TWO years ago tomorrow a small group of women, men and children ended a 10-day march from Wales to a large air base near Newbury, Berkshire. Their arrival, and their demand for a televised debate on the government's decision to site 96 American cruise missiles at the base, went unremarked. Frustrated, they decided to stay on and the Greenham Common peace camp, soon to become a women only protest, was born.
Last Tuesday, four women from the camp were arrested, charged with causing criminal damage, and bailed. That incident, too, went largely unremarked. The fact that it attracted little notice is both a measure of the camp's success and an indicator of the increasing difficulties faced by the women in trying to sustain their campaign.
When it all started two years ago, the spectacle of women cutting the perimeter fence of a high-security military establishment, dancing on missile silos, daubing slogans on expensive planes, and going to prison for their pains would have been well nigh unthinkable. Yet the peace camp has inspired scores of women to take this sort of action for the first time in their lives - to the point where defence lawyers estimate that Greenham protesters are passing through the courts at a rate of something like 10 a week.
It is also true, however, that the very frequency with which the tactics are being used, combined with an increasing canniness on the part of the authorities in responding to actions at Greenham, has meant that the novelty is beginning to wear off.
The response of the authorities to the challenge of the women reveals a slow and painful process of learning by trial and error how to deal with a novel and often quixotic form of protest. Helen John, one of the original members of the camp, said last week: "I haven't seen the government make a single intelligent move."
There is evidence, however, that the authorities have learned a lot. Last November, three months after they had occupied a sentry box at the base, protesters from the camp chose to go to prison for two weeks rather than be bound over to keep the peace. They faced their sentences with a visible spirit of dedication and solidarity which inspired not only a wave of sympathy but a mass turn-out of 30,000 women at the successful attempt to encircle the base the following month.
It slowly became clear that imprisoning articulate people like peace campaigners was, if anything, enhancing their cause. A phase followed, say defence lawyers, in which there appeared to be a marked reluctance to arrest women who invaded the base.
Recently another tactic has come into play. Minor charges, which do not carry a prison sentence and do not qualify the defendant to receive legal aid, have led to the women facing fines. When they are picked up a second time on further minor charges, they are sent to prison one by one for non-payment of fines. These individual jailings attract little publicity and, the lawyers believe, are designed to deny the women the sense of solidarity which has sustained them through mass jailings.
But the most startling example of adroitness on the part of the authorities following the incident in July when women daubed paint on two US planes at the base, including the highly-sophisticated SR71 Blackbird surveillance aircraft. The Blackbird is covered in many coats of an expensive type of paint designed to prevent its detection by enemy radar. When seven women were charged with criminal damage, their lawyers were told that the cost of repairs to the plane would amount to a staggering ú250,000 - an offence serious enough, if proved, to warrant long prison sentences.
It was with enormous surprise, therefore, that the defendants and their lawyers learned at Newbury magistrates court last month that the charges were being dropped. The event was accompanied by statements from the USAF and the British Ministry of Defence that damage had been, in fact, minimal. The women remain unconvinced.
They regard the authorities' reaction to them as a yardstick of their success in making cruise missiles an issue. They view press attacks on the camp, some of them vitriolic, as a further compliment to the effectiveness of their campaign. At the same time, descriptions of Greenham protesters as "burly lesbians" or social misfits in search of a cause have hurt.
Press reports have also highlighted the squalor of the camp, although that particular aspect is far from being of the women's own making. The early campers had the use of caravans and proper tents. But attempts by Newbury council to make life uncomfortable for the protesters, including a series of evictions, has turned Greenham Common, ironically, into what might be a film set for a feature on life after the bomb.
On Friday, life at the camp next to the main gate-there are three more camps at other gates along the nine-mile perimeter fence-was going on much as usual. Margaret Johnson, a cheerful 55-year-old Quaker from Somerset, ate blackberries while sheltering from the howling wind and intermittent rain. She said that although she had been at the camp since Easter, "I haven't been to prison yet." The campaign draws its support from such a wide base that it is possible on any day to find any of the stereotypes a reporter might come looking for.
As usual, letters and postcards were arriving from all over the world with messages of support. As usual, several women had come up from London just for the day to help around the camp. As usual, friendly local people had delivered firewood and provisions.
It cannot be denied that the general election has had an effect on the camp. Gwyn Kirk, co-author of a book on Greenham published this week, agrees that it may have put some women off the protest since the arrival of the missiles now looks inevitable. But she says that for others the result has crystallised their fears and led them into more dedicated action. The week-long blockade of the base in July, widely reported to have produced a disappointing turn out, attracted protesters who were more than ever determined to risk taking direct action, she says.
Helen John believes the women are helping to change how people in Britain think; helping, in fact, to build a society where the possession of weapons like cruise becomes unthinkable. "I'm happier with the Tories in power than if Labour had got in with their fudged policies," she says. "I'm sure the Tories will help to defeat themselves."
The peace camp has always worked on an ad hoc basis, without obvious leaders. Thus it is difficult to predict its future course. Already, women who lived with the camp are travelling the country setting up support groups and holding meetings.
The question hanging over the camp today as the women get ready for tomorrow's private celebration of the first two years is whether the spirit of Greenham can survive more icy winters, the growing opposition of local people, the calculated response of the authorities, and Press hostility. The women have no doubt that it will.
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