Home > U.N. Aide Warns Caterpillar Over Sales to Israel

U.N. Aide Warns Caterpillar Over Sales to Israel

by Open-Publishing - Friday 18 June 2004
2 comments

The sale of bulldozers by Caterpillar Inc. to the Israeli military could violate Palestinians’ human rights, a U.N. human rights investigator has warned the U.S. heavy equipment maker.

Jean Ziegler, an expert on the right to food in the Geneva offices of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, wrote Caterpillar that Israel used the bulldozers to raze homes and destroy crops, preventing the Palestinians from obtaining adequate food supplies and aggravating their "already precarious living conditions."

Caterpillar’s actions "might involve complicity or acceptance on the part of your company to actual and potential violations of human rights, including the right to food," Ziegler wrote Caterpillar Chief Executive James Owens. A copy of his May 28 letter was obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.

Ziegler accused Caterpillar of supplying the Israeli military with armored bulldozers, but Caterpillar, which is headquartered in Peoria, Illinois, said the bulldozers were standard-issue equipment that later may have been modified.

Israel used the bulldozers "to destroy agricultural farms, greenhouses, ancient olive groves and agricultural fields planted with crops, as well as numerous Palestinian homes and sometimes human lives, including that of the American peace activist, Rachel Corrie," Ziegler said.

Corrie, 23, has become a hero of the Palestinian uprising against Israel in the occupied territories. A member of the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement, she died last year in the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza after being hit by a concrete slab that slid down a mound of earth.

The Israeli army said the bulldozer driver never saw her.

Caterpillar spokesman Ben Cordani said the company’s sales to Israel comply with U.S. law and are conducted through Washington’s Foreign Military Sales Program.

"These are standard-issue machines that we produce and deliver to countries around the world," he said. At an April 14 meeting, 96 percent of shareholders backed the company’s position that it cannot enforce how its equipment is used.

While Ziegler’s letter was written under the letterhead of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, a spokesman for that office said human rights investigators like Ziegler were "independent experts who act in their personal capacity." UNITED NATIONS (Reuters)

Forum posts

  • Friends,

    Thank you for posting this important piece of news. However, please note that Rachel Corrie was not killed by a concrete slab but rather after being run over twice by the blade of an Israeli military driven D9 Caterpillar bulldozer. Israel claims that it wasn’t the bulldozers that killed Rachel, but all eyewitnesses testify to the opposite. For more on this and to read eyewitness accounts, please see: http://www.palsolidarity.org/activists/rachelcorrie/rachelmain.php

    • It’s also worth pointing out that the report (and thanks very much for posting it BTW) misses out the most damning detail from Ziegler’s letter (in *** below).

      "...there is also a concern that allowing the delivery of your D-9 and D-10 Caterpillar bulldozers to the Israeli army through the Government of the United States ***in the certain knowledge that they are being used for such actions***, might involve complicity or acceptance on the part of your company to actual and potential violation of human rights..."

      Below is the relevant extract from the original press release, including more on Caterpillar’s legal position. The press release has been posted in full at: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/06/293546.html, along with a special cartoon drawn by Carlos Latuff (copyLEFT - ie free to download and distribute).

      Key extract from letter and press release below. Cheers.

      =======

      "While only States are parties to the Covenant and are thus ultimately accountable for compliance with it, all members of society – individuals, families, local communities, non-governmental organisations, civil society organisations, as well as the private business sector – have responsibilities in the realization of the right to adequate food. In this context, there is also a concern that allowing the delivery of your D-9 and D-10 Caterpillar bulldozers to the Israeli army through the Government of the United States in the certain knowledge that they are being used for such actions, might involve complicity or acceptance on the part of your company to actual and potential violation of human rights including the right to food." (2)

      Caterpillar’s worldwide code of business conduct states:

      "Caterpillar accepts the responsibilities of global citizenship. Wherever we conduct business or invest our resources around the world, we know that our commitment to financial success must also take into account social, economic, political, and environmental priorities." (3)

      However, when confronted by campaigners, Caterpillar claim that they "have neither the legal right nor the means to police individual use of that equipment." As the Special Rapporteur points out, where sales to Israel are concerned it is simply not credible for Caterpillar to claim that the end use of their products is not foreseeable, and the company have a duty to prevent such foreseeable misuse. By ignoring this fundamental duty of all citizens, be they corporate or individual, the company is implicating itself in the human rights violations and war crimes being committed in the Occupied Territories.

      [See full press release for notes]