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Editor:
The Wildcat article concerning UA ownership of stock in a tobacco company affiliate ("UA stock shares anger anti-smoking groups," Oct 23) has brought to the center stage an issue which has lain dormant since the 1980s and which involves not only tobacco company stock. In the 1980s, students aligned with anti-apartheid groups succeeded in having the Arizona B oard of Regents divest of the stock of companies doing business in South Africa.
It was such worldwide pressure in the support of South Africans struggling for freedom which eventually forced the apartheid regime to give up its hold on power. Following their South African stock divestment, the Arizona Board of Regents added a general social responsibility clause to its investment policy, one which seemingly has not been brought up since its inclusion.
A couple of years ago, Bishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace Prize winner from South Africa, called Burma "the South Africa of the '90s." In Burma's case, we have a brutal military dictatorship which has been condemned by governments and human rights organizations around the world. Yet it continues to rule in Burma thanks to the investments of large corporations from other countries. Many U.S. corporations including Eddie Bauer, Liz Claiborne and Apple Computers have pulled out of Burma. Upon its withdrawal from Burma, Levi Strauss stated, "It is not possible to do business in Burma without supporting the military government and its pervasive violation of human rights."
Yet American corporations like UNOCAL, marketer of Union 76 gasoline, and PepsiCo, whose subsidiaries include Pepsi, Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Frito-Lay Inc. continue to have business dealings in Burma. The democratically elected government of Burma has asked those who support human rights and democracy to not invest in Burma. The UA Free Burma Coalition met last semester with a member of the committee which handles the UA stock portfolio to begin the process of getting the UA to follow the example of other universities around the country in selling off its PepsiCo stock and announcing publicly its socially responsible reason for doing so.
We are continuing our efforts toward that goal this semester. We are also continuing to spread information about the national boycott of UNOCAL and PepsiCo. We hope that the UA will soon review its complete stock portfolio with an eye to socially responsible investment and that the UA's Memorial Student Union will consider our request to drop its Pepsi contract until Pepsi leaves Burma. Selling off its PepsiCo shares would be a first step toward fulfilling the socially responsible investment clause of the Board of Regents investment policy.
Night Wind
interdisciplinary studies senior
member, Free Burma Coalition
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