Protest weapons of mass destruction
50 arrested at Lockheed Martin
By Bill Hackwell
Sunnyvale, Calif.
Hundreds of protesters from all over the Bay
Area converged on the sprawling Lockheed Martin plant here
April 22, blocking the three main gates for most of the
morning.
Lockheed Martin is the world's largest weapons producer. At
the Sunnyvale facility, the company makes nuclear-tipped
missiles for Trident submarines. Lockheed Martin has played no
small role in the death and destruction carried out by the
Pentagon against Iraq.
Lockheed Martin is incestuously connected to the Bush
administration. Eight of the current top policy makers in
Washington used to be on Lockheed Martin's payroll. They
include Vice President Dick Cheney. Lynne Cheney, who was an
official in the Reagan and first Bush administrations and is
married to the vice president, served on Lockheed Martin's
board of directors from 1994 to 2001.
In the past two years alone this manufacturer of weapons of
mass destruction has received prime Pentagon contracts totaling
$30 billion, to, among other things, produce weapons systems
using depleted uranium.
In the early morning hours, demonstrators locked themselves
down at the Third Street gate. They also sat in at the First
Street and H Street entrances. Police arrested over 50
people.
At one point Sunnyvale police on horses charged the
protesters at Third Street to separate them from those locked
together at the gate.
The protest was organized by several anti-war groups in the
South San Francisco Bay Area, including the South Bay
Mobilization to Stop the War. This group, along with
International ANSWER, has called for big protests when
President George W. Bush comes to Santa Clara on May 2 to pat
the arms merchants on the back.
Reprinted from the May 8, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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