Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 16 Oktober 2005 / Time Line March 16, 2005
Version 3.503/16/2005
Kin of Slain Protester Suing Caterpillar
by Elizabeth M. Gillespie
http://tinyurl.com/6bmb9
Seattle, Washington State, USA -- The parents of a 23-year-old
activist killed while trying to prevent the demolition of a
Palestinian home are suing Caterpillar Inc., the company that made
the bulldozer that ran over her.
The federal lawsuit, which lawyers said would be filed here
Tuesday, alleges that Caterpillar violated international and state
law by providing specially designed bulldozers to Israeli Defense
Forces that it knew would be used to demolish homes and endanger
people.
Rachel Corrie, a student at Evergreen State College in Olympia,
Washington, was standing in front of a home in a refugee camp in
Rafah, near the Egyptian border, in March of 2003 when a bulldozer
plowed over her.
"The brutal death of my daughter should never have happened,"
Corrie's mother, Cindy Corrie, said in a statement released by the
Center for Constitutional Rights, a law firm handling the case. "We
believe Caterpillar and the (Israeli Defense Forces) must be held
accountable for their role in the attack."
Caterpillar spokeswoman Linda Fairbanks said the company had no
comment on the lawsuit.
However, the company released a general statement Tuesday that
said: "Caterpillar shares the world's concern over unrest in the
Middle East, and we certainly have compassion for all those
affected by political strife.
"However, more than 2 million Caterpillar machines and engines are
at work in virtually every region of the world each day. We have
neither the legal right nor the means to police individual use of
that equipment."
The statement did not refer to the lawsuit.
The Corries have filed separate claims in Israel against the state
of Israel, the Israeli Defense Ministry and the Israeli Defense
Forces.
The Israeli military classified Corrie's death as an accident.
03/16/2005
Halliburton in Australia: the publicly funded war
profiteer
Peter Boyle, Green Left Review (Oz) 16/3/05
What began as a class assignment for Nick Calacouras, a final-year
journalism student at the University of Technology Sydney - a small
investigative project into subcontractors who handle Australia's
foreign aid turned into a research project that swallowed eight
months of his life. It also led to the most comprehensive account
to be published so far on the Australian operations of the
controversial US corporation Halliburton.
Halliburton is the No. 1 corporate beneficiary of the war against
Iraq, raking in US$18 billion in contracts to rebuild the country's
oil industry and providing logistical services to the US occupation
troops, according to the US-based Corpwatch's 2004 alternative
annual report on Halliburton, Houston, We Have A Problem.
Halliburton's activities are critically scrutinised on the website
http://www.halliburtonwatch.org, where the report can be read.
03/16/2005
House OKs $81.4 billion on war spending
By Liz Sidoti, Associated Press Writer
http://www.sacbee.com/24hour/politics/v-print/story/2236267p-10381611c.html
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush got most of the money he wanted
for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as the House approved a $81.4
billion measure Wednesday, pushing the total cost for fighting
terrorism over $300 billion.
With support from both Republicans and Democrats, the House voted
388-43 to send the Senate a bill that's only about $500 million
less than what the president requested for military operations. The
Senate will consider the spending package next month ...
Literature:
http://www.taxpayer.net/budget/fy05defense/analysis.pdf
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