creech drone crews have fired 10 times as many missiles into Afghanistan as CIA operators have into Pakistan,” added Wright.

The Sacred Peace Walk began as the “Lenten Desert Experience” in 1982 with prayer times and acts of resistance to full-scale nuclear weapons testing being conducted at the Nevada Test Site that time. Over the years, the annual pilgrimage to the United States nuclear sacrifice zone has expanded to raise concerns about other emerging arms races with activities in southern Nevada. “When I came to Las Vegas five years ago, I couldn’t work to resist nuclear weapons and just walk past the air force’s ‘drone central’. Unfortunately, we’re still developing new bombs and warheads, so that race continues too. In any arms race, there are no winners. ”

For route and schedule details of the walk and other background information, visit NevadaDesertExperience.org. Over 30 walkers are already signed up for this year’s walk.