Jul 242008
 

As of December 2009, Canada is signatory to the international treaty to ban cluster munitions and to use economic sanctions in support of the ban.

The treaty was under negotiation for a number of years during which time Lockheed Martin was a manufacturer of cluster munitions.

Canada has signed rich contracts with Lockheed Martin in breach of our own and International laws vis-a-vis land mines, and more recently in breach of the International Treaty on cluster munitions.

Our word isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.  I wonder why we bother to send delegations to participate in these international negotiations.

Updates to the following information are at:

2008-12-08  Canada signs international treaty to ban cluster bombs. The treaty conditions and moral authority require us to dis-invest from Lockheed Martin, manufacturer of cluster munitions.

and

2009-05-29 Countries destroying cluster bomb stockpiles. Canada preparing to ratify treaty. U.S. not signing the Treaty. Who runs the U.S.?

CONTENTS

(1)  COMMENTS

(2)  WHAT, AND HOW BAD ARE CLUSTER BOMBS?

(3)  CANADA, PRODUCER AND STOCK-PILER OF CLUSTER BOMBS  (UPDATE DECEMBER 3, 2008: NO LONGER THE CASE?)

(4)  BELGIUM BANNED THE PRODUCTION OF CLUSTER BOMBS AND PROHIBITS INVESTMENT IN CORPORATIONS THAT MANUFACTURE THEM

(5)  NORWEGIAN GOVERNMENT PENSION FUND DIVESTED FROM LOCKHEED MARTIN

(6)  NEW ZEALAND “Taking Action Against Cluster Bomb Manufacturers”

(7)  INTERNATIONAL TREATY TO BAN CLUSTER MUNITIONS, AND INVESTMENT IN THE MANUFACTURERS OF CLUSTER BOMBS

a.  NEW BOMB CLEAN-UP TREATY BEGINS, BBC NEWS, GENEVA 2006  (BACKGROUND)

b.  DISCUSSIONS IN LIMA, PERU, 2007 (BACKGROUND)

c.  MEETINGS CONTINUE, GENEVA, JULY 2008

d.  PRESS RELEASE: U.S. OUT OF STEP WITH ALLIES WITH HOLLOW “NEW” CLUSTER BOMB POLICY: UNRESTRICTED USE FOR ANOTHER DECADE

e.  WHERE IS CANADA IN THE INTERNATIONAL NEGOTIATIONS?

(8)  BUSH ADMINISTRATION, LARGEST MILITARY BUILDUP, MAJOR BENEFICIARY IS MILITARY CONTRACTORS.

(9)  GOVERNMENT (CITIZEN) INVESTMENT IN LOCKHEED MARTIN UNDOES THE SOCIAL JUSTICE AND PEACE WORK OF CANADIAN CHURCHES OVERSEAS

(10)  LETTER RE LOCKHEED’S MANUFACTURE OF CLUSTER BOMBS SENT TO DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY (Lockheed Martin gives money to Dalhousie, with strings attached))

==============

(1)  COMMENTS

Lockheed Martin is a manufacturer of cluster munitions.  Internationally there are continuing efforts and successes in the banning of cluster bombs.

The 2008 United Nations Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) is currently in progress in Geneva.  The treaty on cluster bombs is in negotiation.  “A month after 111 nations including major US allies agreed to ban cluster bombs, the United States says it will continue to use its huge stockpile for another decade.”  (Guess who runs the U.S. military?)    UPDATE:  the treaty was signed in December 2009   (hyperlink).

“(2007)  Belgium has not only banned the production of cluster bombs, but also adopted a law in March that bans banks and investment funds operating in that country from investing in companies that make these munitions. All countries should follow Belgium’s lead … Cutting off the flow of money to manufacturers of cluster munitions would discourage production …”

In Canada, cutting off the flow of money might mean cutting Lockheed Martin off from Government contracts?  Forget about the banks – we, the people of Canada help finance this manufacturer of cluster bombs.

A group named “Net Werk” in Belgium is behind the action that led to the refusal of Belgiums to have anything to do with the financing of cluster bomb manufacturers.

In this network we periodically refer to the ethical investing of Norway’s pension funds, more than $300 billion from North Sea oil royalties. The Fund has divested from Lockheed Martin.

When you understand the infiltration of Lockheed Martin into Canada, it is no surprise to see Canada on the list of countries that produce and stock-pile cluster bombs. (UPDATE: DEC 2008  Canada is no longer listed as a producer of cluster bombs and it is in the process of destroying its stockpile in accordance with the UN Convention on Cluster Munitions which it signed.)  There are people in Canada working hard to reclaim our identity of peace-builders in the world.  I am greatly pleased that our network of people can add our weight to help them.

Posting (hyperlink)  was a letter to Dalhousie University to convince Dalhousie to rescind the $two million dollar contract with Lockheed Martin.  The specific information that Lockheed is a manufacturer of cluster bombs may aid their decision.  I will send this additional material to them.

It is always easier and face-saving to prevent the Lockheed funding of universities from happening in the first place.  In a pre-emptive move, please contact people you know who have a connection to a University in Canada.  Alert them to the possibility that Lockheed Martin may already be knocking on the doors of their University.  Talk about it.  Spread the word.

Stop it before it’s a done-deal, as in the Dalhousie case.

” The problem lies not in the nature of man but in the nature of power. …  The state imagines it is impotent without a military because it cannot conceive of power without force. … ”  (from “Nonviolence:  Twenty-five lessons from the History of a Dangerous Idea” by Mark Kurlansky, 2006.)

Some people may prefer to start communicating with church and other groups, rather than the universities.  Government funding of a corporation that makes cluster bombs is an affront to the work of the Mennonite Central Committee, the Social Justice and Peace initiatives of various other churches, the great “development” work being done by various organizations, Amnesty International, Project Ploughshares, Doctors, Engineers Without Borders, … the list is long.

We dig into one pocket to help fund constructive initiatives in other countries.  Meanwhile the Government dips into our other pocket to take money to give to Lockheed Martin whose work completely destroys the good work of volunteers and under-paid contributors to international justice.

“Violence does not resolve.  It always leads to more violence.”  (Kurlansky) The war in Iraq clearly demonstrates that “People who go to war start to resemble their enemy”.

There are intelligent and creative, effective alternatives to the killing ways.  We are part of the alternative way.

Cheers!

Sandra

=========================

(2)  WHAT, AND HOW BAD ARE CLUSTER BOMBS?

“Cluster bombs are dropped in a canister that splits open in mid-air, scattering hundreds of soda-can-size bomblets over wide areas. The bombs can be either air-dropped or ground-launched.

Critics say cluster munitions are difficult to target accurately, and between five and 30 percent of the bomblets do not explode on impact, remaining in or on the ground and posing a risk to civilians, sometimes for years to come.  According to Handicap International, 400 million people live in affected areas where they are at risk from unexploded cluster bomblets.”    (Link no longer valid:  http://www.humanrights-geneva.info/article.php3?id_article=1705)

98% of cluster munitions victims are civilians.   http://www.stopclustermunitions.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/explosive-investments_financial-insts-and-clusters-netverk-vlaanderen.pdf

“Using cluster munitions is a serious breach of International Humanitarian Law as it is impossible to distinguish between civilian and military targets, and causes disproportionate long-term civilian harm.”

Unexploded, they are the same as the land mines that Princess Diana and Lloyd Awworthy are famous for working to eliminate.

Regarding international stock-piles, from (link no longer valid – – news.bbc.co.uk):

“One billion of them are in the United States alone.”

====================

(3)  CANADA, PRODUCER AND STOCK-PILER OF CLUSTER BOMBS  (UPDATE DECEMBER 2008: THE FOLLOWING NO LONGER APPLIES)

I was surprised to see Canada on 2 different lists of producers of cluster bombs:

a.  The June 2007 information on http://hrw.org/campaigns/clusters/chart/index.htm “A DIRTY DOZEN CLUSTER MUNITIONS” lists Canada under “Countries that Produce Cluster Munitions (34)”.

Canada is also listed under “Countries that Stockpile Cluster Munitions (75)”.

(“Countries Observing a  Domestic Prohibition, or a Moratorium, or Supporting a Moratorium are” (June 2007):

Belgium, Holy See, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway.)

b.  From (Link no longer valid: http://www.humanrights-geneva.info/article.php3?id_article=1705) regarding international treaties,

“At least 30 additional governments will sign the Oslo agreement in Lima … Some of these new adherents, like Argentina, Britain, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, produce cluster bombs.”

===============

(4)  BELGIUM BANNED THE PRODUCTION OF CLUSTER BOMBS AND PROHIBITS INVESTMENT IN CORPORATIONS THAT MANUFACTURE THEM

There is very good information on the website of the group behind Belgium’s principled stand:

http://www.stopclustermunitions.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/explosive-investments_financial-insts-and-clusters-netverk-vlaanderen.pdf

================

(5)  NORWEGIAN GOVERNMENT PENSION FUND DIVESTED FROM LOCKHEED MARTIN

Dr. Gor Nystuen from Norway participated in a panel organized in New Zealand, for the purpose of bringing that country on-side with legislation to stop the funding of corporations that manufacture cluster bombs.  Dr.  Nystuen’s biography explains the Norwegian situation:

http://www.stopclusterbombs.org.nz/2008/02/11/public-talks-cluster-bomb-manufacturers/

“Dr. Gro Nystuen chairs the Council on Ethics for the Norwegian Government Pension Fund. This governmental pension fund has amassed a fortune of more than $300 billion over the last decade from oil revenue (Norway is the world’s third largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia and Russia). Dr. Nysteun chairs the fund’s Council on Ethics, established in 2004 to advance an ambitious ethical code. She has helped establish ethical guidelines and disinvestment policies that are used to screen Fund investments. The criteria for exclusion of companies (corruption, environment, human rights, and manufacturing of certain weapons) has seen the Fund divest from manufacturers of antipersonnel mines, cluster bombs and nuclear weapons or related components (including General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and Lockheed Martin). Dr. Gro Nystuen is an Associate Professor at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights at the University of Oslo. She has been in the Norwegian foreign service since 1991 and played a key role in helping Norway to secure the 1997 treaty prohibiting antipersonnel mines.”

===================

(6)  NEW ZEALAND “Taking Action Against Cluster Bomb Manufacturers”

http://www.stopclusterbombs.org.nz/2008/02/11/public-talks-cluster-bomb-manufacturers/

The website has a list of links to groups from other countries who are working on the same issue.

===================

(7)  INTERNATIONAL TREATY TO BAN CLUSTER MUNITIONS, AND INVESTMENT IN THE MANUFACTURERS OF CLUSTER BOMBS

(UN Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW))

May 2007:  ” The government officials meeting in Lima this week are following up on a February agreement reached by 47 countries in Oslo, Norway to finish drafting a global treaty next year aimed at eradicating cluster munitions.”

a.  NEW BOMB CLEAN-UP TREATY BEGINS, BBC NEWS, GENEVA 2006 (BACKGROUND)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6140530.stm

Sunday, 12 November 2006, 01:25 GMT

New bomb clean-up treaty begins  By Imogen Foulkes BBC News, Geneva

The use of cluster bombs in Lebanon focused world attention A new international law is coming into force requiring countries to clear up unexploded bombs and mines or pay teams of de-miners to do it.

The treaty on explosive remnants of war covers ordnance such as land mines and cluster bombs.

At the same time, in Geneva, a UN arms review conference is under way amid growing pressure on member states to discuss a ban on cluster bombs.

Aid agencies say such bombs should be banned, not just cleaned up.

‘Cold War remnant’

There are thought to be billions of cluster bombs stockpiled around the world.

One billion of them are in the United States alone.

However, the US is one of the key nations, along with China and Russia who are not keen to discuss the issue.

Cluster bombs have been around for decades, used in wars from Vietnam to Kosovo.

“You can’t achieve your military or strategic aims if you kill large numbers of civilians in the process ”

(INSERT:  to me, you don’t have to be too smart to understand the last statement.)

Full text is on the website.

———

b.  DISCUSSIONS IN LIMA, PERU, 2007 (BACKGROUND)

http://www.humanrights-geneva.info/article.php3?id_article=1705

Lima: Taking Aim at Those Who Finance Cluster Bombs

24 May 07 – A future international treaty to ban cluster munitions should prohibit financial institutions from investing in companies that manufacture the weapons, Thomas Nash, coordinator of the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC), told IPS in the Peruvian capital.

Ángel Páez/IPS, Lima – Nash said the draft treaty being discussed Wednesday through Friday in Lima, Peru refers specifically to a ban on financing for cluster munitions manufacturers.

“Belgium has not only banned the production of cluster bombs, but also adopted a law in March that bans banks and investment funds operating in that country from investing in companies that make these munitions. All countries should follow Belgium’s lead,” said Nash in a civil society forum held Tuesday in Lima, ahead of the intergovernmental conference that opened Wednesday.

Cutting off the flow of money to manufacturers of cluster munitions would without a doubt discourage production, said Nash, who added that the international banking community should listen to the world’s clamour.

The government officials meeting in Lima this week are following up on a February agreement reached by 47 countries in Oslo, Norway to finish drafting a global treaty next year aimed at eradicating cluster munitions.

At least 30 additional governments will sign the Oslo agreement in Lima, Nash told IPS. Some of these new adherents, like Argentina, Britain, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, produce cluster bombs. Another manufacturer, Brazil, excused itself from participating in the conference.

Cluster bombs are dropped in a canister that splits open in mid-air, scattering hundreds of soda-can-size bomblets over wide areas. The bombs can be either air-dropped or ground-launched.

Critics say cluster munitions are difficult to target accurately, and between five and 30 percent of the bomblets do not explode on impact, remaining in or on the ground and posing a risk to civilians, sometimes for years to come According to Handicap International, 400 million people live in affected areas where they are at risk from unexploded cluster bomblets.

The six biggest producers of cluster bombs — Lockheed Martin, EADS, Thales, GenCorp, Textron and Raytheon — received 12.6 billion dollars in financing from 68 financial institutions between 2004 and 2007, according to the report “Explosive Investments: Financial Institutions and Cluster Munitions” by Netwerk Vlaanderen, a Belgian organisation that monitors arms trade funding and promotes sustainable investment.

The U.S.-based Textron, whose CBU-105 bombs were used by the U.S. army in Iraq, received a 1.25 billion dollar credit facility in 2005, arranged by Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, which provided 120 million dollars each. A total of 19 banks — including Bank of America, Britain’s Barclays, Germany’s Deutsche Bank and Switzerland’s UBS — are now taking part in the credit arrangement.

In March 2003, U.S. forces dropped cluster bombs in the Iraqi region of Hilla, south of Baghdad, killing at least 33 civilians and injuring 109, according to a report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

And although the Vietnam war ended more than 30 years ago, cluster bombs continue to cause severe damages to the civilian population in that southeast Asian country.

The CMC reports that 34 countries continue to produce cluster munitions, another 25 have used them in armed conflicts, and 75 have stockpiles that pose a threat to humanity.

Handicap International activist Anne Villeneuve said that 98 percent of victims of cluster munitions are civilians, the great majority of whom are poor, and many of whom are children.

Although Handicap International has compiled information on 13,308 confirmed casualties from cluster submunitions, it estimates that the total number of deaths from these weapons ranges between 55,000 and 100,000.

U.S. activist Jody Williams, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for leading the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which concluded that year with the signing of a global treaty, was in Lima to deliver a message of support from herself and another five Nobel laureates: Guatemalan indigenous activist Rigoberta Menchú, Iranian lawyer and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi, Northern Irish peace activists Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan, and Wangari Maathai, an environmental and political activist from Kenya.

The Nobel Women’s Initiative statement says that “Arms control and disarmament are not esoteric issues that only a few ‘experts’ are capable of handling — generally in negotiations behind closed doors. Any discussion related to weapons must not be based solely on military considerations, but must include the humanitarian perspective as well.”

Cluster bombs “have become synonymous with civilian casualties,” the Nobel Peace Prize-winners stated.

Williams said cluster bombs are an even bigger problem than land mines, because their effect is more lethal, and argued that institutions that finance the producers are as responsible as the manufacturers themselves for the fatal consequences of the weapons.

“While so many of the world’s arms cause so much human misery, cluster munitions deserve to be singled out as an especially pernicious weapon of ill repute,” Williams said.

She added that the United States alone has millions of stockpiled cluster munitions.

Since 1999, the areas where the largest numbers of cluster bombs have been used are Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo and Lebanon, and in every case, the large majority of victims have been civilians, said Villeneuve.

The Ottawa Treaty or Mine Ban Treaty should have brought a de facto cut-off of investment in factories producing land mines, but that does not seem to be happening, because there are banks that invest in the manufacturers, even if they come from countries that have banned land mines, said Villeneuve.

That is why the cluster munitions treaty must explicitly prohibit investment in companies that manufacture these weapons, she asserted.

Nash said “we have achieved a world practically free of land mines; now we are trying to clean the world of cluster bombs. And that is not an impossible dream.” (END/2007)

——-

c.  MEETINGS CONTINUE, GENEVA, JULY 2008

EXCERPT from http://www.stopclustermunitions.org/news/?id=429

July 08, 2008

NOTE:  CCW = United Nations “Convention on Conventional Weapons”

IHL = “International Humanitarian Law”

” … Both the morning and afternoon sessions lasted less than two hours each and there was some confusion on the continually changing programme of work.

The news of the day was the “new” US policy on cluster munitions leaked via an AP story late on Monday night. The policy (do nothing except export existing cluster munitions until 2018 and then adopt a 1% dangerous duds failure rate for cluster munitions) is unlikely to assist in pushing work forward in the CCW given that India, Pakistan, Russia, Brazil and others have explicitly ruled out a technology based approach. A scheduled lunchtime side event by US cluster munition producer Textron will not help this dynamic. The CMC press release on the US policy was circulated yesterday.

Overall it is becoming more and more difficult to see a meaningful way ahead for the CCW’s work on cluster munitions. The instinct for Canada, France, Germany and others appears to be that something in the CCW is better than nothing. But a new Protocol that does nothing to address the humanitarian concern and that risks undermining existing rules of IHL, competing with the high standard set by the CCM and providing a convenient alternative for states that are wavering about signing in Oslo would clearly be worse than nothing. While there are several weeks of discussions and much positioning to come in the CCW this year, looking ahead to the outcome in November there are three scenarios that might allow compatibility with the Oslo Process:

1) An end to discussions on a new protocol on cluster munitions with perhaps a commitment to renew focus on this in the implementation of Protocol V;

2) A roll over of the current mandate to continue discussions next year on a new instrument on cluster munitions, while the CCM is busy entering into force;

3) Agreement in November on a brief protocol that says very little, but what it does say is consistent with the CCM and so does not conflict with it.

——

d.  PRESS RELEASE: U.S. OUT OF STEP WITH ALLIES WITH HOLLOW “NEW”

CLUSTER BOMB POLICY: UNRESTRICTED USE FOR ANOTHER DECADE

EXCERPT from http://www.stopclustermunitions.org/news/?id=429

(Geneva, July 8, 2008) – A month after 111 nations including major US allies agreed to ban cluster bombs, the United States says it will continue to use its huge stockpile for another decade. According to the new policy memorandum signed by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the US will also seek to ship cluster bombs to other countries, despite US law prohibiting transfers. After 2018, the US will still use cluster munitions with a claimed failure rate of less than 1 percent, despite wide recognition that a failure rate approach will not prevent unacceptable harm to civilians. The policy puts the US squarely at odds with the 111 nations-including nearly all major US allies-that agreed to a new international treaty in May that comprehensively bans the use, production, trade and stockpiling of cluster munitions, no matter what the failure rate. The United States has been the leading known user, producer, stockpiler, and exporter of cluster bombs.

“Washington’s cluster bomb policy is too little, too late,” said Steve Goose, director of the arms division at Human Rights Watch, and co-chair of the Cluster Munition Coalition. “Most key US allies have already rejected cluster bombs because innocent civilians are killed and maimed, not only when the weapons are used but also months and years after that. Knowing this, how in good conscience can the US wait 10 years to accept a lesser standard?”

The US policy will allow unfettered use of the nearly 1 billion submunitions now in US stockpiles for the next decade, almost all of which are known to have very high failure rates and to be highly inaccurate, as shown in Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, and in southeast Asia. Even the future policy is flawed with the percentage failure rate approach having been discredited after evidence from the 2006 conflict in Lebanon and rejected by states adopting the global ban last May.

“Even in ten years time, this policy will not be sufficient to protect civilians,” said Grethe Ostern of Norwegian People’s Aid, co-chair of the CMC. “There are no safe cluster bombs. The failure rate determined under testing conditions will have little relationship to the real failure rate in combat. And even then, the new US policy will not address the indiscriminate, wide area effect of cluster munitions during attacks.”

In addition to allowing continued use, the US would seek to transfer cluster munitions around the world, even though current law prohibits it.

“Shockingly, the new policy states the US will seek to ship cluster munitions with high failure rates to other countries, despite the fact that Congress passed and President Bush signed a law last year banning such trade,” said Goose.

————————

e.  WHERE IS CANADA IN THE NEGOTIATIONS?

UPDATE, DECEMBER 3, 2008:  CANADA SIGNED THE TREATY to ban cluster munitions.

Pushing hard for an international ban on cluster bombs?  I don’t know.  But it is something we should find out.  If our Government is not aggressively supporting the positions of Belgium and Norway, etc. it is our responsibility to see that they are.  If they are, we should be extending our support to the officials.  If anyone knows the situation, please send it in.  It looks as though the meetings resume in November.

===========================

(8)  BUSH ADMINISTRATION, LARGEST MILITARY BUILDUP, MAJOR BENEFICIARY IS MILITARY CONTRACTORS.  NUMBERS.

(link no longer valid , worldpolicy.org)

CONTRACTS SOAR ON STRENGTH OF RECORD MILITARY SPENDING

March 2007

The Bush administration has presided over one of the largest military buildups in the history of the United States, and the biggest beneficiaries of this spending boom have been major military contractors.

Counting the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Department of Energy’s work on nuclear weapons and naval reactors, proposed military spending for FY 2008 is $647 billion. After adjusting for inflation, this represents the highest level of military spending since World War II – higher than the peak of the Reagan buildup, higher than spending during Vietnam, and higher than the top year of the Korean conflict. Military spending has more than doubled since President Bush took office in January 2001.

This growth in overall military spending has been accompanied by comparable growth in prime contracts awarded to military firms like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Boeing. Pentagon contracts are up from $144 billion in FY2001 to over $294 billion in FY 2006, an increase of 103%.

Measured in dollar terms, Lockheed Martin was by far the biggest beneficiary of the increase in Pentagon contracts. Between FY2005 and FY2006, Pentagon contracts to this Maryland-based company totaled over $26 billion, a $7.1 billion increase over a one-year period. Other contractors gaining $1 billion or more between FY2005 and FY2006 included Northrop Grumman ($3.1 billion), Boeing ($1.9 billion) and Raytheon ($1.0 billion). Lesser known firms like the American Body Armor and Equipment Company, the Kuwaiti Petroleum Corporation, and Tetra Tech have seen their contracts jump five- or ten-fold since 2001, in large part due to contracts linked to the Iraq war.

Stock prices are another way to measure the degree to which weapons contractors are benefitting from war increases. According to an analysis done by the War Resisters League, Lockheed Martin’s stock price increased 116% since March 2003. Boeing, General Dynamics, Halliburton and L-3 Communications are among the contractors who saw their stock values jump more than 100%. During the same period, the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased by 54%, meaning that many weapons contractors enjoyed double the average increase.

=================

(9)  GOVERNMENT (CITIZEN) INVESTMENT IN LOCKHEED MARTIN UNDOES THE SOCIAL JUSTICE AND PEACE WORK OF CANADIAN CHURCHES AND ORGNAIZATIONS OVERSEAS

Discussed under COMMENTARY.  Please help see that information gets to people who are involved in these organizations.

=========================

(10)  LETTER RE LOCKHEED’S MANUFACTURE OF CLUSTER BOMBS SENT TO DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY

TO:  DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION

SENT:  Thursday July 24th, 2008

EMAIL ADDRESS:  (andrea.power AT dal.ca)

CC:  Dalhousie University Faculty Assoc

DFA   AT dal.ca

CC:  Dalhousie Student Union

dsu  AT  dal.ca

TO:  Dalhousie University

– The Senate

– Board of Governors

– President Dr. Tom Travis

FROM:  Sandra Finley    Saskatoon, Saskatchewan  Canada S7N  0L1

Dear Members of the Dalhousie Governing Body,

In follow-up to my request of July 14th that you re-consider the decision to accept funding from Lockheed Martin Corporation:

The attached information documents:

– that Lockheed Martin is a manufacturer of cluster bombs.

– that cluster bombs contravene International Humanitarian Law.

It is persuasive argument against investing in, or taking money from Lockheed Martin.

Thank-you for consideration of my request.

Best wishes,    Sandra Finley

 Leave a Reply

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

(required)

(required)