War starts here – let's stop it from here

Norrbotten, Sweden

July-August 2010

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. Ofog did actions showing the real consequences of bomb dropping and also actions to show at alternatives to war exercises.

On Thursday July 29^th, 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 then released after interrogation.

Monday August 2^nd, 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 of what is really going on in these 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 5^th, two Ofog activists went into the bomb exercise area again to interfere with the exercise. 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.

To view more pictures from the action camp and the actions visit Ofog at Flickr

To read more about the actions visit Ofog's website.

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.

Soon there will be more information about next year's action camp at: www.warstartshere.com