Increasing Pressure for Lev Leviev
Adalah-NY: The Coalition for Justice in the Middle
East
For immediate release
Diamond Mogul, Lev Leviev,
Facing Increasing Pressure for Human
Rights
Violations
New York, NY, June 19, 2008 – A
senior advisor to UNICEF’s Director
said in a letter
today that UNICEF will reject all partnerships with,
or
financial support from, Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev.
Leviev had
previously provided UNICEF with support by
sponsoring fundraising
events in France. Leviev’s past
support for UNICEF is featured in a
number of places on
his company’s website (www.leviev.com).
UNICEF’s
rejection of Leviev’s support followed meetings with
Adalah-
NY, letters from organizations and Palestinian
communities advocating
a boycott of Leviev’s companies,
and a visit by UNICEF officials to
Jayyous, one of the
Palestinian communities where a Leviev company
is
building Israeli settlements. Leviev’s
diamond-mining companies in
Angola have also been accused
of serious human rights abuses.
Abdullah Abu Rahme, a
community leader from the West Bank village of
Bil’in,
said, “We welcome UNICEF’s decision to hold one of
the
companies that has been building Mattityahu East
settlement
accountable for attempting to destroy our
community. Our village has
engaged in a three year
nonviolent campaign to save our land, and
an
international boycott is an important complement to
our weekly
protests. This is a victory, but we need many
more like it.” Leviev’s
companies have also recently
built homes in the settlements of Maale
Adumim and Har
Homa, both of which cut off East Jerusalem from the
West
Bank.
A June 19 letter to Adalah-NY from Chris De Bono,
senior
communications advisor to UNICEF’s Executive
Director, stated:
"Yesterday we confirmed that UNICEF has
concluded that it will not
consider partnerships - direct
or indirect - with Mr. Lev Leviev or
any of his corporate
entities, and will not accept financial or other
support
that we know is from him or his corporate entities.
The
concerned parts of the UNICEF family, including our
national
committees, have been advised of this." (See the
full UNICEF
letter:
http://adalahny.org/images/stories/unicef-leviev.pdf)
The letter
followed a June 18th meeting at UNICEF’s New
York headquarters with
representatives from
Adalah-NY.
In a previous March 25, 2008 letter to
Adalah-NY, UNICEF explained
that Leviev had indirectly
supported UNICEF three times, “each time as
a sponsor
of fundraising activities organized by the French
magazine
Gala in support of UNICEF.” In the same letter
UNICEF expressed its
support for UN resolutions stating
that Israeli settlements violate
international law. Then
in April, UNICEF received letters demanding
that it
reject all support from Leviev from Jewish Voice for
Peace,
Defence for Children International-Palestine, the
villages of Jayyous
and Bil’in, The Palestinian
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
Campaign, and Jews
Against the Occupation.
The Mayor of the West Bank village
of Jayyous, Mohammed Taher Jaber,
commented: “UNICEF
officials visited us in May and saw the terrible
impacts
on our children of the theft of our farmland for the
expansion
of Zufim settlement by Leviev’s company
Leader. We thank UNICEF for
upholding international law,
and supporting children’s rights, and we
call on other
organizations to do the same.”
When contacted by
Adalah-NY in January, Oxfam International
announced
publicly that it had not received support from
Leviev, contrary to
press reports and information on one
of Leviev’s websites, and that it
would not accept his
support in the future due to Leviev’s
companies’
settlement construction. Dubai has also
recently announced that it
would not allow Leviev to open
planned jewelry stores in the Emirate
following boycott
calls issued by Adalah-NY and
Palestinian
communities.
ends