ANGIE ZELTER doesn’t know if there are already US nuclear weapons at the RAF Lakenheath base in Suffolk. In fact we may never know, says the 73-year-old grandmother and veteran of countless protests, who began her activism at the Greenham Common women’s occupation in 1981 that saw US cruise missiles removed from the base there 10 years later.

RAF Lakenheath is a misnomer. It is actually a US Air Force base where, it is suspected, preparations are underway for a return of US nuclear weapons to the base, if they are not there already.

This week and next, hundreds of peace and disarmament activists will be travelling there to attend a peace camp that includes rallies, a conference and culminates in a blockade on April 26. The camp is hosted by the Lakenheath Alliance for Peace, a network of groups and individuals from Britain and around the world. Protesters are expected to include activists from other countries where US military bases are located.

The intent of the camp, says Zelter, “is to make sure that the base and local people know that we are very unhappy that they are still warmongering and that they’ve got nuclear weapons possibly already there and that we won’t ever know.”

Documents from the US Department of Defence have signalled a likely return of US weapons to British soil, with planning underway to increase accommodation there, known as a “surety dormitory.”

According to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), which has been tracking activities at Lakenheath, “surety is a term used by US government departments to refer to the capability to keep nuclear weapons secure.”

RAF Lakenheath previously hosted US nuclear weapons beginning in 1954. After its creation in 1957, CND began protesting at the base until the weapons were removed in 2008.

Over the next two weeks of the peace camp it is unclear how the authorities will respond, particularly during the April 26 blockade. But if there are arrests, Zelter isn’t worried. She can lay claim to being “the most arrested person in Britain,” having been arrested more than 100 times, beginning at Greenham and including overseas.

In the past, Zelter could often argue the defence of necessity at trial; that she was preventing a worse harm, such as nuclear war. But she is disturbed by the current trend in the UK, which is not only to disallow that argument in court, but to crack down on the right to protest as well. 

At her trials, Zelter has taken care to remind juries of their right to defy a judge’s direction and acquit, “if they felt that what we did was morally right and a good thing.” But today, “climate activists are not even allowed to mention climate change as a motivation, which is completely against the law,” Zelter said. “You are meant to say why you are doing something and they are being done for contempt of court.”

Zelter was one of those swept up and arrested on January 18 at the London pro-Palestine protest, although she was not with the main rally where chief steward Chris Nineham was wrestled to the ground and hauled away in a police van. Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal was also arrested and charged.

After leaving a smaller rally of Jewish activists opposed to Israel’s genocide and who gather weekly, Zelter walked back to BBC headquarters where the Palestine march had originally been planned to start before the police changed the route. She found no protesters, “but the police were there,” Zelter said.

With her Palestinian flag in hand, Zelter was told to join the main protest at Whitehall or face arrest. “If you really want to arrest a 73-year-old peacefully demonstrating outside the BBC, go ahead,” Zelter told them. At which point, they did. She is awaiting her day in court.

“Basically it’s a police state now,” Zelter said. “People are frightened now to come out on demonstrations. It’s much harder to get people involved.”

Zelter has remained fearless in the face of arrest and even imprisonment throughout her 45 years of activism. She has seen jail time in Britain and overseas and embraced myriad causes. 

At a talk Zelter gave to a group of Sussex University law students earlier this year, she recounted some of the places she has protested, including Sarawak, Malaysia, “trying to stop the logging of rainforests belonging to one of the last hunter-gatherer people — the Penan — and the timber being exported to the UK; in British Columbia to stop the logging of the Nuxalk people; and in Jeju, South Korea, to stop the building of a US military base on traditional lands.”

Her motivation comes from “respect for different peoples around the world and their rights to their own independence and justice and not to be exploited,” said Zelter who, in addition to her activism against nuclear weapons, is deeply committed to the environment and especially the protection of forests. “It’s solidarity with people being oppressed, especially if it’s something to do with our country being involved,” she said.

Zelter has also been to Palestine “where I set up the International Women’s Peace Service next to the largest illegal Israeli settlement — Ariel — and tried to stop land and water resources being stolen from the Palestinians,” she told the Sussex students. 

Zelter captured photographic evidence of atrocities committed by the illegal zionist settlers in the West Bank who seize Palestinian homes and lands by force and sometimes deadly violence.

The experience “was pretty horrendous actually,” she said. She quickly found out that trying to charge the settlers was futile. Even if convicted, “all they’d get was a slap on the hand.” After one incident, she was detained, interrogated and even threatened with rape. She is now banned from entering Israel.

But the issue has followed her to Lakenheath.

“Immediately after the Hamas attack, planes from Lakenheath took off and went to the Muwaffaq Salti base in Jordan to bolster the US presence in the area,” Zelter said. Israeli pilots have also been trained at the base, she says.

Activists at the peace camp will be delivering a letter to the base commander (and flying it into the base as paper planes) to remind the Americans, among other things, that “they are breaking international law by enabling a genocide by training Israeli pilots,” Zelter said. “So they’ve definitely been implicated in the war crimes and genocide by Israel by supporting that process.”

To stay encouraged, Zelter says she reminds herself “of the horrors of the past and how whatever was happening during the time of slavery, or during the time of colonialism when we were destroying Indigenous people in their millions around the world, there were always protesters. There were always people saying ‘this isn’t right’, people saying ‘that is not done in our name’,” she said.

“All rights have to be continually fought for,” Zelter added. “They’re never won forever.”

Linda Pentz Gunter is a writer based in Takoma Park, Maryland. She is currently covering events in the UK.