Cat nipped

In the coming weeks, activists plan at least three separate actions against Peoria-based Caterpillar Inc., protesting the company’s role in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine. On June 13, participants in a peace-and-justice walk from Springfield to Chicago will hold a vigil at Caterpillar’s corporate headquarters. The next day, a group called Stop Caterpillar is planning a protest at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Chicago. Finally, on June 15, when the General Assembly of the nation’s largest Presbyterian denomination, the Presbyterian Church (USA), convenes at its biannual meeting of the in Birmingham, Ala., divestment is expected to be a topic of discussion. Representatives from Caterpillar, a global manufacturer of construction equipment, did not respond to requests for comment from Illinois Times. However, a statement on the company’s Web site reads: “As a well-respected and responsible global citizen, Caterpillar fully complies with all local, U.S. and international laws and policies governing sales of our products around the world, including the U.S. Foreign Military Sales Program. In addition, we clearly have neither the legal right nor the tangible ability to regulate how customers use their machines.” In 2004, the PCUSA general assembly voted to “initiate the process of selective, phased divestment” from select multinational corporations doing business with the Israeli government, including two Illinois companies — Caterpillar and Schaumburg-based Motorola — as well as Citigroup, ITT Industries, and United Technologies. Jewish groups — and a number of Presbyterians — objected strenuously, calling the divestment resolution anti-Israel. The Rev. Jerry L. Van Marter, a spokesman for the PCUSA, says that the general-assembly voted for a process for divesting from selected multinational corporations that are profiting from the conflict — not divestment from Israel itself. Actual divestment of the some $2 million the church has invested in the five targeted companies, Van Marter says, is a last resort. Still, a movement has begun within the PCUSA to moderate the church’s position, which has culminated in at least 20 different alternate proposals for consideration at next week’s meeting, including several to revoke the 2004 divestment decision. The Presbytery of Great Rivers, whose headquarters is also in Peoria and governs most of central Illinois, introduced a resolution to remove Caterpillar from the divestment list but move forward with the others. Mike Orr, assistant to the pastor at Springfield’s First Presbyterian Church, says church leaders there aren’t taking sides, though that congregation, like the church, is split on the issue. “It’s very complex, and it’s easy and somewhat dangerous to take a position without a clear knowledge of all those complexities,” Orr says. Sometimes likened to the push to end South African apartheid in the 1980s, the Caterpillar divestment campaign began about four years ago. In 2003, a Caterpillar D9 bulldozer operated by an Israeli soldier was involved in the death of American activist Rachel Corrie. Her death galvanized the worldwide divestment movement. Caterpillar machines, according to Stop Caterpillar, are used by the Israeli government to raze Palestinian land in the occupied territories. More specifically, Israeli bulldozers, such as the D9, are used to demolish Palestinian homes and uproot olive groves, which families use as a source of income. Furthermore, the group asserts, Caterpillar machines are used to build Jewish settlements in the West Bank, as well as the Israeli West Bank barrier, sometimes called the separation wall. Jeff Leys, one of the organizers of the “Walk for Justice,” calls Caterpillar “the most significant symbol of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.”