We Won't Be Fooled
April 1, 2007

View Event Photos   View Program (PDF, 86k)

Press Coverage

Las Vegas Review-Journal (AP) article
The American Spectator 4/16

Press Release

39 peace activists arrested at the Nevada Test Site
with "West Wing President" Sheen

CONTACT: John Amidon, 702.646.4814
WHEN: Sunday, April 1, 2007
WHO: Nevada Desert Experience (NDE), along with the Western Shoshone National Council and others
WHERE: Nevada Test Site
WHAT:

150 people gathered to welcome 25 Peace Walkers in a rally just outside of the Nevada Test Site (NTS) to protest the proposed "Complex 2030" plan, the "Reliable Replacement Warhead" and the occupation of Iraq. The Western Shoshone National Council welcomed the gathering. Speakers included Carrie Dann, activist and Shoshone elder, Fr. Louis Vitale, NDE, Colonel Ann Wright, SEIU local leader Jane McAlevey, and Catholic activist and actor Martin Sheen. After the rally a procession led by the Western Shoshone National Council representatives walked to the entrance of the Nevada Test Site. Carrie Dann crossed the line first and was soon joined by Fr. Louis Vitale, Martin Sheen, Ann Wright and 35 other men and women in this important nonviolent civil resistance. The Nye county sheriffs detained the "trespassers" in holding pens just inside the site.

The Peace Walkers, a diverse inter-faith group from around the country hosted by NDE, had started walking on Tuesday from the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, and walked throughout the week to the NTS as a statement of peace, a protest of nuclear weapons, Complex 2030, and as a spiritual pilgrimage. Peace Walker Shaina Meiners said, "the Peace Walk was an amazing experience in opposites. In the shadow of the nuclear devastation at the Test Site and the bombings of the Nellis Air Force range an awesome interfaith group came together for a nonviolent experience in enjoying the desert, sharing our traditions, and working for peace." The Peace Walkers started the morning with a sunrise ceremony led by revered elder and spiritual leader of the Western Shoshone Corbin Harney, a couple of miles from the NTS, before walking to the rally. Franciscan Friar Louis Vitale, O.F.M and Priestess Dr. Anne Key also offered blessings to the gathering.

After people finished crossing the line, the rally was asked to move back. The detainees were all processed within an hour. Carrie Dann was the last woman released. Complex 2030 is the name given to the administration's ambitious plan to rebuild and reorganize the Nuclear Weapons Complex by the year 2030, including construction of a new nuclear weapons productions facility that may be situated at the Nevada Test Site.

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Speakers & Musicians:
Western Shoshone National Council Representative
Martin Sheen - activist, peacemaker, actor - wikipedia
Diana Smith, a representative of Rep. Dennis Kucinich - Ohio Congressman
Ret. Colonel Ann Wright - wikipedia
Joanne Sheehan - War Resisters League New England - article
Loulena Miles - staff attorney for Tri-Valley Cares
Neal Christie - United Methodist Church Board representative
Emma's Revolution - musicans
Sr. Rosemary Lynch, OSF - bio
LV RJ column on Sr. Rosemary
Fr. Louis Vitale, OFM - bio
Sacred Peace Walk Walkers
Elliot Adams - Veterans for Peace
Jane McAlevey - Executive Director of Service Employees International Union Local 1107 - Nevada

Media Coverage:
Video news crew from the new Pahrump internet TV station, KPTU
Pahrump Radio-KPAH is providing live, on-site broadcast facilities for event announcements.
Fox 5 Las Vegas
Las Vegas Review-Journal (AP)
Other independent media

Endorsed or Produced by:
Nevada Desert Experience, Western Shoshone National Council, MoveOn.org, FoodNotBombs, CROW
Shundahai Network, Desert Greens, Veterans for Peace, Las Vegas Catholic Worker, Nuclear Waste Task Force
Trinity Nuclear Abolitionists, Temple of Goddess Spirituality Dedicated to Sekhmet

The April 1st Rally and Action denounced current nuclear plans and other warmaking preparations at the Test Site and proposed alternatives for the land and industry. The rally and action were the culmination of NDE's Sacred Peace Walk.

Driving Directions:
Take Hwy 95 North out of Las Vegas. 65 miles out of town you will see
the Mercury exit (past Indian Springs and Cactus Springs). Take the
Mercury exit, and as soon as you can make a U-turn and drive under the
freeway, to the west (if you keep going down the road without making a
U-turn you will come to the legal boundary of the Nevada Test Site).

Spread the Word, download and print flyers:
Full-page Flyer: Word (32kb) / PDF (46kb)
4-up Flyer: PDF (407kb)

Q: Why Witness at the Nevada Test Site?
by Megan Rice, SHCJ (adapted from the February 2007 Desert Voices Newsletter)

A: Our prophetic ancestors call us to be there in faithful action on behalf of Truth.
Forty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. expressed his soon-to-be life-threatening words of truth, declaring boldly, "our most powerful weapons are the voices, the feet, and the bodies of dedicated, united people, moving without rest towards a just goal . . . tyrants have been subdued by this form of struggle. . . ." Regarding the testing and usage of nuclear weapons, he also said, "I have unequivocally declared my hatred for this most colossal of all evils," and, a year before his martyrdom, in 1967, King declared, "Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind."

And so, can we not now come together to join the rally at the Test Site entrance on April 1st? New plans are unfolding to develop and refurbish more powerful nuclear warheads, not to dismantle them, which prompt us as never before, to put an end to nuclear weapons, before they put an end to us.

A: The Spirit within called many before us.
As far back as 1977, Sr. Rosemary Lynch began her vigils at the Nevada Test Site. She would leave for a day to travel the 65-miles from the Franciscan community on W. Bartlett Ave. in Las Vegas. Close to the entrance of Mercury, NV, Rose would sit, for hours, contemplating the reality around her, pray, and engage curious stoppers-by. Friar Louis Vitale, OFM, Quakers, Japanese visitors, and others came too. They listened and watched, as the workers drove in and out by the thousands, amidst the exquisite Desert beauty. First Nations and down-winders began joining the concerned people vigiling at the NTS. The sacred land was being filled with poison fire of inconceivable levels at the hands of the U.S. Department of Atomic Energy, E.R.D.A., the D.O.E, the University of California, Bechtel, and other corporate entities making a profit from fearsome explosions in and under the Great Basin desert.

Sr. Rosemary Lynch continues her faith-based witness along with a host of others and now she wants to invite you to celebrate her 90th Birthday at the Test Site. Your gift to her is your help in revitalizing the efforts toward nuclear abolition so that we can end the institution of war and choose life for ourselves and for our Mother Earth!At this time when the threat of nuclearism is resurgent, we recognize that we are all ONE in our oppression under such tyranny. Through our action of faithful witness, let us dispel the myth that nuclearism brings sustainable peace to our world.

A: We want to cry out for the transformation of the nuclear industrial complex into life-enhancing modes of energy research and production, and invite prophetic scientists and engineers to speak words of new possibilities for the harmonious harnessing of natural resources of our shared home and planet, Mother Earth, for the sake of future generations.

A: We desire to curb the threat of any future war with Iran, and to raise awareness of U.S. nuclear hypocrisy as represented by the existence of the Nevada Test Site and other nuclear facilities in this country.