Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2002 04:50:26 +0000
From: bush_stole_election@fastmail.fm ("Mr.Liberal")
Subject: [azpeace] Fwd: [studentsnowar]=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=20Caterpillar=92s=20weapon=20of=20destr?=uction
To: azpeace@yahoogroups.com
Reply-To: azpeace@yahoogroups.com
On Mon, 01 Jul 2002 04:32:08 +0000, "Snehal Shingavi"
<snehalshingavi@hotmail.com> said:
> This message only has an HTML part -- this is a text generated representation
>
>
> From Socialist Worker Newspaper -- [1]www.socialistworker.org
>
> The bulldozers that wreck Palestinian lives
> Caterpillars weapon of destruction
>
> June 28, 2002 | Pages 6 and 7
>
> ERIC RUDER explains how the U.S. corporation Caterpillar provides
> Israel with weapons of terrible destruction, and reports on the
> efforts of pro-Palestinian activists to organize divestment campaigns
> targeting Caterpillar and other companies.
>
> Pretty words...
> "Caterpillar is committed to enabling positive and responsible growth
> around the world, and we believe in the value of social and
> environmental responsibilityAs a global company, we use our strength
> and resources to improve the lives of our neighbors around the world."
> --From Caterpillars statement on social responsibility
>
> Ugly reality
> "When they told me to destroy a house, I took advantage of it and
> ruined a few moreThe soldiers warned with a speaker that the tenants
> must leave before I come in, but I did not give anyone a chanceJenin
> empowered me. I answered to no one."
> --Israeli reservist Moshe Nissim who operated a Caterpillar D9
> bulldozer during Israels assault on Jenin in April
>
> TEN MINUTES. Thats all the time that Israeli officials gave Saleem
> Shawamreh to get his family and belongings out of his home. They came
> without warning, issued the ultimatum--and then used two Caterpillar
> D9 bulldozers to flatten his house.
>
> Shawamreh stood nearby with his wife, Arabia. "Seeing your home
> destroyed is like losing a life," he said. "It is a terrible thing."
> And Shawamreh should know. This is the third time in four years that
> he has had to stand by and watch as military authorities demolished
> his house.
>
> Since 1967, Israel has demolished more than 7,000 residences in the
> West Bank and Gaza, leaving about 50,000 Palestinians homeless. But
> the pace has quickened since the new Palestinian uprising, or
> Intifada, began in September 2000.
>
> The usual excuse is that the demolished homes didnt have construction
> permits. In fact, different building "regulations" for Palestinians
> and Israelis are a cornerstone of Israels apartheid system. By denying
> permits to Palestinians--while authorizing massive construction
> projects and tax incentives for Jewish settlements in the Occupied
> Territories--Israel hopes to squeeze Palestinians onto ever-smaller
> bits of land. House demolitions are designed to break up
> concentrations of Palestinians and clear the way for the
> ever-expanding settlements--in direct violation of international law.
>
> Caterpillar bulldozers are used for more than house demolitions. Since
> the Intifada began, Israeli troops and settlers using Caterpillar
> equipment have uprooted an estimated 385,000 olive trees--not to
> mention orchards of dates, prunes, lemons and oranges. The economic
> hardship this has imposed on thousands of Palestinians comes on top of
> already dire levels of unemployment and poverty in the Occupied
> Territories.
>
> Meanwhile, whenever a "suitable" pretext presents itself, Israeli
> troops use bulldozers to inflict "collective punishment." n January,
> for example, Israeli forces destroyed more than 60 homes in the Gaza
> refugee camp of Rafah, leaving more than 600 Palestinians homeless.
>
> Even Israels mainstream Haaretz newspaper described the demolitions as
> "destruction on a systematic, collective, and indiscriminate level
> against innocent civilians, whose only sin was the place where they
> lived."
>
> But the height of Israels barbarism was reached during its April
> offensive in the Jenin refugee camp. In a little more than a week, at
> least 140 buildings were flattened and 200 more severely damaged,
> leaving an estimated 4,000 people homeless--more than a quarter of the
> camps population.
>
> "The alley was just three feet wide before the Israeli army sent its
> heavily armored Caterpillar D-9 down what is now a rutted track," Time
> magazine reported. "As you walk along ityour feet raise little puffs
> of dust from the rubble of what were once concrete homes. The path is
> covered with the litter of war--broken sea-green ceramic tiles, a
> punctured cooking-gas cylinder, a thin foam mattress, a blond-haired
> baby doll."
>
> Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon--whose nickname is "The
> Bulldozer"--hoped that the April offensive would deal the Palestinian
> resistance a death blow. He was wrong--just as he was wrong three
> decades ago when he ordered hundreds of homes bulldozed in Gaza.
>
> The Palestinian resistance continues. It needs our support. By raising
> the connection between Israels assault on Palestinians and U.S.
> corporations like Caterpillar that provide the tools, we can expose
> U.S. backing for Israels dirty, colonial war.
>
> Heres what you can do:
>
> --Call on Caterpillar to stop selling bulldozers to Israel. Write to
> Caterpillar Corp., 100 N.E. Adams St., Peoria, IL 61629. Telephone:
> 309-675-1000. Fax: 309-675-4388. E-mail CEO Gle Barton:
> barton_glen_a@cat.com.
>
> --If youre a student, find out if your school invests in Caterpillar.
> Build a divestment campaign with petitions, leaflets, speak-outs and
> pickets.
>
> --Organize a picket at Caterpillars corporate offices. Go to
> www.caterpillar.com on the Web for a list of locations.
>
> The last divestment struggle
>
> DIVESTMENT WAS a central demand of the 1970s and 1980s movement in
> solidarity with Black South Africans fighting the racist apartheid
> regime. People in the U.S. who were outraged by the barbarism of white
> minority rule rightly saw the effort to get U.S. institutions to cut
> their ties to South Africa as a concrete form of support.
>
> Apartheid depended on the backing of the U.S. government. Few American
> political leaders openly embraced the South African racists, but most
> were content to mouth phrases about the need for change--while
> maintaining the behind-the-scenes connections that kept apartheid
> going. The determination of anti-apartheid activists changed this.
>
> The solidarity movement in the U.S. hit a high point in the
> mid-1980s--in response to the explosion of Black struggle in South
> Africas workplaces and townships. In particular, college students
> adopted the call for divestment, demanding that their schools get rid
> of investments in corporations that did business in South Africa.
>
> On April 4, 1985, students at Columbia University in New York City
> blockaded a classroom building. What they had expected to be a brief
> protest involving a few dozen people lasted for weeks, with hundreds
> participating. In a matter of weeks, the example of Columbia inspired
> action at literally hundreds of campuses across the country.
>
> Coming in the middle of the Reagan decade, the movement showed
> that--in spite of the seeming apathy of the times--tens of thousands
> of people wanted to take a stand against racism.
>
> Although few universities were actually forced to fully divest, the
> struggle had an impact. By the fall of 1985, Ronald Reagan had to
> abandon his see-no-evil policy of "constructive engagement" and impose
> sanctions.
>
> The measures were mostly toothless, but they came as U.S. banks were
> withdrawing loans, sparking a financial crisis. The racists never
> again ruled with the same confidence.
>
> Cats war on orkers
>
> CATERPILLAR FOUGHT an aggressive war on its own U.S. workers,
> represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW), during the 1990s.
>
> Management went to the wall in two bitter strikes in 1991-92 and
> 1994-95 in an explicit attempt to break the back of union power.
> Because of years of struggle and the power of the UAW, Cat workers had
> managed to win decent job security and solid wages.
>
> But when the unions contract expired in 1991, management demanded
> concessions. UAW members were ready for a fight to defend their jobs.
> Unfortunately, union leaders werent--and ultimately ended the strike
> after six months, when management threatened to hire scabs.
>
> The bosses kept up their assault, and pressure from workers forced the
> union to call a second strike in 1994. The UAW won a string of "unfair
> labor practices" charges against management, but the company managed
> to keep up production with scabs--and raked in record profits.
>
> At the end of 1995, union leaders again told strikers to go back to
> work without a contract. But 12 Cat workers didnt return--they had
> committed suicide during the 17-month-long walkout.
>
> Management set out to harass and humiliate UAW members. More than 100
> workers were disciplined for such "crimes" as wearing a union T-shirt,
> refusing to shake hands with scabs or for even saying the word "scab."
>
> Yet UAW members continued to reject Cats miserable contract
> proposals--until they won back the jobs of workers fired during the
> strike.
>
> The effort to expose Caterpillar for its support of Israels reign of
> terror is part of the fight to win a better life for Palestinians--and
> for workers in the U.S.
> _________________________________________________________________
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> References
>
> Visible links
> 1. http://www.socialistworker.org/
> 2. http://g.msn.com/1HM1ENUS/c156??PI=44364
> 3. http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
> Hidden links:
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