الأمم المتحـدة تتهـم شـركة أمريكيــة بإنتهاكات حقوق الإنسـان

UN accuses US bulldozer company of human rights violations
AM - Friday, 9 July , 2004 08:04:00
Reporter: Mark Willacy
TONY EASTLEY: Later today the International Court of Justice in The Hague will deliver its much-anticipated opinion on the legality of Israel's West Bank security barrier.

But ahead of that ruling the United Nations has warned a United States company that it could be complicit in human rights violations because its machines are being used to knock down Palestinian homes to make way for the big security fence.

The UN's concern was expressed in a letter to the CEO of Caterpillar – the company which supplies the Israeli Army with bulldozers through a US Government military program.

Middle East Correspondent Mark Willacy reports from Jerusalem.

(Sounds of tanks)

MARK WILLACY: To many Palestinians, the symbol of Israel's occupation isn't the tank or the helicopter gunship, but rather the bulldozer. These giant machines have been used to demolish homes, tear up olive groves, and to erect Israel's controversial West Bank security barrier.

(sounds of bulldozers and people yelling)

Nabil Odei (phonetic) remembers the morning the Israeli bulldozers came to knock down his new house in Arab east Jerusalem.

"It took them five hours to tear it down", he tells me. Why? "Because it was a big house," he says.

Nabil Odai's home was reduced to rubble because he didn't have an Israeli building permit.

HUWAIDA ARRAF: Caterpillar's being used to destroy lives, and we want them to do something about it, we want them to stop selling their equipment to Israel.

MARK WILLACY: Huwaida Arraf is an activist with the international solidarity movement based in Jerusalem. She says Israel uses Caterpillar bulldozers as weapons to enforce its occupation of Palestinian land.

HUWAIDA ARRAF: Since 1967 Israel has used caterpillar bulldozers to demolish, or to somehow partly destroy over 50,000 Palestinian homes.

To date in the past two years, Israel has uprooted using Caterpillar equipment over 100,000 Palestinian fruit and olive trees. As the UN recently put it in the letter to Caterpillar, they are complicit in human rights abuses, and they should be held accountable.

MARK WILLACY: The United Nations letter was written by an official representing the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights.

Addressed to the CEO of Caterpillar, James Owens, it expresses "a concern that allowing the delivery of your bulldozers to the Israeli Army through the Government of the United States, might involve complicity, or acceptance on the part of your company, to actual and potential violation of human rights."

AM telephoned Caterpillar headquarters in the US several times about this issue. But company representatives failed to return our calls.

Cindy Corrie has also attempted to speak to the company about the case of her daughter Rachel.

CINDY CORRIE: Rachel was 23-years-old when she was killed. She was our youngest child.

MARK WILLACY: Rachel Corrie was a peace activist who was crushed to death under an Israeli Army Caterpillar. At the time she was trying to stop the demolition of a Palestinian family's home in Gaza. The soldier driving the bulldozer was cleared by Israel of responsibility.

Undaunted, Cindy Corrie and her husband Craig wrote to Caterpillar boss James Owens seeking a meeting. But he turned down their request, saying that he felt the issue had been seen through to its conclusion.

But Cindy Corrie says the company is clearly in breach of its own code of business conduct.

CINDY CORRIE: Caterpillar's statement of global responsibility, which is available on their website, you know, states that their equipment is used to improve people's lives.

I just think that, certainly what's happening in the West Bank and Gaza, the use of their bulldozers and their equipment there is very inconsistent with that.

(Sound of bulldozer and yelling)

MARK WILLACY: Israel buys Caterpillar bulldozers through the United States military sales program.

Standing by the rubble of his home, Palestinian Nabil Odei just scratches his head when I ask him what he thinks about the sale of Caterpillar equipment to Israel.

"All the equipment the Israelis are using against our people is supplied by the Americans. I wish they wouldn't sell these machines to Israel," he says.

This is Mark Willacy in Jerusalem for AM.