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faceless
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Joined: 25 Apr 2006
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 Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 4:59 pm Post subject: Anti Israel/Raytheon demo in Belfast |
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I'd not heard much about Raytheon Military Technology before, but it seems they make missile systems. |
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faceless
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Joined: 25 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 6:42 pm Post subject: |
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http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/05/399460.html
ok, so here's more to do with the story and the 'Raytheon 9'. I'd not heard a word about this story before now, but it's clearly an important one. Well done to the activists who took the direct action. |
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faceless
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Joined: 25 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 3:33 pm Post subject: |
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good stuff. |
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luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
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| Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 7:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Raytheon Nine Acquittal Details
I’m happy to finally be able to publish this! When the news broke, at the very day the trial ended, all of the activists who were following the case were asked to kindly not give too many details for reasons of a Gag Order. Seeing that this article has been published in an Irish paper, I assume the order has been in some way overridden. The implications of the acquittal of these peace activists is indeed important. I thank David Morrison for his great article which gives details that were previously unavailable for public dissemination.
On 11 June 2008, 6 people, who had occupied the offices of Raytheon in Derry and destroyed computers, were acquitted of criminal damage by a Belfast jury. Raytheon is a huge US arms manufacturer, with sales of $20 billion in 2006 and over 70,000 employees worldwide. It makes Patriot, Tomahawk, Cruise and Sidewinder missiles, and much more besides.
The action which gave rise to the criminal charges took place on 9 August 2006 during Israel’s war on Lebanon, in which well over 1,000 Lebanese civilians were killed by Israeli bombing and shelling. On 30 July 2006, an Israeli aircraft targeted a residential building in Qana in southern Lebanon with a Raytheon-supplied “bunker buster” bomb. As a result, 28 civilians, from two extended families, the Hashems and the Shaloubs, were killed. The dead included 14 children.
This event led to 9 members of the Derry Anti- War Coalition occupying Raytheon’s offices in Derry ten days later. They remained there until forcibly removed by police in riot gear about 8 hours later. Substantial damage was done to Raytheon property:
“Documents found on the premises were thrown from the windows to supporters outside. After our supporters were moved away by the police, computers, already damaged, were hurled out. Our main target was the mainframe: we knew that putting this out of action would disrupt Raytheon’s ordering system and thus hamper production, including production of missiles. The mainframe was decommissioned with a fire-extinguisher.”
This account is taken from The Raytheon 9: Resisting war crimes is not a crime, an excellent pamphlet about the affair by Eamonn McCann, who took part in the occupation.
The action eventually led to 6 of the participants appearing before a judge and jury in Belfast in May 2008, charged with criminal damage and affray. On 4 June 2008, after the prosecution had put its case, the judge expressed the opinion that there was no case to answer on either charge. However, the prosecution appealed to a higher court and won with respect to the criminal damage charge, which then had to be put the jury. A few days later, the jury found all the accused not guilty on the criminal damage charge. The charge of affray was dismissed by the judge without it being put to the jury.
The trial went largely unreported in the local Northern Ireland media, and in the Dublin and London media. The same is true of the verdict, even though it has sensational implications. The defence argued that the accused had undertaken their action in order to prevent war crimes being perpetrated in Lebanon by Israel using Raytheon-supplied weapons. In the words of Eamonn McCann in a statement afterwards, by finding the accused not guilty:
"The jury has accepted that we were reasonable in our belief that: the Israel Defence Forces were guilty of war crimes in Lebanon in the summer of 2006; that the Raytheon company, including its facility in Derry, was aiding and abetting the commission of these crimes; and that the action we took was intended to have, and did have, the effect of hampering or delaying the commission of war crimes.” [1]
In other words, in the opinion of the jury, having heard the evidence, it was reasonable of the defendants to believe that Raytheon was engaged in criminal activity by supplying Israel with armaments and that they were justified in perpetrating criminal damage on Raytheon property in order to hamper this criminal activity. In his statement, Eamonn McCann called "on the office of the Attorney General and the Crown Prosecution Service, in light of this verdict, to institute an investigation into the activities of Raytheon at its various plants across the UK, with a view to determining whether Raytheon is, as we say it is, a criminal enterprise.”
Gagging order
The Raytheon trial would normally have taken place in Derry, where the offences alleged were committed. However, on 14 September 2007, the prosecution requested a change of venue, on the grounds that protests outside the court might intimidate jurors, and coverage in the local media might prejudice them.
At this time, the presiding judge, the Derry recorder, Corinne Philpott, banned publicity about the case, but in such general terms that journalists present didn’t know what they were allowed to report and what was banned.
There was no reporting of the application for a change of venue. On 10 December 2007, Judge Philpott imposed a blanket ban on reporting in Northern Ireland of any matter relating to the trial, including anything at all relating to Raytheon. The objective seems to have been to prevent publicity in Northern Ireland about Raytheon’s arms business, which might make a jury incline to the view that damaging its computers was a good idea.
There was no attempt by mainstream media organisations in Northern Ireland or elsewhere to have this extraordinary gagging order lifted or modified, despite the fact that their work was being hampered by the ban. For example, the Village magazine reported on 29 February 2008:
“Suzanne Breen (formerly of Village, now writing for the Sunday Tribune) has been referred to the Attorney General for possible contempt in an article published on 18 November in the Sunday Tribune. She had mentioned possible witnesses from the USA and Lebanon, and that, if convicted, defendants could face lengthy jail sentences.
“Also RTE has ordered Belfast independent production company Below the Radar to delete sections on Raytheon from a film about Ireland and the arms trade transmitted on 14 January. The effect of the ban is that all discussion of Raytheon’s presence in Derry has been shut down.” [2]
However, a legal challenge to the order was launched by Shane O’Curry of the Foyle Ethical Investment Campaign. As a result, the Belfast recorder, Judge Burgess, modified the order in late February 2008 to limit the ban to the usual one on pre-trial reporting of material directly relevant to the trial. It could then be reported for the first time that the Derry recorder had acceded to the prosecution’s request to move the trial from Derry to Belfast.
David Morrison
Irish Political Review
15 June 2008
References:
[1] www.ukwatch.net/article/raytheon9_acquitted
[2] www.village.ie/Ireland/Northern_Ireland/Media_gag_over_Derry_arms_factory_occupation/ |
http://palestinethinktank.com/2008/07/08/raytheon-nine-acquittal-details-by-david-morrison/ |
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major.tom
Macho Business Donkey Wrestler
Joined: 21 Jan 2007
Location: BC, Canada
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| Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 11:55 pm Post subject: |
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This is surprising news indeed. Well done to the demonstrators. They really stuck their heads out and thankfully the judge and jury saw their actions as contributing to the greater good.
Was the gagging order to protect Raytheon or to keep the trial in Derry (or both)? I suppose we'll never know for certain. |
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luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 5:16 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Mark Steel: How to take on an arms manufacturer – and win
A trial took place recently in Belfast that seems to explain how nothing makes any sense. It revolved around a factory owned by the arms company Raytheon, which was set up in Derry soon after the IRA ceasefire. John Hume, who'd just won the Nobel Peace Prize, was among those who announced the opening of the plant, welcoming it as a result of the "peace dividend".
So now the men of violence had agreed to give up their weapons, the area could attract a peaceful company with a turnover of $17bn from making weapons, announced by a man with a prize for bringing peace.
Clearly, while the IRA were decommissioning their arms, most of us misunderstood this process. Because the government reports must have gone, "They possess 100 rifles, 10 RPGs, 7 rockets and a shed full of Semtex. If they want to be taken seriously this isn't nearly enough; they need Tornado bombers and a car park full of tanks – we can't deal with these amateurs."
For example, when Raytheon won a contract to develop a new missile system for the Israelis in 2006, a spokesman boasted they would, "provide all-weather hit-to-kill performance at a tactical missile price". Next they might have adverts that go, "Hurry hurry hurry to the Raytheon springtime sale for lasers, Tasers and civilian-erasers. We'll make flesh sizzle through snow, sleet or drizzle, and without making a casualty of your wallet".
Despite this, the government in Northern Ireland welcomed the new plant, claiming they'd been assured it wouldn't be making weapons. To which a reasonable response would be, "Right – they're a weapons manufacturer. They supplied weapons to, among others, the Indonesian military junta. This might, if you were cynical, suggest they make weapons. Or what do you think they're going to be making – Fairtrade poxy custard!"
Eventually it was admitted that they were developing software for guiding missiles, and so for a while there was a pretence these were being employed for peaceful reasons. Perhaps the systems were being attached to wasps so they could be guided away from picnics.
But then it became clear that they were being used by the Israelis in Lebanon, and one such system guided a missile into a block of flats in Qana, killing 28 people, mostly children. A few days later the local anti-war group, including the journalist and civil rights activist Eamonn McCann, decided to occupy the Raytheon building as a protest. A group of nine got into the plant, and as a gesture they threw a computer or two out of the window.
Eventually around 40 police arrived and, as Eamonn describes, "They smashed through the doors wearing riot gear, many holding perspex shields, some pointing plastic-bullet guns. They inched forward while the officer in command shouted 'Surrender!'. We continued playing cards." And you can imagine this catching on, eventually being shown every night on the Men and Motors channel as Extreme Rummy.
Then came the official outrage – they'd wilfully broken the law, destroyed property etc, etc. So maybe whether an act of destruction is considered illegal or not comes down to the value of the objects destroyed. And computers are worth a fair packet, whereas a house in Qana can probably be picked up for next to nothing, especially with the current housing slump!
Perhaps the activists irritated the authorities by bothering to find out whether Raytheon was actually making these weapons. A more official approach might have been to announce that the local Co-op was making weapons, as proved in a dossier containing snippets from the internet about how the manager had been buying uranium from North Korea and smuggling it in packets of fish fingers, and flatten them instead.
Last year the group travelled to Qana to meet the families of the victims of that missile, and they described the trip, not surprisingly, as the most moving experience of their lives. But while it's all very well feeling compassion for dead civilians, someone has to consider the feelings of those poor computers, so the nine went on trial in Belfast.
But then the case revolved around whether the defendants "held a genuine belief, with reasonable evidence, that their actions were preventing war crimes by Israel". If this could be proved, then it would be established that they acted to curtail a greater crime, and they'd be found innocent. So that's what the jury did and they were free to go. The outcome was so remarkable, you almost dare to imagine a day when Blair and Bush are in a cell with Karadzic, arguing about whose turn it is to slop out.
But mostly, I wonder if, when the computers hit the ground, in their last moments they flickered, "You have performed an illegal operation". |
from the independent |
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major.tom
Macho Business Donkey Wrestler
Joined: 21 Jan 2007
Location: BC, Canada
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 5:26 am Post subject: |
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| Poignant and funny. Nice find, Luke. |
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luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
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| Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2009 2:41 pm Post subject: |
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