Tea drinkers
p. 52 · Read in the full issue
of Peacemaker
There was a lighter side to the August 12 confrontation in Seat tle, USA, between a protest fleet of small craft led by the Aust ralian-based Pacific Peacemaker and the first Trident submarine USS Ohio (PIM Oct. p7).
Seattle Times reporter David Schaefer told the story in the August 17 issue of his paper.
Under the headline “Peace Ship Detention: Tempest in a Teapot”, Schaefer wrote: The Coast Guard has iden tified that “suspicious vegetable substance” it discovered aboard the Trident-protest vessel Pacific Peacemaker yesterday.
It was only tea.
Authorities today agreed to re lease the vessel, which was flag ship of the peace-blockade flotil la that protested the arrival last week of the USS Ohio.
Several boats were taken into custody by the Coast Guard dur ing the protest. Most were quick ly released. But the Australian registered Pacific Peacemaker was detained while authorities tried to determine the nature of the loose vegetable matter they found on board.
The intrigue came to an end late this morning, when a lab analysis revealed that the mys tery matter — six pounds of it in one-pound packs — was nothing more than a “a nice grade of tea”, according to Lt.-Cmdr.
Richard Clark, spokesman for the Coast Guard legal division.
The Peacemaker and another boat, the Lizard of Woz, both
were taken into Coast Guard cus tody but not officially “seized” because they had not violated the security zone around the nuclear submarine, according to a Coast Guard spokesman, Lt.-Cmdr.
Tom Pearson. The Lizard ofWoz was released to its owner Friday.
One boat which did violate the sub’s security zone, the Plow shares, also was released Friday.
Pearson said the value of the boat was not sufficient to justify keep ing it and auctioning it off. (At a hearing in Seattle on August 20 of charges against 14 protesters, all charges were dropped on the basis that their actions were not sufficiently seri ous to warrant felony charges.)
Pacific Peacemaker in Whan garei Harbour, New Zealand, during its Pacific crossing.