Presentation

GCWPC stands for Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp, a peace camp which in the 1980s had women living or spending time at each entrance gate to a US American Airbase that had cruise missiles (nuclear weapons, nukiller weapons) in its silos. Women / Wimmin / Wymn / Womyn painted each entrance gate in a different color, and in the 1990s just Yellow Gate and Blue Gate were permanent camps.

How Cruise Missiles Got to Greenham. In the 80s, US Americans wanted to take Cruise missiles to Europe. They took 96 Cruise Missiles to a UK military base without any Parliamentary analysis or consent. In the UK, the pacifist and feminist traditions of social struggle are strong, and people were aware of the danger of nuclear weapons. Some women organized a march from Wales to Greenham in 1981. Many concerned people took part. They got to the base and decided to stay there that day. Then they decided to remain one more day... At the beginning of 1982 there was a horrible problem with a male activist, and the problem that some male activists were not into nonviolence. So womyn decided to create a safe space for themselves, and use nonviolence in their struggle. Camps were born like this. No pre-planned organization.

Bloo. This website is about Blue Gate in those years when numbers of women staying at camp dropped dramatically (read chain letter). When there were enough women at Blue, other camps would open, mostly Woad and Emerald, and sometimes Green or even Orange. Blue Gate was the closest entrance to Newbury, the nearest town, where Quakers shared the bathroom and the washing machine in their Friends' House with the women. In the 1980s Blue Gate was a kind of Anarchist gate: a successful experience in anarchist-like organization of community life and nonviolent struggle, and this continued to be so in the 1990s.

The assumption that Greenham was over after numbers plummeted is totally wrong. The two surviving camps remained active not only till the missiles left, but also till the base was dismantled and the Common returned to the community. Greenham women were everywhere, and their broad network, and they supported the two camps that remained active. And this was so till 1994.

In 1991 the fence was declared illegal. In 1986 Jean Hutchinson and Georgina Smith, took the Bylaws to court. The Bylaws were the legal tool introduced by the Ministry of Defence, 25 Apr 1985 to arrest womyn "trespassing", among other things. In 1990 this case reached the House of Lords and bylaws were pronounced illegal. (See Trespassing and check out National Archives )

Cruise Missiles left the airbase in 1991 (see also Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty).

Many of the Greenham womenare now involved in the Aldermaston Women's Camp(aign)

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