Galway activists are not found wanting in the Global Day of Protest Against Caterpillar Inc.

galway | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Wednesday April 13, 2005 20:58 by Tommy Donnellan - Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign

No Caterpillar Bulldozers for Israel !

On the day Caterpillar share holders meet in Chicago, we call on that Company to stop selling Caterpillar bulldozers to Israel

Activists doing their stuff outside Lynch's castle in Shop St.

until Israel stops using these machines to destroy Palestinian lives and livelihoods in contravention of human rights and humanitarian law.

We call on Caterpillar to establish transparent and credible mechanisms for independent monitoring and verification, with the assistance of human rights NGO's, to establish when these conditions are met.

We further call on Caterpillar to adopt a code of conduct which complies with the UN Human Rights Norms for Business and ensures the application of Article 11, which states that Trans National Corporations and other business enterprises should take stringent measures to prevent any products or services they produce or supply from being used to commit violations of international human rights or humanitarian law.

We also call on civil and human rights activists, faith-based organizations, peace activists, Arab-American organizations, Jewish groups, students and others who promote peace and justice in Israel and Palestine to join us in our efforts.

The Caterpillar Company supplies the Israeli military with militarized D-9 bulldozers which it uses to destroy Palestinian homes, farmland and infrastructure in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

On March 16th, 2003, Rachel Corrie, a 23 year-old American human rights observer was run over and killed by a Caterpillar bulldozer as she stood in clear view of the Israeli driver. She was attempting non-violently to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian pharmacist's home in Rafah, Gaza.

No public investigation has been carried out to-date and nobody has been charged in relation to Rachel's death. The Corrie family has campaigned for the US government to undertake a full, fair and expeditious investigation into her death, but so far without success.

Caterpillar bulldozers are used by the Israeli army in contravention of international human rights law. (The Fourth Geneva Convention, the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.) They are frequently and systematically used to destroy civilian infrastructure including homes, water and sewage pipes, electrical and telephone services, roads schools, hospitals, airports, glasshouses, olive groves and farmland in the West Bank and Gaza.

Numerous Human Rights and Palestinian Solidarity groups from all over the world have demanded that Caterpillar stop selling bulldozers to the Israeli army. Caterpillar has so far ignored all calls to cease these sales to Israel. Amnesty International has called on Caterpillar to take measures to guarantee that its bulldozers are not used to commit human rights violations.
Today, Caterpillar shareholders will discuss a resolution on the sale of bulldozers to Israel. As long as it continues to profit from sales to Israel. Caterpillar will do so. However, if shareholders sense that the continuation of this trade damages the company's image and sales internationally, the policy would have to be reconsidered.

CATERPILLAR FACT SHEET:

The Caterpillar Corporation's machinery is directly implicated in grave abuses of human rights and humanitarian law by the Israeli army; The Israeli army has used Caterpillar equipment to uproot hundreds of thousands of olive trees as well as orchards of dates, prunes, lemons and oranges, causing widespread economic hardship and environmental degradation in rural areas of Palestine; Since 1967, the Israeli army has used Caterpillar equipment, including specially modified D9 and D10 bulldozers to destroy over 12,000 houses in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, leaving tens of thousands of men, women and children homeless; Since September 2000, the Israeli army has used Caterpillar equipment to destroy more than 3,000 homes, hundreds of public buildings and private commercial properties and vast areas of agricultural land; Home demolitions are usually carried out without warning, often at night, and the occupants are forcibly evicted with no time to salvage their belongings. Often the only warning is the rumbling of the Israeli army's US made Caterpillar bulldozers beginning to tear down the walls of their homes;
The Israeli army has continued bulldozing homes even when notified that residents were still inside the targeted homes;

Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in such instances, such as Nabila al-Shu'bi, who was seven-months pregnant, as well as her three young children and four additional members of her family, left to die under the rubble of their Nablus home when it was bulldozed on April 6, 2002; On March 16, 2002, 23, as mentioned, 23-year-old American peace activist Rachel Corrie was murdered by Israeli soldiers driving a D-9 bulldozer, while she was standing in non-violent protest of a home demolition in Rafah; All these home demolitions and civilian deaths are illegal under international law, specifically violating The Hague Regulation of 1907 and the Fourth Geneva Convention;

The Israeli army uses Caterpillar bulldozers to build a seperation wall with significant portions of it inside the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Cement Roadstone Holdings,CRH, is also participating in this criminality);

The International Court of Justice considered the construction of such a wall to be contrary to international law specifically violating the Hague Regulation of 1907; the Fourth Geneva Convention, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights; and the Convention on the Rights of the Child; The sale of Caterpillar bulldozers to the Israeli army is carried through the US Foreign Military Sales Program and is in violation of the US Arms Export Control Act, US Public Law 90-829, which prohibits the use of US weapons against civilians and for anything outside of "internal security" or "legitimate self-defense"; The sale of the Caterpillar bulldozer to the Israeli army contravenes the United Nation' Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights, which stipulate that transnational corporations "shall not engage in nor benefit" from war crimes or other violations of human rights and humanitarian law (article C3); and that transnational corporations "shall refrain from actions which obstruct or impede" the realization of basic human rights, such as the right to development, adequate food and drinking water, adequate housing, and the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health (articles E11 and E12);

Caterpillars involvement in the above-described abuses has attracted the attention of the United Nations and leading human rights organizations; The Office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights has written to Caterpillar CEO James Owens that "allowing the delivery of your... bulldozers to the Israeli army... in the certain knowledge that they are being used for such action, might involve complicity or acceptance on the part of your company to actual and potential violations of human rights... "; Amnesty International has issued a call to Caterpillar to take "measures - within the company sphere of influence - to guarantee that its bulldozers are not used to commit human rights violations, including the destruction of homes, land and other properties"; Human Rights Watch has called on Caterpillar to suspend the sale of its D9 bulldozers, parts or maintainance service to the Israeli army, so long as the military continues to use the bulldozers to violate international human rights and humanitarian law"; The Presbyterian Church (US) General Assembly voted July 2, 2004 to start a process of a phased and selective divestment of its nearly eight billion dollar portfolio from select companies that profit from sales of products or services that cause harm to Palestinians or Israelis or both. The Presbyterian Church (US) researchers are working to determine which companies profit most "from building settlements, from constructing the wall and from selling machinery that destroys Palestinian homes, vineyards and orchards". The case of Caterpillar is currently being considered by the group's Mission Responsibility through Investment (MRTI) Committee.

The Israeli Commitee against House Demolitions supports divestment from companies that profit from involvement in the Occupation, including Caterpillar whose bulldozers demolish thousands of Palestinian homes;

All of the facts described above are a matter
of public knowledge;

The sale of the Caterpillar bulldozer to the Israeli army contradicts Caterpillar's own Code of Worldwide Business Conduct, which states that "Caterpillar accepts the responsibilities of Global citizenship" and recognizes that Caterpillar's "committment to financial success must also take into account social, economic, political, and environmental priorities";

Spokespeople for Caterpillar, Inc. have acknowledged that Caterpillar is aware of the Israeli army's use of Caterpillar equipment to destroy civilian homes, infrastructure and agricultural resources but Caterpillar has, nevertheless, refused either to condemn these practises or to take actions necessary to halt the sale or transfer of Caterpillar equipment to the Israeli army.

Sneak preview of Caterpillar's forthcoming Ad; "If you wanna kick to death an untermenschen or Palestinian, then Caterpillars soon to be launched, new ,'Michael McDowell D666 Special', tested and proved in Auschwitz, Abu Ghraib and Jenin is yer only man,

Mary herself with Galway City Councillor, Billy Cameron (Labour) alongside her and Niall O' Brollachain, another City Councillor (Greens) in the background in conversation with John G.