Antinuclear Group Plans Millennium Protest

Not all of the 500,000 visitors to Las Vegas this New Year’s Eve will be participating in what is expected to be America’s most ostentatious millennium celebration.

While the Strip warms to its orgy of $2,000 concerts and $300 champagne, at least 300 people plan to drive north by caravan into the deep dark of the Nevada desert.

At an isolated spot 65 miles northwest of the city, the late-night travelers will pull off U.S. 395 and begin a solemn candlelight procession onto the grounds of the Nevada Test Site.

By trespassing onto the range where the United States has exploded more than 900 nuclear devices, the protesters may be committing the first act of civil disobedience of the new millennium. And the activists, students and religious leaders say that they will be signaling their continuing resolve to eliminate the world’s nuclear arsenal.

“In a way, we are going to be celebrating too and having a New Year’s Eve party for peace,” said Cindy Pile, a protest organizer. “People will be in the desert with God, but also with this immense evil.”

Pile and longtime activists such as the Rev. Daniel Berrigan are the first to admit that their beliefs are a tough sell in a prosperous nation that’s not fighting in any war.

“It’s the only kind of celebration that makes any sense to me,” said Berrigan, 78, the Jesuit whose peace protests gained their highest profile during the Vietnam War. “The contradiction between the cultural and religious understanding of where we are seems nowhere more vivid than in Las Vegas, with the nuclear goings-on just up the road. . . . It seems that people are sort of dancing on the cusp of the volcano.”

The United States exploded 928 nuclear weapons on the Rhode Island-sized test range from 1953 until 1992, when President George Bush declared a moratorium on nuclear testing.

The federal Department of Energy still conducts “subcritical experiments” at the site, testing the reliability of nuclear computer codes and assessing the susceptibility of weapons to shock waves.

Those continued uses and the U.S. Senate’s rejection last month of the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty demonstrate the continuing need for nuclear vigilance, the protesters said.

“The defeat of the treaty actually has some people paying attention to the issue,” said Pile, director of the Oakland-based Nevada Desert Experience, an antinuclear group. “We are pushing for a real comprehensive test ban treaty that includes the testing that goes on in laboratories.”

Opponents of such a proposal have said the United States would have no way of verifying the compliance of other countries--such as India, Pakistan, China and Russia. The nation would be at risk if it could not modernize its arsenal along with the other nuclear states, they argue.

Despite their philosophical disagreement

with the marchers, Department of Energy officials are treating the New Year’s protest with virtual hospitality. They have met with organizers to assure that the event is peaceful.

“We understand what they believe in and we fully support them doing this action,” said Darwin Morgan, a spokesman for the energy agency. “We want it to be nonviolent in nature and we all understand what the other side is going to do, so there are no surprises.”

Arrests at the test site have come to follow a routine. When protesters step over a foot-wide white line onto the periphery of the test range, they are greeted by Nye County sheriff’s deputies. As long as they do not try to cut a fence or commit some other act of vandalism, the marchers are issued $315 citations for trespassing.

Nye County typically does not try to collect the fines from those who do not pay. The district attorney there has found the exercise more trouble than it’s worth, a sheriff’s official said.

Protesters are no longer jailed. “It’s a pretty standard deal,” said Sheriff’s Capt. Michael Bordner.

Some antinuclear activists wonder whether such a peaceful confrontation has become too standard. “Is this enough of a challenge?” Pile asked. “It’s a question we continually ask ourselves.”

A greater contest may ensue the next day, when the antinuclear activists plan to hold a Jan. 1 vigil on the Strip. Organizers said they are well aware that their leafleting may not be warmly greeted by hung-over partyers.

“Some will have the idea that we are spoiling their fun,” Berrigan said. “But that won’t be our only reaction. Some people can be rendered more thoughtful. You can’t give up on anyone.”

“Millennium 2000: Walking the Ways of Peace” is certainly an economical way to experience Sin City on the landmark weekend. No $2,500 hotel rooms here.

A $75 registration fee covers the entire four-day stay: three nights in a sleeping bag on the floor of a high school gym; eight mostly vegetarian meals and an array of prayer sessions, concerts and workshops on nuclear issues.

“I think the most important thing is to highlight the worst evil of the past and what could be the most promising hope for the future: the abolition of nuclear weapons,” said Thomas Gumbleton, a Roman Catholic auxiliary bishop who will lead the test site procession. “This is the most important place to be, in a historic moment like this.”