AMBUSH2004! Campaign initiated at Galway meet

national | anti-war / imperialism | news report Monday April 05, 2004 21:58 by Maratist - Galway Grassroots

Getting ready for welcoming Bush

Anti-war activists from across the country met in Galway last Saturday to lay the foundations for a broad-based campaign to counter the visit of George W. Bush to Ireland next June.

AMBUSH2004! Campaign initiated at Galway meet

Anti-war activists from across the country met in Galway last Saturday to lay the foundations for a broad-based campaign to counter the visit of George W. Bush to Ireland next June.

Representatives from the Galway Grassroots group, Mid-West Alliance Against Militarism and Aggression, Geeks Against War and the Cork Grassroots Group agreed to use the Bush visit as an opportunity to mount effective resistance against Irish complicity in U.S. military adventures. For those involved in AMBUSH2004, it seems fitting that George W. Bush’s entry to our island will be via Shannon Airport, the very venue of the Irish Government’s jettisoning of neutrality to serve the interests of the profit-hungry U.S. ruling elite.
The first part of the meeting was taken up with a lengthy informal intelligence report.

It was asserted that Air Force One would most likely touch down at Shannon Airport around midnight on Friday 25th of June, from where George Bush would at some point be ferried by helicopter to the summit venue, felt in all likelihood to be Dromoland Castle in Co. Clare (it was reported on reliable information that U.S. Secret Service agents had been sighted reconnoitring that venue earlier in the week). It was pointed out that Bush’s visit would likely be a very brief affair, probably in the region of 14 hours, and that he would be getting ferried back to Shannon Airport on Saturday afternoon after attending the summit of E.U. leaders, probably scheduled to leave the Airport at around 2pm. Dromoland Castle being around 8 miles from Shannon.

The meeting agreed to put forward a number of general strategic goals which we wish to see as the focus of opposition to the Bush visit.

Firstly in that we aim to mobilise the maximum number of participants for peace actions during the time of the visit.
That we need to go to the general Shannon area, on both the Friday, June 25th, and the Saturday, June 26th, while Bush is there.
Thirdly that we aim to have some form of peace camp or protest village, a variety of different forms this could take are being explored.
Fourthly that this being an EU-US Summit, happening adjacent to the airport in Europe where one quarter of US troops in Iraq have been transited through, we would hope to internationalise the protests, and plan to contact groups in Europe with this aim in mind.
Finally that we would see the main goal being to keep the focus on the military uses of Shannon airport, and that accordingly the main emphasis of the protests should be on the airport rather than Dromoland castle, but this is not to rule out a lesser focus on the summit site itself.

A number of practical proposals in regard to publicity, finance and international outreach are being actioned. There is to be a further meeting in Galway on Sunday April 18th.