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A Bill In Support of UC DIVESTMENT FROM WAR CRIMES

by Advocate Staff


A Bill In Sup­port of UC DIVESTMENT FROM WAR CRIMES

Authored By: Emiliano Huet-Vaughn and Tom Pessah

Spon­sored By: Sen­a­tors Gau­rano , Carl­ton, Kwon, Oatfield

WHEREAS, the ASUC notes the com­plex­ity of inter­na­tional rela­tions in all cases, includ­ing the Mid­dle East, and rec­og­nizes the inabil­ity of a body such as the ASUC to adju­di­cate mat­ters of inter­na­tional law and human rights law, or to take sides on final sta­tus issues on wars and occu­pa­tions through­out the world. Yet, we do note the fol­low­ing find­ings from the United Nations and other lead­ing human rights orga­ni­za­tions regard­ing the Israel/Palestine con­flict, and use it as a case study; and,

WHEREAS, prior and sub­se­quent to the bomb­ing the Israeli gov­ern­ment has engaged in col­lec­tive pun­ish­ment of the whole of the Pales­tin­ian pop­u­la­tion, in the view of the human rights community, as exem­pli­fied by the ongo­ing 32 month block­ade on Gaza, of which Physi­cians for Human Rights-Israel has writ­ten, “the pro­longed siege imposed by the Israeli gov­ern­ment on Gaza, the clos­ing of its bor­ders, the tight­en­ing of poli­cies regard­ing per­mis­sion to exit Gaza for med­ical pur­poses, and the severe short­age of med­ica­tions and other med­ical sup­plies all severely dam­age the Pales­tin­ian health sys­tem and endan­ger the lives and health of thou­sands of Pales­tin­ian patients,” and of which the Red Cross has said “the whole strip is being stran­gled, eco­nom­i­cally speak­ing” mak­ing life in Gaza “a night­mare” for the civil­ian pop­u­la­tion, with essen­tial sup­plies, includ­ing elec­tric­ity, water, and fuel, being denied to the 1.5 mil­lion inhab­i­tants 90% of whom depend on aid to survive; and

WHEREAS, within the occu­pied West Bank (includ­ing East Jerusalem), the Israeli gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues a pol­icy of set­tle­ment expan­sion that, in the opin­ion of the United Nations Secu­rity Coun­cil, Human Rights Watch, the Inter­na­tional Com­mit­tee of the Red Cross, and numer­ous other orga­ni­za­tions con­cerned with enforce­ment of inter­na­tional law, con­sti­tutes a direct vio­la­tion of Arti­cle 49, para­graph 6 of the 4th Geneva Con­ven­tion which declares “an occu­py­ing power shall not deport or trans­fer parts of its own civil­ian pop­u­la­tion into ter­ri­to­ries it occu­pies.”; and

WHEREAS, in the con­text of this bill, “occu­pa­tion” refers to the cur­rent state of Pales­tin­ian life under Israeli’s mil­i­tary con­trol in the West Bank and Gaza; a def­i­n­i­tion that is con­sis­tent to commonly-held inter­na­tional law; and

WHEREAS, stu­dent research9 has revealed that, accord­ing to the most recent UC invest­ment report10, within the UC Retire­ment Pro­gram fund and the Gen­eral Endow­ment Pro­gram fund there exist direct invest­ments in Amer­i­can com­pa­nies mate­ri­ally and mil­i­tar­ily sup­port­ing the Israeli government’s occu­pa­tion of the Pales­tin­ian ter­ri­to­ries, includ­ing Amer­i­can com­pa­nies Gen­eral Elec­tric and United Tech­nolo­gies; and

WHEREAS, Gen­eral Elec­tric holds engi­neer­ing sup­port and test­ing ser­vice con­tracts with the Israeli mil­i­tary and sup­plies the Israeli gov­ern­ment with the propul­sion sys­tem for its Apache Assault Heli­copter fleet, which, as doc­u­mented by Amnesty Inter­na­tional and Human Rights Watch, has been used in attacks on Pales­tin­ian and Lebanese civil­ians, includ­ing the Jan­u­ary 4, 2009 killings of Pales­tin­ian med­ical aide work­ers11; and

WHEREAS, United Tech­nolo­gies sup­plies the Israeli gov­ern­ment with Black­hawk heli­copters and with F-15 and F-16 air­craft engines and holds an ongo­ing fleet man­age­ment con­tract for these engines, and, Amnesty Inter­na­tional has doc­u­mented the Israeli government’s use of these air­craft in the bomb­ing of the Amer­i­can School in Gaza, the killing of Pales­tini­ans civil­ians, and the destruc­tion of hun­dreds of Pales­tin­ian homes;12 there­fore, be it

* RESOLVED, that the ASUC will ensure that its assets, and will advo­cate that the UC assets, do not include hold­ings in Gen­eral Elec­tric and United Tech­nolo­gies because of their mil­i­tary sup­port of the occu­pa­tion of the Pales­tin­ian ter­ri­to­ries; be it further 

* RESOLVED, that the ASUC will fur­ther exam­ine its assets and UC assets for funds being invested in com­pa­nies that a) pro­vide mil­i­tary sup­port for or weaponry to sup­port the occu­pa­tion of the Pales­tin­ian ter­ri­to­ries or b) facil­i­tate the build­ing or main­te­nance of the ille­gal wall or the demo­li­tion of Pales­tin­ian homes, or c) facil­i­tate the build­ing, main­te­nance, or eco­nomic devel­op­ment of ille­gal Israeli set­tle­ments on occu­pied Pales­tin­ian ter­ri­to­ries; be it further

* RESOLVED, that if it is found that ASUC and/or the UC funds are being invested in any of the above­men­tioned ways, the ASUC will divest, and will advo­cate that the UC divests, all stocks, secu­ri­ties, or other oblig­a­tions from such sources with the goal of main­tain­ing the divest­ment, in the case of said com­pa­nies, until they cease such prac­tices. More­over, the ASUC will not make fur­ther invest­ments, and will advo­cate that the UC not make futher invest­ments, in any com­pa­nies mate­ri­ally sup­port­ing or prof­it­ing from Israel’s occu­pa­tion in the above­men­tioned ways; be it further 

* RESOLVED, that this ASUC res­o­lu­tion not be inter­preted as the tak­ing of sides in the Palestinian/Israeli con­flict, but instead as a prin­ci­pled expres­sion of sup­port for uni­ver­sal human rights and equal­ity; be it further 

* RESOLVED, that the ASUC Sen­ate engage in edu­ca­tion cam­paigns to pub­li­cize the divest­ment efforts and vio­la­tion of inter­na­tional human rights law, and that fur­ther­more, a com­mit­tee of 5 mem­bers, 2 sen­a­tors selected by the sen­ate body as a whole, 2 mem­bers of or stu­dents selected by the UC Berke­ley Divest­ment Task Force, and the ASUC Pres­i­dent or a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from his/her office, form at the end of this semes­ter to mon­i­tor and pro­mote uni­ver­sity progress in regards to the above men­tioned eth­i­cal divest­ment goals; and,*

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that this Com­mit­tee will rec­om­mend addi­tional divest­ment poli­cies to keep uni­ver­sity invest­ments out of com­pa­nies aid­ing war crimes through­out the world, such as those tak­ing place in Morocco, the Congo, and other places as deter­mined by the res­o­lu­tions of the United Nations and other lead­ing inter­na­tional human rights organizations

Posted by Advocate Staff on May 31st, 2010 and filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response by filling following comment form or trackback to this entry from your site

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