The Netherlands, December 30, 2000
Gomberg Arrested in The Netherlands in Anti-Nuclear Weapons Protest
While much of the world celebrated Peace on Earth, on Wed. Dec 27 ten people entered through a hole in the fence the Volkel airforce base in southeastern Holland. Recent Toronto mayoral hopeful Tooker Gomberg was among the ten who were caught and charged with property damage. He is presently being held in jail in Oss, the Netherlands. Gomberg may be deported to Canada as early as Tuesday Jan. 2. Gomberg and Kelly Reinhardt burned their Canadian passports at the Climate Conference in The Hague in November and have remained in the Netherlands since that time.
Gomberg and Reinhardt spent Christmas at the Vredes Aktie Kamp, otherwise known as the Peace Action Camp, protesting the illegality (and immorality) of nuclear weapons. Visitors to this peace camp have been bearing witness in the forest alongside the American weapons base since April 1999. Although the Dutch government will not confirm or deny the existence of nuclear weapons on the site, civilian inspections indicate conclusively that the Volkel military base harbours 11 nuclear weapons and 3 squadrons each with eighteen F16 fighter jets.
In 1996 the UN International Court of Justice declared the use of nuclear weapons illegal, and it is based on this international law that the peace activists, including Gomberg, will be fighting the charges against them.