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Seeds of Hope (shorted from Seeds of Hope East Timor Ploughshares Group, [1] but also referred to as the Ploughshares Four [2] or the Warton Four [3]) was a plowshares group of women who damaged a BAE Hawk warplane at the British Aerospace Warton Aerodrome site near Preston, England, in 1996. [4] The four were part of a larger group of 10 who that planned the action. [5] Their aim was to stop the aircraft being exported to the Indonesian military, for use in the illegally occupied country of East Timor. They left a video and booklet in the cockpit of the aircraft in order to explain their motivation. [6]
On the 29 January 1996, Andrea Needham, Joanna Wilson and Lotta Kronlid broke into BAE's Warton Aerodrome at Warton, and caused somewhere in the range of £1.4m, [7] £1.5m, [8] £1.7m, [9] £2m, [5] £2.4, [10] and £2.5m [8] worth of damage to Hawk tail number ZH955. Damage was focused on components and sections related to weapons and targeting. [11] A warplane that was to have been supplied, along with 23 others, to the New Order regime of Indonesia [6] as part of a £500 million deal. [12] In the tradition of plowshares actions, they stayed at the site intending to wait until they were found by security, however instead they had to call security using a phone in the hanger due to their presence remaining unnoticed. They were arrested for criminal damage and conspiracy to commit criminal damage. A week later, a fourth woman, Angie Zelter, was also arrested and charged with conspiracy after stating she planned to do the same. [13] The four spent six months on Remand in HMP Risley before coming to a seven day trial in Liverpool Crown Court in July 1996. [14] The action was the 56th ploughshares action and the third ever in Britain, [15] the group called it "Seeds of Hope - East Timor Ploughshares - Women Disarming for Life and Justice". [8]
Accused of causing, and conspiring to cause, criminal damage, with a maximum ten-year sentence, they plead not guilty arguing that what they did was not a crime but that they "were acting to prevent British Aerospace and the British Government from aiding and abetting genocide", [6] [16] referring to the one taking place in East Timor. They were found not guilty of criminal damage at Liverpool Crown Court, after a jury deemed their action was reasonable under the Genocide Act 1969. [17] This made it the first Ploughshares actions to result in a not guilty verdict. [18]
In recognition of the group's action they were award the Seán MacBride Peace Prize by the International Peace Bureau in 1997. [19]
Angie Zelter was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012 by Mairead Maguire a former Nobel winner and peace activist, for Zelter's (at the time) 30 years of peace activism. [20]
As well as being awarded the Order of Timor-Leste by the government of Timor-Leste in August 2019. [21]
In 1998 a 26 minute documentary called "Seeds of Hope" directed by Neil Goodwin was released including interview of women involved in the action. [22] [23]
Additionally two songs were written with the action and group as inspiration; "Four Strong Women" released in 1996 by Maurie Mulheron [24] and "With my Hammer" by Seize the Day and Shannon Smy. [25]
A book called "The Hammer Blow: How 10 Women Disarmed a Warplane" recounting the action was written by Andrea Needham and published by Peace News in 2016. [26]
In 1997 Angie Zelter went on to be one of the original six core members of the Trident Ploughshares. [27]
The 29 January 2017 attempt to disarm Typhoon fighter jets thought to be destined for the Royal Saudi Air Force and therefore to be used in the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen [28] by Sam Walton and Methodist minister Dan Woodhouse was "a contination" of the Seeds of Hope action, with a direct parallel in the action, its goal and its reasoning, the pleading of not guilty at the trail and the actual use of one of the hammers used by a member of the Seeds of Hope group. [29]