Peace activists stopped from protesting near Nato vessels

Members of Graffitti group were yesterday stopped from protesting against the presence of warships when the police removed banners and asked them to leave Pinto Wharf where five Nato vessels are berthed.

About six members of the group showed up at the wharf to demonstrate their disapproval of the fact that Malta was admitting what they termed "machinery of death".

André Cassar from Graffiti said the police took their banners, one of which read Warships Kill, and the other, which they planned to hang from the bastions, read Peace Not War.

Mr Cassar said the police asked the group to move away from a ledge on one side of the road to the other for security reasons, and were then asked to leave the area, which they did.

Their banners were not returned and they were not given a reason why they were taken away, he said.

Police sources confirmed what happened and said the event was "peaceful".

According to Graffiti, the presence of foreign warships in Malta's harbours was "immoral".

"How can a country ever work for peace when it is welcoming machinery of war? We strongly believe that our country should take a clear position in favour of peace," it said, adding that the presence of the five ships was in breach of the island's neutrality.

Standing Nato Maritime Group 1, consisting of one destroyer and four frigates from five member states, arrived yesterday for a five-day visit.

The vessels forming the group include flagship HMCS Athabaskan (Canada), FGS Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Germany), USS Simpson (US), NRP Vasco Da Gama (Portugal) and ORP General Kazimiriez Pulaski (Poland). The Pulaski is the first Polish military vessel to join a Nato standing maritime group outside an exercise.

The vessels were open to the public yesterday.

Standing Nato Maritime Group 1 is a multi-national naval squadron that gives Nato the ability to respond quickly and with flexibility to a crisis. The force is one of four maritime standing elements that would be attached to the newly formed joint Nato Response Force in times of crisis. It is prepared to deal with a wide variety of missions, including non-combatant evacuations, disaster relief, counter terrorism and crisis response.

Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 arrived in the Mediterranean last week after having completed training exercises in the Baltic and North Sea with the Danish and Norwegian navies.

The group's purpose in the Mediterranean is to provide added support to Operation Active Endeavour, one of Nato's responses to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

As part of the operation, the force conducts regular surveillance and monitoring of shipping in the Mediterranean. It has hailed more than 76,500 vessels since the beginning of the operation in 2001, and has conducted almost 100 boarding operations. Additionally, it escorted over 500 merchant ships through the Straits of Gibraltar between March 2003 and May 2004.

Nato's efforts in Operation Active Endeavour have been joined by Partnership For Peace nations such as Russia and the Mediterranean Dialogue states of Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania and Tunisia.