U.S. base guards fired shots, say protesters

Press, 23 April 1984, Page 6

U.S. base guards fired shots, say protesters

NZPA-Reuter Bonn United States Army guards had fired three warning shots into the air when 25 demonstrators entered an American Army base where Pershing 2 missiles were stationed, a spokesman for anti-nuclear campaigners alleged yesterday. The United States Army would not confirm the report and said that queries should be directed to the local police. But the police said that they were not authorised to comment.

A spokesman for the West German activists said that the demonstrators, from West Germany and Denmark had used wire-cutters to enter the Mutlangen Army base. They had stopped when they heard the shots and were taken into custody by the West German police. Earlier about 200 people had gathered outside the base, which houses some of the 108 Pershing 2 rockets earmarked by N.A.T.O. for West Germany. About 100,000 people took part in nation-wide protests yesterday against the missiles, protests which had been scheduled throughout Easter week-end, organisers said.

A leading member of West Germany’s main Opposition party sharply criticised President Ronald Reagan for using, “a mix-

ture of technological megalomania, ideological obstinancy, and world-political ignorance” to ensure American military superiority. A Social Democratic Party executive member, Erhard Eppler, told a rally of more than 5000 people in Duisburg that the United States had never in its history had a leadership that wielded so much power with

such irresponsibility and recklessness.

Mr Eppler called the European peace movement, “the answer to this dilletantist he-mannishness.”

A spokesman for the governing Christian Democrats described Mr Eppler’s remarks as, “almost sick antiAmericanism.”

A two-day blockade of a United States military base near Bremen had ended yesterday, said a spokesman for the organisers. The police there had used tear-gas to clear 700 people from access roads to the base.

Yesterday marked the start of marches from outlying areas to mass demonstrations in cities such as Frankfurt, Munich, and Cologne, with the number of participants expected to swell daily. A high-point on today’s climax to the Easter programme will be a “human chain” of demonstators linking arms around the Mutlangen base.