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CAMPAIGNERS have called on a Scottish council to divest its pension fund’s massive investments in companies “complicit in war crimes across Palestine.”
The Lothian Pension Fund, which began life under the now defunct Lothian Regional Council, now not only covers workers in the successor local authorities, but a total of 67 different employers and 79,000 workers.
As pension fund officials prepare to meet at Edinburgh’s Cosla conference centre today, they are set to face a protest outside, as well as a deputation within, demanding they divest from companies profiteering from the Gaza genocide.
Time to Divest Lothian is calling on the scheme to withdraw its investments in US arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin, worth £112 million to the fund, as well as engineering firms Caterpillar, worth £14m, and Siemens AG, worth £36m.
Campaigners say Lockheed Martin is Israel’s armourer of choice, Caterpillar bulldozers are used to destroy Palestinian homes and Siemens AG have profited from the construction of illegal Israeli settlements on occupied land, as well as equipping the prisons used to detain thousands of Palestinians without trial.
Time to Divest’s Ruaraidh Dempster told the Star: “Our goal is simple: demand that our local public pension funds are not complicit in the ongoing apartheid and genocide across Palestine.
“Currently, the Lothian Pension Fund contributes over £160m-worth of shares in three companies linked to the ongoing atrocities.
“This is public workers’ money — pensions, which they are told are treated ‘ethically’ and ‘responsibly,’ [are] anything but.
“Lothian Pension Fund holders, trade unionists, Palestine solidarity activists and the wider community are coming together to demand that the pension committee — which includes five local councillors — ends its complicity in genocide, now. It is time to divest.”
A Siemens spokesperson said: "We are not involved in the construction of illegal Israeli settlements nor are we involved in Prisons in Israel."
The Lothian Pension Fund was contacted for comment.
