Campaign initiated to shame and pressure CRH into divesting from the Israeli Mashav Group

dublin | rights, freedoms and repression | news report

Sunday August 09, 2009 21:05

by TD - Free Palestine Campaign

"Fully committed to human rights"

CRH, formerly known as Cement Roadstone Holdings, "fully committed to human rights" and supporting "the principles as set out in the articles of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights" http://www.crh.ie/crhcorp/about/employeescode/english_c...e.pdf is deeply complicit in war crimes in the occupied West Bank with the holding company, the Mashav Group - in which CRH has a 25% stake - through Nesher Cement supplying cement for Israel's Apartheid Wall, IOF checkpoints and illegal colonies. Transnational corporations like CRH are required by international law to comply with international rules governing corporate responsibility with respect to human rights and CRH seriously transgresses these.

Kev

Israeli colonies and the Apartheid Wall in the West Bank are illegal under international law. A plethora of UN resolutions and the 2004 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Apartheid Wall have confirmed this. The settlements violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention: "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." Article 53 forbids the destruction of property and it is these "grave breaches;" the appropriation and bulldozing of Palestinian dwellings, orchards and olive groves to facilitate the construction of the Wall and colonies that CRH is shamefully complicit in.

As unearthed by the Moriarty Tribunal, between 1987 and 1994, then chairman, Des Traynor and eight of his crony head honchoes ran a private, unlicenced bank from CRH's registered offices to avoid currency exchange controls and personal tax liabilities and the same moral rot is evidenced in the recent acquisition of Israel's second largest building materials company; Hanson Israel through Clal Industries unit Mashav: In addition to its mining activity at Nahal Raba, the Israeli Coalition of Women for Peace reported on the website Who Profits from the Occupation? that Hanson owns two concrete plants in the settlements of Modiin Illit and Atarot, and an asphalt plant south of the Elqana colony (Related Link).

Activists from the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Irish Anti-War Movement, éirígí and the Galway based Free Palestine Campaign mounted a five hour picket of CRH's offices in 42 Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin to highlight and shame CRH's complicity in Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity and to encourage companies with more than hypocritical bullshit drooling from the corners of their mouths and websites to imitate the ethical Dutch ASN Bank and divest from CRH.

With due acknowledgement and appreciation to éirígí, what with so many activist groups combining, last Friday's picket was the opening shot of what's shaping up to be a relentless campaign against CRH until such time as it does the decent thing and divests from the Mashav Group. If CRH's hands are dirty from aiding and abetting the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, former PA prime minister, quisling Fatah's, Ahmed Qureia, who partially owns al-Quds Cement is filthier still for selling cement to Israel for the construction of the Wall that's doing so damage to his people.?