[News] Rachel Corrie - CAT charged with war crimes in lawsuit

[News at freedomarchives.org]

CAT charged with war crimes in lawsuit

http://www.catdestroyshomes.org/article.php?id=256
by Jewish Voice for Peace
March 15th, 2005
[]

FAMILY OF AMERICAN WOMAN KILLED BY MILITARY BULLDOZER FILES SUIT AGAINST 
CATERPILLAR, INC.

Family of Rachel Corrie Charges Bulldozer Manufacturer Knowingly Sold 
Machines Used to Violate Human Rights

March 15, 2005, New York, NY­The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and 
partnering law firms today filed a federal lawsuit against Illinois-based 
Caterpillar, Inc. on behalf of the parents of Rachel Corrie, the 
23-year-old American peace activist and student who was run over and killed 
by a Caterpillar D9 bulldozer on March 16, 2003.

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western Federal District 
of Washington, alleges that Caterpillar, Inc. violated international and 
state law by providing specially designed bulldozers to Israeli Defense 
Forces (IDF) that it knew would be used to demolish homes and endanger 
civilians. The Corries’ daughter Rachel, a student at The Evergreen State 
College in Olympia, Washington, was there as a volunteer peace activist 
protesting the demolition of Palestinian homes when she was brutally 
killed. Much of the world community, including international human rights 
organizations and the United Nations, has consistently condemned these 
demolitions as a clear violation of international humanitarian law.

The Corries also filed a tort claim today in Israel against the State of 
Israel, the Israeli Defense Ministry and the IDF for their role in the 
death of their daughter. They are represented by Advocate Hussein Abu Hussein.

Rachel’s mother, Cindy Corrie, stated, “As we approach the two-year 
anniversary of Rachel’s killing, my family and I are still searching for 
justice. The brutal death of my daughter should never have happened and our 
family condemns attacks on all civilians. We believe Caterpillar and the 
IDF must be held accountable for their role in the attack on my daughter 
Rachel.”

Jennie Green, Senior Attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, 
stated, “International law clearly provides that corporations can be held 
accountable for violations of international human rights. Rachel Corrie, a 
young American killed abroad because Caterpillar purposefully turns a blind 
eye as to how their products are used, must have access to justice.”

Over the past four years, the IDF has used Caterpillar bulldozers to 
destroy more than 4,000 Palestinian homes, injuring, killing, or leaving 
homeless scores of individuals in the process. Rights groups have sent over 
50,000 letters to Caterpillar, Inc. executives and CEO Jim Owens, decrying 
the use of Caterpillar bulldozers to carry out human rights abuses.

Plaintiffs Craig and Cindy Corrie are represented by lawyers from the 
Center for Constitutional Rights, the Ronald J. Peterson Law Clinic at 
Seattle University Law School, and the Public Interest Law Group PLLC in 
Seattle, Washington.



We Won't Forget Rachel Corrie


Uprising on the Anniversary of a Death

By ALISON WEIR

There is a quiet battle going on for the memory of a young woman who could 
have been my daughter, or perhaps yours.

On one side are those who would like to erase her from history her actions, 
her beliefs, her murder. If they are unsuccessful at that, they will settle 
for posthumous slurs on her character, falsifications of her death.

On the other side are those who feel her shining principles should be 
praised, her courage honored, her death grieved. On this side are those who 
believe that heroism is noble, bravery admirable, and compassion for others 
the most fundamental form of morality.

To those of us on this side, Rachel Corrie will never be forgotten. She was 
23 when she was killed.

We won't forget her young idealism, her sweet bravery, her needless death. 
And we won't forget her beliefs, the third of which killed her: that good 
would triumph, that justice would prevail, that Israel would not kill her.

She was wrong on that last one. On March 16, 2003, two Israeli soldiers 
drove a house-crushing bulldozer over her twice crushing her into the Gaza 
dirt. With five other nonviolent human rights defenders, Rachel had been 
sitting in front of a family home in Palestine, pleading with Israeli 
soldiers not to demolish it. They didn't (until later); they demolished her 
instead.

Her friends ran to her screaming. They dug her out of the dirt. One told me 
that Rachel's eyes were open; her last words were, "My back is broken."

Far more, of course, was broken. The day was broken, the universe was 
broken, her sister's world was broken, her brother's life was broken, her 
parents' hearts were broken. All the things were broken that break when 
someone is killed.

In the past five years, thousands of Palestinian lives, days, worlds have 
been broken; hundreds of Israeli ones. We hear about the Israeli tragedies; 
we rarely hear about the many times more Palestinian ones the mothers, 
fathers, daughters, sons, sisters and brothers who are killed and mutilated 
during all those wonderful periods of "relative calm" our news media lie to 
us about.

I wonder if we'll hear about Rachel Corrie on March 16th, the second 
anniversary of her death. Israel, as with all those it kills, claims that 
her death "was an accident" or "was necessary for security" or that "she 
was a terrorist" or that "she was protecting terrorists!" As fast as these 
Israeli fabrications are refuted, new ones are produced. Never mind that 
they're self-contradictory our complicit media never question.

What Israel says, our media repeat. What Israel demands, our government 
gives. What Israel wants, its well-greased lobby delivers.

Change is coming, however, and it is gathering momentum. People across the 
United States remember Rachel, and grieve her death. While Congress is 
intimidated into denying her parents' right to an investigation of the 
American "ally" who murdered their daughter, people in towns throughout the 
United States are planning commemorations and future actions.

 From across the country, slowly but steadily, there is the start of an 
American uprising. One by one, people are rising up community by community 
and town by town. We are deathly tired of gratuitous cruelty and rapacious 
creeds of violence, and we won't stand by any longer.

We are reclaiming our nation, our principles, and our souls. We are the 
only ones who can do it.

We won't forget Rachel.

And we won't be stopped.

Alison Weir is executive director of <http://www.ifamericansknew.org/>If 
Americans Knew. She can be reached at: 
<mailto:alisonweir at yahoo.com>alisonweir at yahoo.com


The Freedom Archives
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