Civil Servants Profit from Palestinian Children's’ Suffering
NZ Civil Servants Profit from Palestinian
Children's’ Suffering
Dr Vacy Vlazna
The shocking government owned New Zealand Super Fund (NZSF) decision to NOT divest from Israel Chemicals Ltd (ICL), manufacturer of white phosphorus, blatantly violates the NZSFResponsibilities:
"ethical investment including policies, standards and procedures for avoiding prejudice to New Zealand’s reputation as a responsible member of the world community"
and Standards for Human Rights: -
1. Support and respect human rights 2. No complicity in abuses..
set out in the
NZSF impressive but brushed off Responsible
Investment Framework.
Moreover, NZSF CEO, Adrian
Orr, conveniently and pragmatically amnesic of Israel’s
infinite violations of international law and UN resolutions,
assured members that,
In 2013, Israel said it would find alternatives to white phosphorus, following condemnation of its use on civilians during the 2008-09 Gaza conflict.
“We have no evidence that Israel Chemicals' product - or any white phosphorus - has been used against civilians in the recent Gaza conflict,” Mr Orr said. “Our analysis suggests Israel Chemicals operates within national and international laws, and conventions NZ has signed.” (LOL)
NZSF analysis, if done at all, is fraudulent. NZSF certainly acknowledges that Israel Chemicals is a supplier of white phosphorus to the US Defense Force.
But, easily found on Google, are contract awards from the US Army Contracting Command to ICL Performance Products for White Phosphorus, Destination to Pine Bluff Arsenal, Pine Bluff, AR to be “used for the Ctg 155mm M110A2”
As for Orr’s profit-induced ‘no evidence’,
The M110 / M110A1 White Phosphorus (WP) projectiles are available for 105mm and 155mm howitzers. Used for screening, spotting and signaling purposes, they have an additional incendiary effect on a target and processes casualty producing effects.
The contemptible NZSF’s 16-8-14 decision to continue assisting in the US manufacture of M110A2 was reviewed and reached during Israel's monstrous war, Operation Protective Edge, against the terrified trapped Gazan population. It shows the NZ fund to be an highly irresponsible member of the world community and a collaborator in Israel's war crimes.
On the
16-8-14, little Hamza Mus'ab Almandani, 3 ,of Khan
Younis, Gaza was in Nasser hospital in excruciating pain
suffering from burns like fire from artillery shells made in
Pine Bluff, USA that were fired on 25-7-14, discharging
white incendiary rain on Gaza in hundreds of
phosphorous-impregnated felt wedges as Hamza and his family
slept.
It is important that NZSF contributors are aware that White Phosphorous burns at 1500 degrees Fahrenheit or 816 degrees Celsius through skin, muscle and bone and is only contained by blocking off oxygen, but the extreme pain and, as you can see, the horrific tissue damage endures.
In terror, Hamza’s father, Mus’ab, also
injured along with his other children Bara and Nada, 5, ran
through the tumultuous night carrying Hamza who spent
agonising months in hospital. This once happy lively
toddler, is now mute from trauma and pain. . . thanks, in
part, to NZSF and its members.
NZSF should, at the
very least, be paying for this child to have burns treatment
in Italy. or Aotearoa New Zealand for that
matter.
Hamza’s suffering was DELIBERATELY
inflicted in 2014 in blatant defiance of the 2009
Human Rights Watch & Amnesty
Reports and the significant UN Goldstone Report on
Israel’s war crimes that condemned its illegal use. Israel
is also aware of “Protocol III of the 1980 Convention on
Conventional Weapons, which prohibits use of the substance
as an incendiary weapon against civilian populations and in
air attacks against military forces in civilian areas.”
Significantly, Israel’s illegal blockade on Gaza
prevents escape by land, sea and air. The alarming Israeli
documentary, The Lab, by Yotam Feldman exposes the
1.6 million ‘unworthy victims’ are locked in an Israeli
military laboratory cage that battle-tests weaponry on Gaza.
Billions of international dollars from western defense
departments and investors fuel the demand and sanction
Israeli atrocities.
NZSF executives, Chair Gavin
Walker, Deputy Chair Catherine Savage and Chief Executive
Adrian Orr, on $800,000 plus salaries, sit in their safe and
sleek offices making criminally negligent decisions to pour
NZ workers' monies into supporting Israeli companies that
are integral to the illegal colonisation and brutal
military oppression of Palestine's indigenous people that
has spanned 68 long long years. . . thus NZSF cannot plead
ignorance particularly if one also considers Israel’s
parallels to New Zealand's shameful history of violence
against the Maori peoples.
Nor are NZSF recipients
squeaky clean morally. Since August last year there have
been numerous calls in the media for NZSF divestment
from ICL and protests, by a few decent people at the NZSF
offices… but no mass demands from recipients for
divestment.
Other Israeli companies in the NZSF
portfolio that also have grounds for divestment are Strauss Group Ltd which has close
connections to the Israeli military, particularly the
notoriously vicious Golani and Givati brigades that
participated in war crimes in Gaza in 2008/9, 2011 and
2014.
And TEVA Pharmaceuticals has a plant in Har
Hotzvim beyond the Green Like making it a settlement
factory.
To understand the incestuous links between
the majority of Israeli companies steeped in Palestinian
blood and tears we can look at TEVA’s CEO.
TEVA’s Erez Vigodman was CEO of the Strauss Group
for 8 years, then CEO of Makhteshim Agan which had signed a
production agreement with U.S. chemical giant Monsanto to
develop an herbicide for weeds that had developed resistance
to glyphosate, its popular herbicide marketed as Roundup.
Israeli companies have a knack for death and
destruction.
NZSF must also check if the Israeli oil
companies in its portfolio are involved in the theft of
Palestinian oil and gas resources and all Israel Banks have
labyrithine investments in Israel’s arms and security
industries.
NZSF 'has a passive $900,000 investment in
Israel Chemicals Ltd which ethically must be immediately
divested along with the majority of its Israel investments.
The NZSF governance and its retiree recipients should, in the manner of all decent people, be absolutely outraged that their monies and blood profits are complicitous in the deaths and inhumane suffering of Palestinian children like little Hamza.
- Dr. Vacy Vlazna is Coordinator of Justice for Palestine Matters www.palestinematters.com
She was convenor of Acheh Human Rights Online
and Human Rights Advisor to the GAM team in the second round
of the Acheh peace talks, Helsinki, February 2005 then
withdrew on principle. Vacy was convenor of Australia East
Timor Association, coordinator of the East Timor Justice
Lobby as well as serving in East Timor with UNAMET as an
Electoral Officer and UNTAET as Tertiary Education Officer,
Political Officer and District Field Officer from 1999-2001.
She is a regular contributor to Palestine
Intifada, Palestine Chronicle, Dissident Voice, Al Jazeera,
Counterpunch,
Countercurrents.