CPTnet
5 June 2007
JOHNSON CITY, TN: Tactics to stop a nonviolent campaign
by Cliff Kindy
One week before the Depleted Uranium (DU) Conference at East Tennessee State
University, Roger Helbig, Lieutenant Colonel, United States Air Force, sent
scathing emails to the organizers and speakers, saying, among other things,
"You really have been had [with these speakers]." He went on to discredit
them systematically. One of the speakers, Cathy Garger, reported receiving
sixteen messages from Helbig. Helbig also made two phone calls and sent two
emails to the director of the Church of the Brethren Newsline, which had
sent out the announcement of the conference.
Helbig was attempting to divide the speakers and planners and force them to
spend time defending themselves rather than just telling their stories.
Apparently, other pressures from behind the scenes also entered this drama.
An encampment across from the Aerojet Ordnance plant, a primary DU
manufacturer, was supposed to happen in conjunction with the conference. Two
landowners, who in previous months had offered their land for the Stop-DU
encampment, withdrew those invitations in the last days before the
conference.
Then, the final day before the event, the professor who had arranged the
space for the DU Conference on campus received a call on her personal cell
phone from the Dean of East Tennessee State University. He questioned why
she had opened her classroom to an "outside" group. The implication was
that she should rescind the offer.
As planners assess the timing of the conference, they can draw the
conclusion that some people are feeling uncomfortable with the growing
visibility of DU issues and are pulling out the stops to make the Stop-DU
campaign falter.
Their tactics failed. The conference proceeded on schedule. Sixty
activists and interested visitors from at least nine U.S. states and
Canadian provinces attended the six-hour teaching/organizing conference.
[Members of Christian Peacemaker Teams' 18-26 May delegation that
participated in the 19 May DU conference are Russell Attoe and Judy Leurquin
(Madison, Wisconsin), Bill and Genie Durland (Colorado Springs, Colorado),
Ron Forthofer (Longmont, Colorado), Ron Friesen (Loveland, Colorado), Anne
Herman (El Paso, Texas), Kirsten Romaine Jones (Toronto, Ontario), Cliff
Kindy (North Manchester, Indiana) Murray Lumley (Toronto, Ontario), Jane
MacKay Wright (Providence Bay, Ontario), Wes Rehberg (Chattanooga,
Tennessee), Michael Smith (Gibson City, Illinois) and Dick and Gretchen
Williams (Boulder, Colorado).]
More information on the Stop-DU campaign, a project of CPT's Northern
Indiana regional group, may be found at www.stop-Du.org.
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