The Bishop and the Caterpillar

[Guest guest]

This has been a fairly swift change of direction, but good news. They don't

seem to have mentioned that some of their products are also used for

torture.

 

Jo

Church of England votes to divest from Caterpillar

Submitted by David Bloom on Tue, 02/07/2006 - 07:37.

In a big boost to the sclerotic campaign to divest from companies that do

business with Israel's occupation of the West Bank, which includes East

Jerusalem, the Church of England reversed earlier expectations, voting to

divest from the Caterpillar corporation.:

 

Church votes to sell off shares in Caterpillar

 

Stephen Bates, religious affairs correspondent February 7

The Guardian

 

The Church of England's general synod - including the Archbishop of

Canterbury - voted last night to disinvest church funds from companies

profiting from Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian territory.

 

The main target of the plan will be the US earth-moving equipment company

Caterpillar which has supplied vehicles used by Israel to demolish

Palestinian homes. When the worldwide Anglican communion called for such a

move, at a meeting last summer, there followed protests from Israel and

Jewish groups. The church currently invests about £2.5m of its £900m share

portfolio in Caterpillar and had been engaged in negotiations with the

company about its activities. Caterpillar insists it has not provided the

earth movers directly to Israel but to the US military which sold them on.

 

So passionate was the debate that it squeezed out an equally contentious

decision last Friday by the Church commissioners, managers of the church's

investment and property portfolio, to sell off the century-old Octavia Hill

housing estates for more than 1,000 poor tenants in south London to property

developers.

 

On the first day of its meeting in London, the general synod, the church's

parliament, heard denunciations of Israel's use of the machines from one of

its own bishops and from the Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, who is

Palestinian, whose letter was read out.

 

The Rt Rev John Gladwin, Bishop of Chelmsford, who is chairman of

Christian Aid, told the meeting that the problem in the Middle East was the

government of Israel rather than Caterpillar but that it was vital that the

church should invest only in organisations which behaved ethically.

 

A CD containing a PowerPoint presentation on Divestment (based on the Sabeel

MRI report), an audio presentation and the text of the Divestment paper

presented to the Church of England General Synod is available for £5

including postage. An MP3 version of the talk will be available for download

from Stephen Sizer's website www.sizers.org later in the week.

 

Here is the text of the motion passed by General Synod:

 

" This Synod:

(a) heeds the call from our sister church, the Episcopal Church in

Jerusalem and the Middle East, for morally responsible investment in the

Palestinian occupied territories and, in particular, to disinvest from

companies profiting from the illegal occupation, such as Caterpillar Inc,

until they change their policies;

(b) encourages the Ethical Investment Advisory Group to follow up the

consultation referred to in its Report with intensive discussions with

Caterpillar Inc, with a view to its withdrawing from supplying or

maintaining either equipment or parts for use by the state of Israel in

demolishing Palestinian homes & c;

c) in the light of the urgency of the situation, and the increased support

needed by Palestinian Christians, urges members of the EIAG to actively

engage with monitoring the effects of Caterpillar Inc's machinery in the

Palestinian occupied territories through visiting the Episcopal Church in

Jerusalem and the Middle East to learn of their concerns first hand, and to

see recent house demolitions;

d) urges the EIAG to give weight to the illegality under international law

of the activities in which Caterpillar Inc's equipment is involved; and

e) urges the EIAG to respond to the monitoring visit and the further

discussions with Caterpillar by updating its recommendations in the light of

these. "

 

The Episcopal Bishop of Jerusalem, the Right Revd Riah Abu El Assal had sent

the following challenging message to the Synod:

 

" I am saddened to witness less courage within our church than one would

expect. Both time and energy have been spent on issues such as human

sexuality. But non violent instruments such as divestment from companies

that produce death rather than life does not get the same attention. No

wonder the church is loosing credibility in many parts of our world.

 

" The Elijah's are absent and the voiceless wait in vain for church Synods to

be their voice. Need the church wait until there are no homes and no trees

for our people to wake up and tell the Ahabs of today that Naboth is but

another child of God and deserves to lead a life with dignity and secure

enough that those bulldozers will not reach his home. "

 

+ Bishop Riah Abu El Assalof Church members who believe in creating a better

world. "