Activists file criminal complaint against Raytheon for war crimes Press Release, Massachusetts Anti-Corporate Clearinghouse

8 April 2003

LAWRENCE, MA -- The Massachusetts Anti-Corporate Clearinghouse (MACC) plans to file formal criminal complaints against Raytheon with the Andover and Lexington police departments on Tuesday, charging the company and its top officers with conspiring to provide the U.S. government with the tools to commit war crimes and crimes against peace. Andover is the site of a Raytheon electronics plant that makes circuit boards for missiles and bombs and Lexington is the home of the company's corporate headquarters.

"The Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal convicted the makers of the Zyklon-B gas used in the gas Nazi chambers of conspiracy to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity because they knew the gas they were selling to the government was being used to murder innocent people" according to Sean Donahue, who heads up MACC's War Crimes Investigation Unit.

"Similarly we can assume that the executives of Raytheon were aware of published accounts that documented the U.S. government's use of bombs and missiles to deliberately destroy the civilian infrastructure of Iraq during the1991 Gulf War, a violation of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, Articles 51, 52, 54, and 55.

"Raytheon therefore knew that its primary client had a history of committing war crimes, and should have known that there was a significant chance that the U.S.government would commit war crimes again if Raytheon supplied the company with more weapons.

"British journalist Robert Fisk has obtained physical evidence proving that the U.S. used a weapon manufactured by Raytheon in an attack on a Baghdad market place on Friday, March 28 that killed 62 civilians. This tragedy was a foreseeable result of the massive bombardment of an urban area and hence a violation of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, Article 51, Sections 4 (b) and (c) and 5 (a) and (b).

"Committing a war crime is a federal felony under U.S. Code Title18, Part I, Chapter 118. And under the Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal which were codified into law under United Nations General Assembly Resolution 177(II), complicity in a war crime is itself a war crime, and the fact that a person was following the orders of a government does not absolve that person of responsibility for committing a war crime.

"Raytheon is continuing to supply weapons to the U.S. government, despite its knowledge of these war crimes, and despite the company's knowledge that the United States in engaged in a war of aggression in violation of the Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal and Articles 2 and 33 of the United Nations Charter.

"The Andover and Lexington police departments have a legal responsibility to stop Raytheon from engaging in this criminal conspiracy with the United States government and to investigate and prosecute the aforementioned war crimes and other crimes committed using Raytheon weapons during the prosecution of the illegal war against Iraq.

"If they fail to do so, we will fulfill our repsonsibilities under the Priniciples of the Nuremberg Tribunal by taking nonviolent direct action to interfere with this conspiracy at a time and place of our choosing."

MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-CORPORATE CLEARINGHOUSE
PO BOX 1382
LAWRENCE MA 01842
(978)683-3967
 info@stopcorporatecontrol.org
www.stopcorporatecontrol.org