Reimer, Lotte

On Nagasaki Day, 9 August, many from across Wales joined with others from the UK, Europe and the rest of the world in stretching a colourful 11-mile-long knitted scarf between the Aldermaston and Burghfield nuclear bomb factories.

It was a beautiful, joyful culmination of months of extraordinary effort by so many people and, coinciding with the big demonstrations for Gaza in London and elsewhere, poignantly showed the need for general disarmament and spending of resources in…

A memorial to Welsh soldiers killed in Flanders will be unveiled there in August.

MEP Jill Evans has congratulated the ‘Welsh memorial in Flanders’ campaign for raising awareness of the tens of thousands of Welsh soldiers who were killed in action in Flanders, including the poet Hedd Wyn.

Jill Evans, who is working closely with the Flemish Peace Institute to establish a similar Institute in Wales, said: ‘As we reach the centenary of the start of World War One, it is…

On 5 July, a 120-metre-long pink scarf, knitted by opponents of nuclear weapons, was unfurled through the centre of Knighton (Tref-y-clawdd).

The unfurling procession was led by a town crier, joined by the Teme Valley Ceilidh Band, hand-bell ringers, the Pales Peace Choir and a huge Welsh red dragon.

Many local residents offered their support to the knitters. Knighton resident Karen Plant said: ‘This protest has been fun but it has a serious message, namely the…

2013 Street Choirs festival: Sheffield’s Outaloud in Aberystwyth.
Photo: Val Regan

A radical initiative with great potential, the Campaign Choirs network, was formed during the July 2013 Street Choirs Festival in Aberystwyth. Participants agreed that ‘the political urgency of our times means we want to alert each other to events, demonstrations, etc, and share our songs more often and more widely’.

Since then, Campaign Choirs network’s shared actions have included local and…

14 September 2013 was a special day, marking 30 years of action by the legendary Côr Cochion Caerdydd, Cardiff Reds’ Choir. At a celebration in The Gate Arts Centre in Cardiff, singer song-writer, politician and activist Dafydd Iwan paid tribute to the choir’s long commitment to standing up for peace and justice: ‘If Côr Cochion are campaigning for a cause we all know it is worth campaigning for!’…

The Street Choirs Festival (19-21 July) saw some 36 choirs with 700 choristers from across the UK descend excitedly on Aberystwyth. Local choir Côr Gobaith had been planning the festival for the best part of a year, taking as its theme ‘peace’.

A Friday welcome concert with local and national talent included Chocolat, Sianed Jones, and Tracey Curtis.

Saturday saw a Peace Parade from the Arts Centre to the seafront, where all the choristers took part in a massed sing. In the…

Buzzy bees at Aberporth drone testing site Photo: Lotte Reimer

Initiated by Anonymous activists, who pulled out at the last minute because they forgot to ask their mums if they could have a party, the protest went ahead with local people, singers, Rebel Clowns and other busy bees, who buzzed in solidarity with drones trying to clear their name.

Said one local drone: ‘It’s tough enough that there are so few of us these days, with pesticides and whatnot, but tarnishing our…

Aberystwyth Women in Black Photo: Keith Morris

From a Machynlleth production of the Vagina Monologues, via flash-mob dancing in Lampeter, Carmarthen, Swansea and Cardiff, to Women in Black’s silent vigil in Aberystwyth, Wales was very much part of One Billion Rising. Two women die by the hands of their partners every week in the UK, say Women’s Aid, with one incident of domestic violence reported to the police every minute.

No wonder Aberystwyth Women in Black’s silent vigil…

The vigil recalled when two million people spoke up — and those in power in Westminster turned a deaf ear.

At the Cardiff vigil, Jill Gough, national secretary of CND Cymru, said: ‘Wales was in uproar in the weeks leading up to that demonstration. The phone rang continuously…. It did feel as if the whole world was on the streets for peace on 15 February’.

Adam Johannes of Cardiff Stop the War remembered: ‘I will never forget the hope we all felt that…

With the help of their Glasgow Kiss friends in arms, the ever-wonderful Faslane Peace Camp people and friends, the newly-expanded Lampeter gaggle of Byddin Boncars Clowniad, the Welsh Rebel Clown Army, closed Faslane nuclear submarine base for five hours on 7 July as part of the Faslane 30 campaign to blockade the base for 30 days to mark the 30-year anniversary of the Faslane Peace Camp.

The action followed hot on the heels of the previous day’s academic blockade, where academics…

Following showings in Cardiff and Swansea, the internationally-acclaimed film Robert Mugabe... What Happened? was screened at Aberystwyth Arts Centre on
20 May.

Prior to the film, Côr Gobaith, the local activist choir, sang a selection of African freedom songs for the gathering audience.

The film is complex and compelling, interweaving the story of Zimbabwe’s first 30 years with the personal journey of Robert Mugabe.

From much-admired, bright young Turk of the…

Nelly Maes, president of the Flemish Peace Institute, spoke at the David Davies Memorial Institute (DDMI) in Aberystwyth on 24 February to an audience of students and local people.

Her talk was part of a visit to Wales in support of calls for a Wales Peace Institute. On 23 February, Maes and Tomas Baum, director of the Flemish Peace Institute, gave evidence to the national assembly in support of a 1,500 name petition urging the creation of such an institute.

In…

Once again, Aberystwyth led the way as the town council laid a white poppy wreath at the Cenotaph on 7 November. Despite the weather, the ceremony was well attended. Those present remembered the suffering caused by organised violence and “all the places where our humanity has been denied”, commented Jill Gough of CND Cymru.

Rhidian Griffiths chose the hymn “Let There be Peace on Earth” by Fred Kaan, “a lifelong pacifist, whose convictions grew out of his childhood in the…

How wonderful to be part of this vibrant and vital International Women's Day march in London for something we all demand: the unconditional, non-negotiable end to violence against women.

As so well expressed by the speakers, such violence takes many forms: the direct violence of beatings, rape, mutilation; the fear of what may follow; governments denying equal status; withholding the right to an existence as an individual woman; war, poverty, trafficking, slavery, threats,…

On Monday 9 February a group of students from Aberystwyth University staged a lunchtime “die-in” in the busy Arts Centre plaza. The students, members of People & Planet and Amnesty, were highlighting University unit-trust investments in companies such as BAE Systems, Europe’s largest “defence manufacturer”.

The students are petitioning the University to adopt an ethical investment policy. Students’ Guild Environmental and Ethics Officer, Tom Marshall, stressed that the…