The idea of occupying the local Raytheon plant emerged from a packed meeting---about 100 strong---of the Derry Anti War Coalition on August 2^nd 2006 in Sandino’s city-centre bar. The meeting had been called to hear former US army interrogator at Abu Ghraib Joshua Casteel and Iraqi lawyer Hani Lazim argue for the withdrawal of US and British troops from Iraq. The two were on a speaking tour organised by the Irish Anti-WarMovement, to which the DAWC is affiliated.

 

After Joshua and Hani had spoken, discussion from the floor turned swiftly to Lebanon. The continuing, ferocious Israeli assault on the country---ostensibly in response to the kidnap by Hezbollah of two Israeli soldiers---had been launched on July 12^th.  Nightly, the TV news featured pictures of corpses being carried from the rubble of bombed-out buildings in Beirut and southern Lebanon and of broken bridges, ruptured roads and the ruins of industry and infrastructure.

 

Media reports also highlighted rocket attacks by Hezbollah on Israeli cities in which civilians as well as soldiers were being killed, albeit on a significantly smaller scale than by Israel in Lebanon. The military and moral imbalance seemed obvious to all at the meeting. It had been outrage at events in Lebanon which had drawn a bigger attendance to Sandino’s than the DAWC had become used to.

 

The bombing three days earlier, on July 30^th, of a residential building in Qana in southern Lebanon had had a particular effect on anti-war activists in Derry. It was evident that a large number of people---it wasn’t yet clear exactly how many---had been crushed to death, all of them civilians, many of them children, when the building was brought down by a “bunker-buster” weapon. We knew that Israel’s main supplier of bunker-busters was US arms giant Raytheon, which had a plant on the Springtown Industrial Estate on the outskirts of Derry

 

Even if the bomb used at Qana turned out not to be Raytheon’s, we knew that the company had provided the Israeli forces with this class of weapon and that they had been used by the Israelis in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East.

 

Said one voice: “We have tried everything to force the main parties and the local ‘papers to take a stand against Raytheon. We cannot go on holding vigils and collecting petitions. We have to take action.”

 

Another added: “The SDLP, Sinn Fein, the Unionists, the lot of them, they have no intention of going against Raytheon. Derry’s a disgrace.”

 

About a dozen people contributed to the discussion. The only element of disagreement concerned the need to keep any protest peaceful. While there was agreement that there should be no violence against people, there was none about damage to property. A suggestion was made that only those “trained in non-violence” should be allowed to take part. Some rejected this as elitist. A majority thought the idea unworkable anyway, there being no consensus on what would constitute violence.

 

There was disagreement, too, as to whether a vote at the meeting could commit everyone present to a particular course of action.

 

In the end, it was agreed that all who were willing to try to occupy the Raytheon plant should meet again in five days to decide on the detail.

 

Around 50 turned up on August 7^th, this time in Badger’s bar in Orchard Street, and agreed unanimously to assemble at 8am two days later close to Raytheon’s premises to walk en masse to the plant and try to effect an entry. A dispute as to whether we should act on the 8^th or the 9^th was resolved by a realisation that the 9^th was the exact anniversary of the atom-bombing of Nagasaki.

About 30 turned up on time on the morning of the 9^th. Others, perhaps unused to the early hour, were to arrive later. Just prior to setting off, in the car-park of Rafter’s restaurant, Goretti Horgan delivered a short speech: “We are here to take a stand against the violence of the US/Israeli wars in the Middle East. We must not offer violence to any other person. We will do what we can to get into Raytheon. And when and if we get in, we should leave Raytheon and the political parties of this place with no room for doubt that that are many of us who won’t rest until we get this company out of Derry once and for all.”

 

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Email sent to supporters of the DAWC on August 8^th, calling protest at Raytheon the following day.

 

Dear all,

 

At the packed meeting of the Derry Anti War Coalition last Wed night, it was agreed that the anti-war movement needs to up the pressure on Raytheon and demonstrate that merchants of death are not welcome in this town. While Raytheon has received huge amounts of public money for setting up here, there is only a tiny number of people---fewer than 30---working in its Springtown plant.

 

While our politicians reassure us that the issue of Raytheon is “dealt with”, arguing that Raytheon has pledged to them that the Springtown plant does not produce software for the military, it's not that simple. All of Raytheon's software---whether developed for “civilian” use or military use---goes towards the development of the guided missile systems that have killed over a thousand civilians in Lebanon over the last couple of weeks.

 

At the follow-up meeting last night, it was agreed that we need to act NOW. So, protestors will be assembling in the car park at Rafters at 8.00am on the morning of Wed 8th August. Those who can come for half an hour or an hour only should do so, we are hoping that some can stay longer and take part in direct action. There will be lots of different ways that people can take part in this non-violent protest, so do try to be there.

 

In solidarity,

Goretti

 

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Raytheon arrived in Derry on August 24^th 1999. At a reception in the Guildhall hosted by the city council, Raytheon Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Daniel P. Burnham, announced that the company’s UK subsidiary, Raytheon Systems Limited (RSL), intended to establish “a multi-million-pound software development centre” in the city. The centre would “support a variety of electronics programmes, including air traffic control systems for European and other airports.” Recruitment of staff would begin immediately and would expand to “up to 150 employees over the next three years.”

 

The press release described Raytheon as “one of the world’s leading providers of international air traffic control systems.”

 

The assumed significance of Raytheon’s arrival was clear from the line-up which flanked Burnham as he made his announcement: Northern Ireland Office Minister George Howarth; Alan Gillespie, chairman of the Industrial Development Board (IDB); the local MP and MEP, John Hume; Derry Mayor Pat Ramsey, SDLP; and the First Minister in the Northern Ireland Executive, Ulster Unionist David Trimble.

 

This was the first public appearance together of Hume and Trimble since they had jointly been presented with the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo eight months earlier.

 

Said Burnham: "We’re delighted to be in Northern Ireland, setting an example for other companies to consider investing here. Raytheon is indebted to John Hume for his unwavering encouragement.”

 

"I very strongly welcome the decision of Raytheon to locate a major software plant in my home city of Derry," said Hume. "It will be warmly welcomed by all of our citizens. It is...another major step towards our dream of making our Foyle Valley the Silicon Valley of Europe."

 

Howarth added: "This is one of the most significant high-tech investments ever in Northern Ireland. It sends the very clear, yet simple, message to people around the world that Northern Ireland is the right place to do business. Economic success is central to securing and underpinning a peaceful and prosperous future.”

 

The implicit suggestion in the company’s press announcement that the Derry plant would be manufacturing “international air traffic control systems” and John Hume’s reference to “a major software plant” were the only indications on the day of what the facility would be producing.

 

However, even if there was not, as yet, any solid ground for believing that the Derry plant itself was intended to produce military equipment, there was an irony, not missed by local campaigners, about the arrival of a company devoted mainly to arms manufacture being hailed as part of the “peace dividend” anticipated as arising from the previous year’s “Good Friday” Agreement. Said Paul O’Connor, of the human rights group, the Pat Finucane Centre, “I don't think the peace dividend should be built on fuelling the arms trade which is causing such misery worldwide.”

 

It later become clear that the company had been intent from the outset on producing military equipment in Derry and that a number of those who combined to imply otherwise were aware of this intention. This is to say that their statements of August 1999 were deliberately misleading.

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PANEL:

CEO Burnham will have been in a jovial mood at the Guildhall. Having joined Raytheon in July 1998 from aerospace company AlliedSignal Inc., he had been elevated to chairman and chief executive the following December. In March 1999, just five months before his visit to Derry, Reuters reported that his “signing-on” fee had comprised an immediate bonus of $1.5 million plus stock awards worth $21.87 million and “relocation expenses” of $234,271, as well as a salary of $425,004---a package of more than $24 million.

In July 2001, Burnham was appointed by President George W. Bush as chairman of the US National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, which “provides industry-based advice and expertise to the President on issues and problems related to implementing national security and emergency preparedness communications policy.” In this capacity he liased and worked closely with high officials in the Bush administration, including Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s top aide, Paul Wolfowitz, chairman of the Pentagon’s Defence Policy Board, Richard Perle and Condoleezza Rice. The connections will have done Raytheon no harm in campaigning for arms spending and bidding for contracts

However, within a few years, Burnham’s career was to falter. In early 2006, following an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into allegations of improper disclosure (lying about the company’s assets to boost share price) and dodgy accounting practices (lying to cover the lies up), he resigned as CEO, paid a fine and returned part of the $1.75 million bonus he’d received in 2000. A number of other executives also resigned. The company paid $13 million in return for a SEC agreement  that no criminal charges would be brought. It is largely as a result of this agreement that the arms mogul hailed as a hero by two Nobel Peace laureates is not in jail.

 

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PANEL:

 “Growth in the global arms industry is set for a re-awakening in coming years as the peace dividend era comes to an end and political instability returns…. The odds are that the benign international relations we've witnessed in the past few years have been a honeymoon period. We are set for more growth, not less, and we are as well placed as anybody when it comes.” Dan P. Burnham, Farnborough Air Show, September 7^th 1998.

 

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US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz (left) with Raytheon CEO Daniel Burnham (centre) and Lieutenant General Harry D. Raduege, Jr., during discussions at the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee on June 6th 2001.

 

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Raytheon’s intimation that it wouldn’t be manufacturing military equipment in Derry gained greatly in credibility from the fact that it was endorsed by John Hume.

Hume was one of the few Northern Ireland party leaders who had never been compromised by association with militarism or paramilitarism. “There is no political cause in Ireland worth one drop of blood,” was among his favourite sound-bite sentences. He was Nobel Peace laureate. He was well-known for his efforts to attract US investment to the long-time unemployment hot-spot of Derry. Hume was listened to, even by opponents, when he distanced himself from weaponry and pointed to job-creation as the key to securing the future.

However, it was noticeable, if little acknowledged, that Raytheon itself wasn’t as explicit as Hume in its disavowal of intention to manufacture arms in Derry. Company spokeswoman Jackie Berger told the Boston Globe in 2001 that, “We may do defence work (in Derry). In all likelihood we will. We are, after all, a defence company.''

 

This set a pattern. Over subsequent years, SDLP and Sinn Fein representatives were regularly to dismiss complaints that they were facilitating arms manufacture, by referring to “explicit assurances” they had received from Raytheon. But, upon examination, none of Raytheon’s public comments contained explicit assurances of anything.

The company sang dumb when asked directly whether it was manufacturing armaments in Derry. The two Nationalist parties affected coyness when asked for details of the explicit assurances.

 

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Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) by the Belfast Telegraph in September 2007 confirmed that Raytheon had, from the outset, misrepresented its intentions in Derry and that a number of politicians and public officials had all along colluded in the misrepresentation. The documents revealed, too, that Raytheon’s Derry plant was much more deeply enmeshed in Britain’s industrial-military complex that had previously been suspected.

 

The material showed that Raytheon was working in Derry on a major high-tech military project in association with the British Ministry of Defence’s Land Warfare Centre in Warminster, Wiltshire. The Derry plant, it turned out, was computer-linked to the MoD’s Integration and Test laboratory, which was coordinating development of the Joint Effects Tactical Targeting System (JETTS).

According to company documents, “The [Warminster] facility has a full-time staff, including officers from all three Services and a team from RSL (Raytheon Systems Limited) who support the integration, test, evaluation and acceptance process.” The RSL team at Warminster included employees from Derry, working alongside officers from the British Army, the Royal Navy and the RAF.

Raytheon’s principle software engineer in Derry, Columb Duffy, was quoted as saying: “Once in operation with British forces, JETTS will be able to make a significant contribution to what will be a long-term but momentous evolution in military affairs. We are now at the forefront of the transition from 20^th century to 21^st century doctrine and operations---an exciting time indeed.”

Raytheon’s own account of JETTS said that the system had been “designed to give commanders swifter and more efficient control over their equipment in the battlefield...by enhancing the combat effects of tempo, simultaneity, surprise, tactical agility, lethality and survivability.”

 

The fact that the Derry plant was working on JETTS had been mentioned by Northern Ireland Office Minister Angela Smith to a Commons committee in February 2006, although this appears not to have been reported at the time. The Telegraph documents now revealed Derry was not just involved in but was central to the project.

 

More startling was what the documents now revealed about the circumstances of Raytheon’s arrival in the city. It wasn’t the case that promises that promises had been made and then broken, but that no promises had actually been made.

 

A letter from the Industrial Development Board (IDB) to Mr. Hume, dated February 9^th 1999, six months before the Guildhall announcement, carried a report on a visit to Derry the previous week by then Raytheon chairman Denis Picard in which Picard’s perspective on investment in Derry was laid out: “Raytheon is still very focused on the MoD programmes...The bottom line: this could mean no project in Northern Ireland if Raytheon’s competitors are awarded the MoD business.”

 

The “MoD business” was identified in the documentation as the Airborne Stand-Off Radar (ASTOR) system, described by the company as “an airborne battlefield or ground surveillance radar system for operation with the Royal Air Force and the British Army.”

 

The MoD’s decision to award the ASTOR contract to Raytheon was taken in June, 1999. Two months later came the Guildhall announcement of the Derry plant.

 

Thus, Mr. Hume, and, therefore, presumably, his SDLP colleagues in Derry, knew at the time of the jubilant Guildhall scenes that the establishment of the plant had been contingent on the company winning business from the Ministry of Defence. The pretence that only civilian items would be produced misrepresented the known facts.

 

The press statement issued at the Guildhall describing Raytheon as “one of the world’s leading providers of international air traffic control systems” was an implicit lie.

 

Two months later, in October 1999, Northern Ireland economy minister Adam Ingram, in a statement littler noticed at the time, suggested that senior SDLP and Ulster Unionist figures had not only lobbied for the Raytheon plant to be located in Derry in the knowledge that it would manufacture arms-related software, but had also lobbied for an arms contract for the company to encourage it to locate in Derry. Welcoming Raytheon’s winning of the Astor contract, Ingram thanked all who had helped influence the MoD decision:  "Extensive lobbying by the Secretary of State and myself, together with local politicians including David Trimble, Seamus Mallon and John Hume has influenced a decision which will bring further opportunities to people here.

"The contract will lead to Raytheon accelerating the establishment of its software development centre in Londonderry."

The September ’07 documents left no room for doubt that Raytheon had come to Derry to manufacture weapons of war and that the SDLP, the Ulster Unionists, the Industrial Development Board and others had been aware of this from the beginning but had colluded with the company in a public pretence designed to keep the people of Derry in the dark.

 

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The pretence that Raytheon was not manufacturing military equipment in Derry had been maintained for years. The emergence of evidence to the contrary seemed only to stiffen the parties’ brazenness. The deceit was sustained through two meetings of the city council early in 2004 at which Raytheon was discussed at length.

A joint SDLP/Sinn Fein motion to a special council meeting on January 7th 2004 recalled that, “Council had received assurances that the Raytheon facility here in Derry would only be engaged in activities that had civilian applications...Council acknowledges that Raytheon’s core global business is the arms trade....Council wants no part of that trade in this city. In particular, we declare our opposition to the development or production of weapons or any software whose end use is a military application and if it is shown that Raytheon have broken their understanding to engage in only civilian work in Derry, then Council’s position will change.”

The motion---introduced after councillors had heard a presentation from Foyle Ethical Investment Campaign spokespersons Richard Moore and Angela Hegarty and Dublin Green MEP Patricia McKenna---was passed by 20 votes to nil with three abstentions. The motion instructed town clerk Tony McGurk “to immediately write to Raytheon outlining the concerns raised and seeking answers to those points."

Three and a half months later, on April 27th 2004, the council returned to the topic when SDLP leader Pat Ramsey proposed the suspension of standing orders to allow discussion of newspaper reports the previous week citing affidavits from two former Raytheon employees that they had carried out work on a military project at the Derry plant. The project was the ASTOR system, then being rushed into service ahead of schedule in Afghanistan on account of the deteriorating position of NATO troops fighting in the country.

The minutes of the April 2004 meeting record Councillor Ramsey, whose party leader had successfully lobbied for the ASTOR contract to be awarded to Raytheon, saying that it was “imperative that Raytheon immediately clarify the nature of their work in Derry. He pointed out that if the company was engaged in such [arms-related] work, this would be in breach of an assurance given by the company when it originally located to the area.”

Councillor Ramsey was supported by Gerry MacLochlainn of Sinn Fein, who “pointed out that...the company had explicitly stated that it would not engage in military work.”

The council then passed (17 votes to five) a resolution along the same lines as January: “Council accepts the location of Raytheon facility in Derry on the basis that it would be engaged in activities that had civilian applications, not military ones; if the basis of Raytheon’s acceptance had changed, the Council’s position would change. Council again calls on Raytheon to immediately clarify the nature of their work in Derry.”

Of course, “the basis of Raytheon’s acceptance” had not changed at all. What had changed was that the fact of military manufacture at the Derry plant had been exposed.

Material obtained under the FoIA in September 2006---by the Belfast Telegraph’s William Allen and Brendan McDaid, the team which was to expose the Warminster connection a year later---revealed a further dimension of the dishonesty surrounding the council meetings of 2004. The material included minutes of discussions between Raytheon bosses and officials of Invest Northern Ireland (Invest NI), which had succeeded the IDB as the official agency promoting investment in the North.

Seven and a half months after the January council meeting, four months after the April meeting, on August 23rd 2004, Stephen Lewis, manager of Raytheon’s Derry plant, had met with Jim McConnell, a senior official of Invest NI, to discuss the involvement of the Derry factory in the JETTS project.

McConnell’s minute records: “Key issue for NISSC [Northern Ireland Software Systems Centre---the Derry plant] on this contract will be the attitude of the council. Both the MoD and [Raytheon] will be looking for acceptance in principle that the council have no objections regarding this work. NISSC to write to the council, and Alan McCormick [Raytheon’s UK Director of Engineering] will be planning to meet Tony McGuirk (sic.) to update him and see how best to move forward. Company will not issue a press release."

There is no mention in the minute of the company having received the letter from Mr. McGurk which he had been instructed the previous January to write, outlining the council's concerns, or of any letter in response. 

McConnell's minute continues: “I offered Invest NI support, initially via Kevin Helferty (Invest NI’s senior Derry official), or if necessary to include Leslie Ross [head of Invest NI’s Clients and Business Group] Company to assess timing and best presentational strategy.

“This is a key contract regarding the future of NISSC....However, if the council is reluctant to back the project, then the future of NISSC is uncertain.”

These was remarkable. On the face of it, there was no “if” about the council’s position on the JETTS project. Nor, judging from its public statements, was there likelihood of council being “reluctant to back” the project. “Totally opposed” would have been more apt. Somehow, Raytheon bosses and Invest NI officials appeared to have gained an impression that the council’s highly-publicised policy on arms-related production wasn’t seriously meant and could safely be ignored.

Among the questions which arose from the documents and which the DAWC posed publicly were: Did Raytheon go on to seek “acceptance in principle that the council have no objections regarding this work,” and, if it did, what was the council’s response? Did the envisaged meeting between Alan McCormick of Raytheon and Tony McGurk of the council take place? If it did, what was the outcome and to whom was the outcome reported? Which elected representatives, if any, were informed that these exchanges were under way? On what basis did Invest NI, an industrial development agency answerable to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment, offer Raytheon the services of two senior officials, apparently to help in “presentational strategy” to advance arms-related production which the relevant elected body had voted overwhelmingly to oppose?

January 27th 2005 saw a further meeting, at Raytheon’s Derry office, between Stephen Lewis and Jim McConnell. Again, the minutes were taken by McConnell. They contain no suggestion that any of the questions which the DAWC said ought to have been raised had actually been raised, much less answered.

The minutes begin: “Steve Lewis reported that he had a positive meeting with the Mayor of Derry [Gearoid O'hEara of Sinn Fein] re. the relationship with Raytheon and Derry Council. The company will continue its policy of maintaining a low profile whilst continuing to work with local charitable initiatives.”

The company was still seemingly totally unfazed by the council resolutions. The meeting noted that, “In terms of business areas, C21 and Homeland Security were 2 large markets which were opening up and providing possibilities for Raytheon.” The C21 is a twin turbofan aircraft, essentially a military version of the Lear business jet. Homeland Security refers to the Bush administration’s “War on Terror” initiative to extend and strengthen surveillance, detection and security systems against perceived threats to US interests.

The apparent stark contradiction between the positions of the company and the council had not prevented “positive” contact between Raytheon and Mayor O’hEara.

Three months after this meeting, McConnell and Leslie Ross of Invest NI and Alan McCormick of Raytheon held another meeting, this time over lunch at the Michelin-starred Dean’s restaurant in Belfast, on April 27th 2005. “The meeting had been arranged with the objective of McCormick giving us an update on the business...” McConnell recorded. “McCormick thanked Invest NI for its support during this period, including our input to the Derry Council situation. It appears that the current mayor (Sinn Fein) is very supportive.”

The reference to Invest NI’s “input to the...Council situation” was intriguing. Who at Derry City Council had been in receipt of Invest NI’s “input?” What did this consist of? What had given Raytheon to believe that, despite the resolutions of January and April the previous year which his party had co-sponsored and loudly supported, Mayor O’hEara was “very supportive” of the company?

Again, these questions were publicly put by the DAWC. Again, there were no answers forthcoming. 

It was now clear---September 2006, a month after the DAWC occupation---not only that Raytheon’s Derry plant was involved in war production for Western armies, but that this had been known to the local political and business establishment for a considerable time: indeed, to the SDLP certainly, and to others possibly, before a single computer had been installed in the Springtown plant. It was two and a half years since the workers’ affidavits referring to production for the ASTOR system had been front-paged in the “Derry News” and then debated at a council meeting at which every Nationalist representative railed against the idea of production for war being carried out in Derry. It was just over two years since Raytheon representatives talked of writing to the council and arranging a top-level face-to-face meeting to discuss work on the JETTS system. It was nine months since Angela Smith at Westminster had confirmed the involvement of the Derry plant in these two lines of work.

Yet one local newspaper referred to confirmation of the role of the Derry plant as having come as a “bombshell” to councillors and reported that it had prompted them to seek “further talks” with the company.

The DAWC responded: “It is astonishing that this information can have come as a bombshell. But if it did, it’s puzzling that councillors haven’t reacted with greater public fury to discovery of the calculated contempt which Raytheon has displayed towards them as elected representatives. And why should they now seek further talks from an outfit which, on their own account, has treated them like dirt and whose word cannot be trusted?”

The “further talks” took place on October 9^th. SF’s Gerry MacLochlainn said afterwards that, “Raytheon confirmed that the Derry plant is involved in producing military applications e.g. the JETTS programme...In light of the revelations...Sinn Féin will be calling at the next meeting of Derry City Council for Council to reaffirm and implement its adopted position---that Raytheon confine itself to ‘civil’ development work.”

 

In fact, this wasn’t the adopted position of the council. The position adopted at the 2004 meetings was that the council would say that it wanted Raytheon out of Derry if the company was revealed to be working on arms-related projects. Now that this had been revealed (again), the position, as finessed by Cllr. MacLochlainn, had been weakened to the point of meaninglessness, become a badly-worded aspiration, rather than a clearly-made demand.

Not, indeed, that this mattered much. Nothing further has been heard from the council on the subject---even after the exposure in September 2007 of the inextricable link between work at the Derry plant and the development at Warminster of cutting-edge killing equipment for the British armed forces. ,

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The DAWC decision to occupy and attempt to “decommission” the Raytheon facility represented a continuation of an eight-year campaign which had involved every conventional form of protest and campaigning effort to try to expose what was happening in the Springtown plant. Several of the DAWC protesters, particularly Colm Bryce, and Goretti Horgan, were founders or early members of the Foyle Ethical Investment Campaign (FEIC).

 

FEIC was formed at a conference on the arms trade organized by AfrI (Action From Ireland), the Dublin-based human rights group, and Derry-based Children in Crossfire in October 1999. Speakers included Father Michael Lapsley, chaplain to the ANC who was badly injured in an letter bomb attack by the apartheid government in South Africa, and Dino Gandara Rai, survivor of the Indonesian genocide in East Timor, then living in exile in Ireland. The Indonesian Junta which conducted the genocide had been armed by US and British arms companies, including Raytheon.

FEIC, like the DAWC, with which it has an overlapping membership, is a loose alliance of human rights activists, radical Christians, feminists, Republicans, anarchists, socialists and environmentalists. It has no party political affiliation. It involves Protestants and Catholics and people from other religious and cultural backgrounds. Like the DAWC, it has no formal membership structure---people simply come along to the meetings.

FEIC’s first big public event was the launch of the FEIC Charter in March 2000.   The Charter included an assertion that “We in Derry shall not secure peace and justice at the expense of other individuals or communities wherever they reside in the world.” It committed those who signed up to the Charter to “building a peace-based economy, founded on principles of solidarity, sharing and justice. We recognise that this commitment will demand that we maintain vigilance in the face of any attempt to introduce military production facilities to the region. Our vigilance must extend also to the activities of those who would dishonestly represent their products and services as ‘dual purpose’, with incidental military applications.”

In September 2000 FEIC held a ‘Citizen’s Jury’ on Raytheon’s presence in Derry, hosted by Yes Publications. The event was held in the Nerve Centre as part the Gasyard Féile. The venue was packed and discussion was both informed and passionate. Raytheon failed to respond to the invitation to participate. Local political representatives from Unionist and Nationalist parties did attend, however, and were made aware of the depth of anti-Raytheon feeling in the city. A randomly-selected jury of Derry people found that Raytheon was not a welcome corporate guest in the city.

Also in 2000, a “die-in” was held at the Council offices to illustrate the impact of Raytheon’s weaponry elsewhere in the world. This was the first of many “die-ins,” which have continued up to 2007. Others have been held in the Foyleside Shopping Centre and Guildhall Square.

In January 2001, the Socialist Workers Party organised a meeting entitled “Jobs at any price?”, addressed by, among others, Jim Keyes of FEIC and Eamonn McCann.

The DAWC and FEIC organised regular protests outside council meetings from 2000 to 2004, under slogans such "Decommission Raytheon---Cut the arms bill---Create real jobs"

At Easter 2001, FEIC held the “Passion for Raytheon” Good Friday walk from the Raytheon plant to the city centre.

In October 2001, a “Hedge School” was held at the Raytheon offices to “trace the shocking story of how local institutions colluded in the process of bringing Raytheon and the arms trade to Derry under the guise of our peace process.” The Hedge School was followed by a vigil against the arms trade and war at the War Memorial in the City Centre.

 

On 2^nd November 2001, Eamonn McCann chaired a meeting co-hosted by FEIC and the DAWC entitled, “A better way than bombing: alternatives to war”. The meeting was addressed by Dennis Halliday, former Deputy Director of the United Nations and former head of UN Humanitarian Operations in Iraq.

Members of the DAWC and FEIC together occupied the Raytheon plant in March 2003, the day after a Raytheon bomb had killed 62 people in a Baghdad marketplace. During the occupation, protestors read from a Robert Fisk article in the Independent which recorded the gruesome consequences of the Raytheon missile on the Iraqi people. The protesters left quietly after a few hours. No damage was done. There was little media coverage. 

On 10^th May 2003, FEIC’s monthly vigil outside the Raytheon facility began at the Bloody Sunday memorial as a mark of solidarity with the people of Fallujah following a massacre of civilians by the US army which many believed had echoes of the 1972 Derry massacre. The walk from the Rossville Street memorial to Raytheon was led by Tony Doherty whose father had been killed on Bloody Sunday. He said: “It is high time Raytheon packed up and went and stopped using the people of Derry as fodder in their sordid games, enough people have suffered already,"

After the launch of the Iraq war in March 2003, FEIC and the DAWC stepped up regular protests outside Council meetings, calling for Raytheon to be asked to leave the city. (It was against the background of these actions that the council agreed to hold the special meeting on January 7^th 2004 and to FEIC and Raytheon to explain their positions. Raytheon refused to take part.)

For the next two years, FEIC and the DAWC, sometimes together, sometimes independently, continued to lobby, issue statements and leaflets, write letters to the local and national press (few of which were published), display anti-Raytheon placards at demonstrations in Belfast,  Dublin and London and to hold demonstrations of one kind and another in Derry. FEIC’s monthly vigils continued.

 

With the launch of the Israeli assault on Lebanon on July 12^th 2006, and in the knowledge that Raytheon was a major supplier of weapons to Israel, DAWC activity against the company escalated.

On Saturday July 22nd, DAWC leafleted supermarket shoppers around the city, listing Israeli goods and urging Derry shoppers to look for alternatives.

 

Sunday July23^rd, DAWC activists blocked supermarket checkouts by filling baskets and trolleys with Israeli goods, then refusing to pay at checkouts and calling on other shoppers to ask for the removal of Israeli goods from their shelves.

 

Wednesday July26^th, DAWC held a public meeting where students newly returned from Palestine gave eyewitness accounts of what was happening in Gaza, then under Israeli siege. The meeting decided to hold a vigil at the War Memorial the following Saturday to demand an immediate end to the assault on Lebanon and Gaza.

 

On Thursday July 27th, DAWC issued a press statement: “Derry Anti War Coalition has called a vigil at the War Memorial in The Diamond for this Saturday, 29^th July at 2pm.  The vigil is to mourn the hundreds being killed in the Middle East on a daily basis and to demand an immediate end to the assault on Lebanon and Gaza.

 

“Israel is using cluster bombs and phosphorus bombs in Lebanon---but George Bush and Tony Blair say, keep bombing.

 

“Israel is deliberately bombing fleeing convoys and ambulances---but Bush and Blair say, keep bombing.

 

“The United Nations says the one million Lebanese fleeing the Israeli bombardment are facing a humanitarian disaster---but Bush and Blair say, keep bombing.

 

“Kofi Annan says Israel is deliberately killing UN observers in Lebanon---but Bush and Blair say, keep bombing.

“The world is witnessing a country, in the words of the Lebanese government, being bombed back 50 years, with over 400 Lebanese civilians killed, unknown numbers buried in the rubble of villages flattened by Israel's onslaught, Beirut now under colossal bombardment, thousands injured and without access to medical help and Lebanon's civil infrastructure completely devastated.

“Nothing is escaping the Israeli bombs and missiles: hospitals, schools, power stations, mosques, residential areas, bridges, roads, airports---all are targeted as Israel turns Lebanon into a free-fire zone. And this is what the commander of the Israel military calls ‘the most moral army in the world!’

“On Tuesday, as the world's fourth most powerful military force bombarded over 100 Lebanese towns and villages -- the highest daily figure yet -- Condeleezza Rice stood side by side with the instigator of this barbarity, Israel's prime minister Ehud Olmert, and pronounced that the world is watching the creation of ‘a new Middle East’.

“No doubt the same ‘new Middle East’ we were promised when Bush and Blair invaded Iraq, where---hidden from view for the moment by the monstrous war crimes in Lebanon---over 100 Iraqis are being killed every day and Iraq sinks ever further into unimaginable depths of destruction and mass slaughter.

“Last weekend's emergency demonstrations in hundreds of towns and cities around the world reflected, in the Archbishop of Canterbury's words, ‘the conscience of the people.’ From the 30,000 who protested in London to the 20,000 in Sydney, Australia---extraordinary numbers for demonstrations called at such short notice---the message was the same: immediate unconditional ceasefire in Lebanon and Gaza.

“Virtually all opinion polls around the world show the same ‘conscience of the people’ calling for an immediate end to the killing and the devastation. Nearly every government in the world is saying the same.

“Fourteen British human rights, religious and aid groups, including Amnesty International, Oxfam and Save the Children, have urged Tony Blair to support calls for an immediate ceasefire. But George Bush and Tony Blair say, keep on bombing. Which is why all of us who are horrified by Israel's war crimes should do everything we can with the utmost urgency to add our voices to the call for Tony Blair to end the slavish approach  to George Bush, which has brought such catastrophe to the peoples of Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon, and which threatens to extend the carnage into Syria and Iran.

 

“The DAWC calls on all those horrified by the pictures on the TV news

to join in the vigil at the War Memorial on Saturday. Bring placards, banners and whatever you feel will help express what you think about the carnage in the Middle East – but above all, bring yourself!”

 

About 80 people attended the vigil. Leaflets were distributed advertising the public meeting with Joshua Casteel and Hani Lazim in Sandino’s the following Monday.

 

 

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Editorial, Non-Violent News, September 2006.

 

 

The action of the Derry/Raytheon 9 in throwing computers out the window during their occupation of Raytheon offices in Derry brings back into focus the debate about damage to property in nonviolent action. Nonviolence is a broad ‘church’ and there is space for those who believe it’s perfectly fine in a campaign and those who believe it’s not, or may only be in very particular circumstances, and there is space within nonviolence for people to believe and do different things.  But, as with the Catholic Worker/Pit Stop Ploughshares 5 damage to a US war plane at Shannon, some of Irish society went into a moral panic which seemed to say more about people’s own insecurities and hang-ups than about (in the Shannon case) damage done to a foreign warplane of a state at war parked in a supposedly ‘neutral’ state. An Irish Independent columnist went so far after the acquittal of the Shannon 5 to say it was now fine if you wanted to damage any hippies’ car or van (that this acquittal provided grounds for this kind of action).

 

So perhaps it is wise to step back a minute and reflect on violence to property. Sheila Rose and Lynne Shivers’ exploration of “7 Controversies in Nonviolent Action” (on the INNATE website at http://www.innatenonviolence.org/workshops/7controversies.shtml ) includes the briefest of arguments on the two sides of property destruction and sabotage.  There are a number of questions and issues.

 

The first questions are – What is the specific campaign about, what is the context, and what stage are protests at?  In the case of Raytheon in Derry, the campaign to have it removed has been going on since its arrival.  Raytheon also lied through their teeth for some years by saying they (the Derry branch of Raytheon) were only engaged in civil contracts until, as ex-employees clearly stated, it was proved there was considerable military involvement. No political parties demanded they be removed when it was proved that they had lied about military contracts. But it would not be appropriate to be involved in destruction of property as the first stage in a campaign when starting to try to conscientise people on the issue...There is also the fact that there is meant to be a peace process of some sort in Northern Ireland, and the irony of a military firm setting up in a place trying to emerge from conflict – and the additional irony that most political parties see no irony in this fact.

 

The action of the Derry 9 was also taken at the height of the Lebanon war when killing was going on at a fierce rate. The Anti-War Coalition in Derry has available a journalists’ listing of all the bombings, shellings, killings and violent acts going on in Lebanon during the eight hours that the Derry 9 were in occupation of the Raytheon offices.  This helps put their action into perspective at a time when Raytheon products were unleashing death on men, women and children in Lebanon.  The USA, UK, and Israel were the only three countries to oppose an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon. Once again Tony Blair danced to the tune of George Bush which certainly led to an increase in the feeling of total impotence for people living within the boundaries of the UK (and Derry is---just about!---in that category).

 

A second set of questions include whether the property being destroyed is personal, of sentimental and symbolic value to people, and whether it is part of a violent and oppressive system. What effect is an action going to have on relationships, and with whom? Destroying the symbols of a nation or ethnic or other group may be highly counter-productive and communicate violence; even burning a flag such as the “Stars and Stripes” is likely to come across being petty-mindedly anti-USA.  Raytheon, on the other hand, is a key part of the USA’s military-industrial complex and a key supplier of weapons used in Israel’s assault on Lebanon.

 

A third area of questioning is whether any accompanying violence has been done against people.  It is possible to be so focussed on a goal of destroying something that people (police, security guards, company employees etc) getting in the way are treated violently, or are considered not to count and therefore treated with contempt and violence.   This is a danger and, in the nonviolent canon, can be avoided best by careful preparation and training so that people are clear, and prepared, for what their goals are and clear what not to do.

 

A fourth area is about accepting responsibility for the destruction of property. “Hidden” destruction might be called sabotage but nonviolent activists accept the consequences of their actions, usually waiting to be arrested by police after an action. They may feel, argue and clearly state that they have committed no crime but the state is likely to see it differently and subject them to the full rigours of the law (and, in the case of the Derry Raytheon 9, even the ridiculous prospect of a no-jury Diplock court for ‘terrorist’ offences).  The outcome of this process is uncertain and the state apparatus, or people within it, may feel vindictive and do their utmost to secure a conviction and heavy sentence.

 

The final questions about an action are in the area of whether they advance peace and justice, or hinder it.  This is actually very difficult to foresee beforehand and even difficult to judge afterwards. If an action causes revulsion of a kind which damages the overall movement then it may not have been productive. However, just because there is a knee jerk reaction from many in the public over a particular action does not necessarily mean that long term damage has been done to building an effective campaign and movement; its symbolic and innovatory nature may inspire other people to get involved, and those who react negatively might be people who actively supported armed violence by states and less likely to have their mind changed by some other symbolic action which did not involve destruction of property.  In the case of the Shannon warplane, three and a half years down the line it put a large question mark over the Irish government’s permission for the USA to use Shannon as a warport when twelve Irish citizens on a jury, chosen at random, decided no crime had been committed in damaging a US warplane.

 

But as to whether an action advances peace and justice or not, the answer may be clear cut and it may not. In the case of the Shannon defendants they went through a very difficult three and a half years and three trials before being acquitted.  Bail and trials are very wearing in any case and to have to go through three trials is mind-bogglingly difficult for those involved. Another point is that there are people who by temperament and personal circumstances are happy to risk going through this legal minefield with an uncertain outcome, and possible sentence at the end. There are others who may do valuable work in working for peace but would never dream of going through this, perhaps for principled reasons, or whose personal circumstances (work, parenting etc) would militate against it.   And while actions of this sort may garner publicity and seem glamorous, there should be no hierarchy in thinking that doing this kind of “nonviolent direct action” is necessarily more effective than some other sort of activity which may get no publicity but be just as good, or better, in building a peaceful future. And for those who are Christians it perhaps needs stated that Jesus drove moneychangers from the temple, overturning tables, in righteous indignation; if this is not a Christian precedent for nonviolent direct action, it is difficult to know what is (apart altogether from the concept of swords into ploughshares).

 

In the case of the Derry 9 they acted in the heat of the war situation in Lebanon and it is to their credit that they felt compelled to act when so many others felt impotent. How long the resultant legal process will drag out, and what the outcome will be, we will have to wait and see.  They deserve the solidarity and support of all those who oppose war and death as a means of solving conflict and of those who desire a peaceful solution in the Middle East.

 

From Hot Press, August, 2007.

 

 

It was the sudden eruption at the back of the room upstairs at Sandino’s which brought us eventually to the burial ground at Qana.
 
At the edge of the Lebanese village, pictures of each of the 28 victims were displayed on a wall around the canopied space where the graves are laid out in precise, neat pattern by the spot where the building they were crushed under once stood. 
 
Mayor Mohammed Atiya made a formal speech of welcome while relatives of the dead stood sentinel by the graves. Shane Cullen, who had designed the memorial plaque we’d brought over, explained that it had been hewn from Irish blue limestone because we wanted “to leave a little bit of Ireland here in Qana, as a sign of our sorrow.” I talked of how we’d heard of the massacre and why we’d occupied the Raytheon plant in Derry in response. Goretti Horgan sang a Gaelic lament. Jimmy Kelly played the tin whistle.
 
Afterwards, we were invited into the homes of some of the victims where we sat around awkwardly and sipped the glasses of sweet tea that were offered to us everywhere in Lebanon.
 
Our hearts grieve with yours, I told Maryam Shaloub, who had moved into the home of her sister to look after what was left of the family. Five had been among the 28 who’d perished in the basement when a Raytheon bunker-buster had brought the house where they’d sought shelter tumbling down. Some were squashed to death, some choked on dirt and debris. Most were children.
 
She bustled around, affecting crossness with two teenage survivors for being tardy with the tea, then beaming with pride at how well they are doing in school. We grieve for our loneliness that those we loved are not here, she said with a determined smile of seeming serenity. But we do not grieve that they are dead. We are joyful to know they are in paradise. They are martyrs now.
 
But there was no semblance of joy from Hala, who had lost her husband, her two children, her mother and father, sitting on the sofa alongside me, stiff, immobile, unspeaking, impenetrable, her face a mask of frozen pain.
 
Although we’d had no real appreciation at the time of the depth of the anguish which had hollowed happiness out from the families of Qana, this was the reason we’d trashed the Raytheon plant.
 
The meeting at Sandino’s had been called by the Derry Anti-War Coalition (DAWC) on August 2nd last year to hear from Joshua Casteel, a former US Army interrogator at Abu Ghraib, and Iraqi lawyer Hani Lazim. But the focus of discussion turned quickly to Lebanon and Qana. For two days, television bulletins and newspapers had featured pictures of children being carried in dripping bundles from the crumpled ruin.

The meeting voted to protest at the Raytheon premises, and scheduled a gathering five days later to decide on the detail of what would be done...

Everyone at Sandino’s knew it very likely that Raytheon soft-ware had guided the Qana bomb (proof, in the form of the code-numbers on fuselage fragments, was soon to come to hand), and knew also that it would be futile to appeal to the political mainstream to speak against the company’s role.
 
Nine of us were arrested after eight hours barricaded inside the plant, during which we hurled computers from the windows, used fire extinguishers to put the mainframe out of action and destroyed any paperwork and computer discs we could find....The DAWC thought it appropriate to send a delegation to Qana on the anniversary of the massacre to lay a memorial stone.
 
The inscription on the stone, in Arabic and English, comprised two lines from the narrative of Bloody Sunday in the Museum of Free Derry and two lines from Patti Smith’s poem, “Qana”:

Qana, Derry,
The dead lie in familiar shapes.
No-one who yearns for justice is a stranger,
No-one who dies for justice is forgotten.
Derry, Qana,
The miracle is love.

One world, one struggle.
 
The 28 who’d perished came from two extended families, the Hashems and the Shaloubs. They’d been sheltering in a three-storey building at the edge of the village, because it was relatively new and built in the lee of a hill, and they reasoned that it offered better protection than their less sturdy homes. Villages in a strip along the Israeli border had been shelled and attacked by Israeli aircraft for more than two weeks. Qana had been repeatedly hit. But the two families were among many who had been too frightened to flee to the nearest town, Tyre. The seven-mile highway was a junkyard of houses in rubble and burnt-out cars.
 
On streets around the Imam Ali mosque today, chunks of concrete and mortar still dangle precariously from crooked iron rods jutting out from rubble and dust. But much of the village---the location, many believe, of a miracle when Jesus turned water into wine for a wedding feast---has either been rebuilt or resembles a construction site. On every roof, it seems, young men are hauling buckets of cement and cinder blocks up by pulley. They look mildly curious when our group straggles into view, smile and return thumbs-up signs.
 
The assault on Lebanon had begun on July 12th, when Hezbollah fighters crossed the border, killed three Israeli soldiers and captured two others. They claimed they intended to bargain the captured men for some of the hundreds of Lebanese Muslims held without charge in Israeli jails. Israel responded by launching a land, sea and air bombardment against the Muslim areas of southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley and south Beirut, and against the infrastructure of Lebanon generally – roads, bridges, ports, power stations, fuel stores, Beirut airport, factories. Nowhere was remote from the targets. Nowhere was safe.
 
Lebanon is smaller than Northern Ireland, 135 miles by 50; hemmed in by Israel, Syria, and the Mediterranean Sea, it has a population of four million. In the course of the 34-day conflict, Hezbollah was to fire 3,900 rockets into Israel, according to the Israeli government killing 44 civilians and 106 soldiers; the Israeli air-force, meanwhile, flew 12,000 combat missions and its army fired 100,000 shells, killing 1,200 Lebanese, including 250 fighters, according to Hezbollah, 530 according to Israel. Villages along the southern border were attacked with particular ferocity---Tiri, Kafra, Zebquin, Aita El Shaab, Bint Jbiel, Tebnin, etc., etc. But Qana struck a particular chord.

Ten years previously, more than 106 Qana people, 41 of them under 16, had been killed in an Israeli attack on the UN compound where they’d sought refuge. There had been a chorus of protest across the world, although neither the UN (because of the certainty of a US veto) nor any western country issued a formal condemnation. Now the death storm of Israel had swirled across the border again.
 
At around one in the morning in the house where the two families huddled, as two of the men were making tea, a bomb slammed into the structure. Perhaps five minutes later, as local people rushed towards the scene and adults inside scrambled amid the smoke and screams to find who’d survived, a second bomb gouged into the earth alongside and exploded. It seems almost certain it was this second bomb that toppled the building.
 
The Israelis claimed their target had been Hezbollah positions nearby from which rockets had earlier been launched.
  
Ghazi Udaybi rushed to the house when it was hit. He says he and others pulled a number of people clear after the first strike, but could do little after the second bomb struck. He’s scornful of the Israeli explanation. “If Hezbollah was firing near the house, would a family of over 50 people just sit there?”
 
Another man recalls voices calling from inside the debris, “Don’t die, Don’t die!” or crying for fathers, mothers, brothers, “Ali! Mohammed! Mama!”
  
Sanna Shalhoub, 18, round face, bright brown eyes, a smile of instant friendship to greet us, who lost her mother, father, older sister and two younger brothers, readily recites her story for us, and for an Al Jazeera crew covering the anniversary: “I was scared, but normally when I’m scared I cry out for my mother or father. I stood up and shouted ‘Mum, Dad’. I said, ‘If you can hear me, answer me’. I screamed and screamed but no one answered...
 
“Before my parents died, it wasn’t like this. We were all together. But after I lost them, my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, there was no love anymore. There are times when I don’t just feel alone in the house or the village, I feel alone in the whole world. If I could have just one moment from the time when my mother and father were alive, for them to talk to me or just call my name, I would feel the luckiest person alive.
 
“Although the place has been knocked down and is just land, I like to go there and sit thinking that this is the place I was sleeping. Here, my brother and I used to eat. Here, my father and mother and I used to sleep. There are still some of their clothes by the side of the road. I look at them and remember how we used to live here.
 
“Everyone says that we should change these thoughts in our heads and that we must forget, especially the day of the massacre. Before the war, I didn’t believe that there was an enemy watching our every move. I didn’t know there was an enemy that was so desperate to destroy Hezbollah. Now, all my thoughts are political. I wonder if the day will come when I will seek revenge against the Americans and the Israelis. Could it happen that the tables will turn and I will see myself avenging my parents’ death with my own hands? Inshallah, God willing, it will happen like this.
 
“When I am lonely, I feel I must change this feeling, so I go to the graveyard. I read the Quran for my parents, talk to my brothers and sister. It makes me feel happier.”
 
It was 6.30 am before ambulances and rescue crews made it through from Tyre, having been turned back three times by continuing bombing. Bodies dragged from the devastation lay waiting to be loaded into a refrigerated truck. There was a flurry of hope when a baby, Abbas Ahmad Hashim, was cradled out by a medic, tongue protruding from a mouth filled with dirt, but he couldn't be revived.
 
By evening, the bodies had been tagged and bagged in plastic and laid out on a floor at the hospital in Tyre. They were: Ahmad Mahmud Shaloub, 55; Ibrahim Hashim, 65; Hasna Hashim, 75; Ali Ahmad Hashim, 3; Abbas Ahmad Hashim, 9 months; Hura Muhammad Qassim Shaloub, 12; Mahdi Mahmud Hashim, 68; Zahra Muhammad Qassim Shaloub, 12; Ibrahim Ahmad Hashim, 7; Jafar Mahmud Hashim, 10; Lina Muhammad Mahmud Shaloub, 30;  Nabila Ali Amin Shaloub, 40;  Ula Ahmad Mahmud Shaloub, 25; Khadija Ali Yusif, 31; Taysir Ali Shaloub, 39;  Zaynab Muhammad Ali Amin Shaloub, 6; Fatima Muhammad Hashim, 4; Ali Ahmad Mahmud Shaloub, 17; Maryam Hassan Muhsin, 30; Afaf al-Zabad, 45; Yahya Muhammad Qassim Shaloub, 9;  Ali Muhammad Kassim Shaloub, 10; Yusif Ahmad Mahmud Shaloub, 6; Qassim Samih Shaloub, 9; Hussain Ahmad Hashim, 12; Qassim Muhammad Shaloub, 7; Raqiyya Mahmud Shaloub, 7; Raqiyya Muhammad Hashim, unknown.  
 
The women shrouded in black who sat by the grave stones in the gathering dusk as we left, murmuring prayers from the Quran, glanced up and nodded as we presumptuously took pictures and faintly acknowledged our goodbyes. Children scampering at the edge of the burial place waved and smiled. A man whose back had been broken in the blast and was sitting in a wheelchair, waved and pointed to his lapel to show he was wearing the Black Shamrock badge, symbol of the Irish anti-war movement, which we’d given him earlier.
 
As our minibus lurched out onto what passes for a main road, we all swivelled and looked back until the village of Qana had passed out of sight. ”I’ll tell you,” volunteered Kieran Gallagher, “Fucking up Raytheon was the best thing I ever did in my life.”
 
Me, too.
  

 

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"To qualify for self-determination, a people must show some kind of national identity....What political organizations, social institutions, literature, art, religion, or private correspondence express any ties between the Palestinian people to the Land of Israel?"

--Adam Cherrill,
Manager of Business Development,
Raytheon Business Systems, November 18, 2002

I travel around this country speaking about the need for the United States to support a balanced foreign policy toward the Israel-Palestine conflict. At these events, inevitably I encounter staunch defenders of Israel's military occupation of Palestine who refuse to question the morality of Israel's policy of denying another people their fundamental human rights to live in freedom and dignity.

It is difficult to become anesthetized to the shock of encountering people who view Palestinians as being less deserving of universally recognized human rights than others. Normally, I just take these types of statements to be representative of a hate-filled fringe, refute them, and move on.

However, the remarks above, delivered in response to an address I gave at the University of Arizona, were different. Adam Cherrill is not a member of a shadowy, millennial cult busily preparing for the building of the Third Temple in Jerusalem. If he were, then it would be easy enough to dismiss what he had to say. No, Cherrill is a person of considerable clout---the program manager for Raytheon's joint marketing of the Black Sparrow ballistic target missile with the Israeli weapons manufacturer Rafael.

I wondered why would Raytheon---one of the largest US weapons makers, employing 77,500 people worldwide and generating $16.9 billion in revenues in 2001---place an advocate of the expansionist notion of "Greater Israel" in such a prominent position in the US-Israeli military relationship? What does it say for US foreign policy to have an American responsible for marketing Israeli missiles who believes that "Israel has a far stronger claim to Judea and Samaria, which is considered the West Bank, than the Arabs"?

The answers to these questions become clear when one examines the business perks that Raytheon and other defence contractors enjoy thanks to a US foreign policy which unconditionally bankrolls Israel's military occupation of Palestine. For FY2003, Congress has earmarked more than $2.1 billion for Israel in foreign military financing. Israel will use this money to purchase the American-made weapons it needs to entrench its military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the US arms industry will get a lump-sum of guaranteed business---a sweetheart deal for all involved.

Unsurprisingly, Raytheon has been a beneficiary of this American taxpayer largesse in recent years. Since 1998, Raytheon has sold to Israel through foreign military sales more than 200 AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles for more than $100 million, 14 Beech King B200 fixed-wing aircraft for $125 million, and a Patriot missile system for $73 million, according to the Federation of American Scientists.

But the export of weapons to Israel can take place only if Congress is willing to turn a blind eye to the US Arms Export Control Act which bans such weapons from being used against civilians. Unfortunately, Israel has used US-provided weapons on several occasions to kill innocent Palestinian civilians. The most egregious example of this happened in July 2002 when US-made F-16s reduced to rubble an apartment building in Gaza City, killing 17 Palestinians civilians in what Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon termed "a great success." Even White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer was compelled to acknowledge that it was "a deliberate attack against a building in which civilians were known to be located." However, to admit that Israel is in violation of this law would jeopardize future US arms exports to Israel and present the defence industry with a nightmarish scenario in which their $2 billion yearly subsidy would dry up.

To prevent this from happening was one reason why the defence industry doled out a whopping $13 million in total contributions in the 2002 election cycle, according to the Centre for Responsive Politics. Raytheon Co. PAC alone gave $523,725 to federal candidates. It is no coincidence that stalwarts of the deadly US-Israeli military relationship---such as Martin Frost ($4,000), Dick Gephardt ($3,000), Jane Harman ($12,500), Anne Northup ($6,000), Ed Pastor ($8,000), and Mitch McConnell ($6,000)---were rewarded quite handsomely by Raytheon for turning a blind eye and acting unaccountably, while the few Members of Congress who have called into question Israel's violations of the U.S. Arms Export Control Act---Robert Byrd, John Conyers, John Dingell, and Nick Rahall---received a grand total of $0.

Of course Israel is not sole determinant in the calculations of how the defence industry dishes out its hush money. But the $2 billion subsidy that it receives from the American taxpayer isn't exactly chump change either and creates interests that are surely worth protecting.

By Joshua Ruebner, co-founder of Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel (JPPI) and a former Analyst of Middle East Affairs for Congressional Research Service (CRS).

 

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On January 16^th 2007, representatives of Raytheon and of the Pakistan military regime of General Musharaf made a joint announcement that Pakistan and Raytheon had “signed a Letter of Offer and Acceptance for the procurement of 500 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM)---the largest single international AMRAAM purchase to date---and 200 AIM-9M Sidewinder missiles.”

 

The deal, it was declared, “will provide the bulk of the fire-power of the Pakistan Air Force.”

 

In 2006, Raytheon had scored another success in the sub-continent, selling 12 AN/TPQ-37 Firefinder counter-battery artillery radars worth $146m to the Indian Government.  The system, Raytheon promised, would pin-point missiles launched at Indian targets “at a range of up to 300 kilometres after tracking a shell for only a few seconds.”

India and Pakistan have gone to war four times over Kashmir, and exist in a state of imminent conflict over the issue. 

Unceasing millions of Indians and Pakistanis may be able to look up from their misery some day soon and observe a kill-contest in the skies between a Raytheon missile system (Pakistan) and a Raytheon anti-missile system (India).

 

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The Samidoun Network, a secular group organised in communities across Lebanon, kept a record of incidents throughout the 34 days of the conflict. The Samidoun list for the eight hours of the occupation of Raytheon in Derry was as follows:

 

10:48 Israeli troop landing al-Khrayeb near al-Zrariyeh followed by heavy clashes with Hezbollah

10:58 Three Israeli air strikes on fish-rearing tanks in Qalya in western Beqaa.

11:42 Provocative Israeli pamphlets thrown over areas of Cola, Cite Sportive, Arab University, Tariq al-Jadideh, al-Ouza and Bir Hassanm as well as Sour (Tyre)

11:55 Israel requested Litani passage to be rebuilt, placing responsibility of its reopening on UN

12:05 Khaibar I rockets fired by Hezbollah fall on Beit Shan settlement

12:07 Hezbollah shells Haifa

12:21 Three rockets fired at Israeli border resort of  Nahariya

12:23 Heavy Israeli shelling on Iqlim al-Tufah

12:49 Four Israeli soldiers killed durinmg attack on Aita al-Shaab

12:58 Israeli air strike severs Baalbek-Homs road

13:03 Fierce Israeli shelling on most towns and villages in district of Sour (Tyre)

13:32 Fierce shelling on al-Ma’aliyeh and al-Qleileh from Israeli warships

13:45 Hezbollah shell Kiryat Shmona, Sidi Eliaazar, Avavim and Yaro’un settlements

13:48 Israeli shelling on Kfar Kila – Deir Mimas – al-Khiam road, and Tal al-Nahhas al-Khardali

14:00 Israeli warships shell western district of southern Sour (Tyre)

14:15 Israeli artillery shelling on Deir Antar

14:17 Successive Israeli air strikes on fields of villages of Aarsal and Nahleh

14:22 Hezbollah launches Khaibar I missiles on Zakhroun Yaaqoub

14:40 Hezbollah rockets fall on Safad and result in 2 injuries

15:30 11 Israeli soldiers killed in fierce confrontations with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon

15:53 Destruction of house in southern Dibil with 7 Israeli soldiers inside

16:10 Israeli radio claims 13 Hezbollah fighters injured

16:15 Israeli police say that Katyousha rockets continue to fall, and that around 3,333 rockets have targeted Israel since start of war

16:33 Israeli air strikes target areas in Beqaa

16:34 Hezbollah announces 4 fighters killed.

16:55 Warning sirens in Israeli towns of Hankeera, Nahariya, and Shlomi

16:57 Renewal of Israel air strikes on Southern suburb of Beirut

17:00 Heavy artillery shelling of Lebanese villages al-Khiam, al-Hamamess, al-Wazani, and Sarda

17:03 Confrontations on Tal al-Nahas-Kafr Kila-Burj al-Mulouk axis, and 4 tanks destroyed

17:16 Second Israeli air strike hits Haret Horiek, and thick smoke rises

17:21 Fourth Israeli air strike targets surrounding of Moawad and Mar Mikhail

17:24 Israeli air strikes on Bir al-Abed and al-Ruwais in Southern suburb of Beirut escalate

17:30 Renewed Israeli air strikes on Haret Horiek during funeral of al-Shiyah massacre victims.

17:44 Heavy Israeli artillery shelling on surroundings of Tibnin public hospital

18:01 Two Israeli air strikes on Jabal al-Rafee’ using fissile bombs

18:08 Renewal of Israeli air strikes on Iqlim al-Tuffah, and heavy artillery shelling on area adjacent to Litani River

18:09 Israeli warships shell Al Samayieh in Sour (Tyre).

 

The end of the eight-hour occupation was marked by a statement from an SDLP representative condemning the DAWC for its “violence.” The following day, Sinn Fein’s leader on Derry City Council, Maeve McLaughlin said: "While supporting and understanding absolutely the motivation behind yesterday’s protest at Raytheon, I believe that the decision to destroy equipment actually took the focus away from the purpose of the protest. Rather than the focus now being on Raytheon and the carnage in the Middle East it is on the damage carried out by the protesters.”

 

Not unexpectedly, neither party acknowledged the fact that both had striven for years to deflect any focus away from Raytheon’s role in perpetrating “the carnage in the Middle East.”

 

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Cheap kills.

 

May 25, 2006 Tucson AZ

 

Raytheon Company and Rafael Armament Development Authority announced Wednesday they have been selected by the Israeli Missile Defence Organisation to develop a new terminal missile defence interceptor. Terms of the contract were not disclosed.

 

"Our interceptor solution fundamentally redefines the performance-cost value equation for terminal missile defense, providing all-weather, hit-to-kill performance at a tactical missile price," said David Stemer, Rafael missile division's general manager.

 

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The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reported in June 2007 that $1.2 trillion had been spent on arms the previous year---up 37 percent in a decade.

The United States accounted for nearly half the spending, at $529 billion, dwarfing its nearest rivals, Britain, France, China, and Japan, which each accounted for four to five percent of the total.

Russia lagged behind, spending an estimated $35 billion in 2006.

The United States and Russia still led the world in selling arms, while China and India were the fastest growing purchasers.

 

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The corrupting effect of the arms industry on politics was illustrated in the intervention by Tony Blair in December 2006 to pull the plug on a Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation into a corruption scandal involving Britain’s biggest arms manufacturer, BAE, and the dictatorship of Saudi Arabia.

 

BAE had been bribing Saudi princes with luxury cars, hotel rooms, prostitutes and cash to secure the al-Yamamah arms deal. The deal, worth tens of billions, involves the supply of more than a hundred Tornado and Hawk warplanes to the undemocratic Riyadh regime. 

The SFO was seeking access to the Swiss bank accounts through which bribes had been channelled. But just as SFO officers believed they were on the brink of a breakthrough and about to have sight of the bank records, Blair’s Attorney General, Peter Goldsmith, announced on December 14^th in the House of Lords that he’d ordered the abandonment of the inquiry on grounds of “national security.”

 

It emerged that the British ambassador to Saudi Arabia had personally intervened with SFO officers to urge a halt to the investigation. Blair later took personal responsibility for calling the inquiry off.

 

On June 7^th 2007, the Guardian reported that payments totalling £1billion had been made by BAE to one of the scions of the feudal dictatorship, Prince Bandar. Bandar had been Saudi ambassador to the US for 22 years and was a close friend of George Bush senior and of his son, George W.

In defending the decision, Blair made no mention of the Saudi regime's record of repression, torture, sexism and the persecution of religious minorities.

Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook had written that BAE executives "appeared to have the key to the garden door at Number 10." He said that in his years in government he had never known Blair to take a decision to BAE's disadvantage.

At the time of the Guardian revelation, seven senior Labour MPs were contesting the party deputy leadership election. Not one would comment on the arms bribery issue.

 

Around one fifth of one percent of  British jobs depend on arms exports. But the arms industry is subsidised by tax-payers to the tune of £850 million a year. Symon Hill of the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) commented in Socialist Review (August 2007) that, “Many consider this goes to the core of the real motivation for curtailing the corruption inquiry...CAAT believes the arms trade is not a legitimate business that has been the subject of abuse, but an industry whose very purpose is to profit from death and poverty.”

 

The arms industry poisons democracy and twists and corrupts political representatives at global, at national and, as in the case of Raytheon and Derry, at local level.