War starts here - Action camp against US Air Force bomb exercise in Northern Sweden

During two weeks in early August, U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) came to the area of Norrbotten in Northern Sweden with 20 fighter aircrafts and 250 soldiers to practise bomb dropping and to do a joint air exercise with the Swedish Air Force. Antimilitaristic direct action network Ofog organised an action camp to highlight the fact that Northern Sweden is used as a training and preparation area for war and to disturb the bomb exercise.

In the city of Luleå (biggest town in Norrbotten), Ofog held speeches, performed street theatre and showed at alternatives to military exercises, Direct actions took place at the military airport F21 and at the area of Vidsel which is used for bomb training.

To view pictures from the action camp and the actions visit Ofog at Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ofog

Below you can read more about some of Ofog's actions:

Ofog did actions in the town of Luleå to show that Northern Sweden is used as a training area for war and that right now parts of the world's largest army were doing a bomb exercise in the area. When randomly asking people in the street just half of the asked knew about the exercise.

Monday July 26th Ofog started the camp with speeches in central town. Other organisations such as Women for Peace, Afghanistan Solidarity and Network Nato out of Sweden also participated and held speeches,

Unfortunatey military exercises are promoted as a great job opportunity for people in the North (where unemployment is quite high compared to the rest of Sweden) and therefore Ofog did an action to show at alternatives to war exercises in Norrbotten on Tuesday July 27th. A local choir performed their songs, speeches were held and people passing by could write and draw their alternatives in the street.

Later in the week, on Thursday July 29th, Ofog brought all the alternatives to the military airport F21 were the bomb planes take off and land during the bomb exercise. Big banners were hanged high in the trees and passing cars could honk for peace. Seven Ofog activists went in to the protected area dressed as nurses, techers, librarians and other professions that could get more resources if not so much were spent at militarism and war. The seven were arrested and driven out of the area.

To show the consequences of bomb dropping in countries where real bombs are dropped at real people Ofog did a die-on in the middle of the street on Friday July 30th.

Since NATO has dropped bombs at several weddings in Afghanistan, Ofog performed a wedding in the street on Saturday July 31th . The wedding was bombed in the middle of speeches and all guests fell down dead.

Monday August 2nd, five Ofog activists made their way into the bomb training area in Vidsel, about 120kilometres from Luleå. The activists went into the area to disturb the exercise and to break the silence on what is really going on in those areas. They walked all the way to one of the radar station which is used for measuring during the war exercises. After about five hours the activists were arrested by police and spent some hours at the police station before being released.

A few days later, on Thursday August 5th, two Ofog activists went into the bomb exercise area again to interfere with the exercise which was then in full swing. They stayed during the night and in the morning the following day and the military admitted they could not drop any bombs as long as there were people inside and they didn't know exactly where. In total the activists stayed about 18 hours inside the area.

The military exercise areas in Northern Sweden is unfortunately something permanent, and used all the time for different kinds of military exercises. Wars are prepared and trained for there and therefore we meet again next summer in the same place for an international action camp against war exercise areas.
Read more at: www.warstartshere.com

For more information contact Ofog:
info(at)ofog.org,
+46 (0)733 815361

Info about Missile Test Range Vidsel (their official website): http://www.fmv.se/WmTemplates/Page.aspx?id=224