FAQs on UA Company Boycott/Disinvest Campaign

DISCLAIMER: This is a fact-sheet prepared by the student architects of the three-year campaign by UA No Ms Muertes/No More Deaths and other student/community groups to terminate UA business contracts with the Caterpillar (CAT) and Motorola corporations. The grisly crimes to which these companies continue to contribute are life and death matters for which we are responsible and which affect the Universitys reputation. We urge you to conduct your own independent, critical investigations of these matters. Do not rely on the word of detractors, administrators or advocates (including us via this document) Analyze original sources, such as those included below, and make your own judgments. We ask for your support to help the UA restore its former principles. Join us to urge the UA to divest from CAT & Motorola! Mtgs Fridays, 5pm, Chavez Bldg., Rm. 211/ contact@uanomoredeaths.org / Twitter: @uaNMD

What are the companies accused of doing? From Arizona to Palestine, Caterpillar (CAT) and Motorola continue to participate in some of the worst, mass cases of human rights abuses on earth. In Mar. 2009, Human Rights This cartoon of a paymaster Uncle Sam turning a blind Watch investigators uncoveredand publicized in The Nation magazineMotorolas role of eye to US money feeding the military might of apartassisting drone missile technology used in the premeditated mass killing of Palestinian heid South Africa was featured by the Editorial Board of the Arizona Daily Star beside their article entitled civilians by Israeli military forces during Israels US-supported 2008-09 Gaza invasion. The Act of Principle: Board of Regents could do no less invasion, which Amnesty International called 22 days of death and destruction, resulted in than disinvestpublished days after the Regents ordered UA and ASU to divest $3.4 million in busi1400 Palestinian deaths (four-fifths of whom were civilian and 350 children) and the deaths nesses supporting South Africa. (Daily Star, 09/10/85) of ten Israeli combatants (four killed by friendly fire) and three civilians. Israel armors CAT bulldozers and uses them to demolish Palestinian homes, raze agriculture and uproot crops. Several Palestinians have been killed, crushed to death by Israeli CAT military-bulldozer operationswhich also claimed the life of a US college student named Rachel Corrie in 2003.1 CAT and Motorola products are also used to commit human rights violations against migrants and indigenous peoples in the US/Mexico borderlands and nationwide through building deadly deterrence strategy infrastructure (CAT) and aiding a violent raid and detention system (Motorola).2 Does this campaign single out Israel? No. The UANMD divestment campaign equally targets US human rights violations of migrants and indigenous people along the US/Mexico border. Regarding Israel: no state is above criticism. Israel has every responsibility of any state in the international systemno more, no less. Any actor, state or corporate, that violates human rights should be held accountable under the law. Its worth noting that this same singling-out issue arose around public discussions of Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR)s order on UA and ASU to divest $3.4 million from companies doing business in South Africa. University administrators cautioned against singling out South Africa for its human rights abuses, noting that South Africa is not the only country where devastating events are taking place (Regent Reilly). Therefore, the Arizona Daily Star reported, the AZ Regents broadened their investment policies to include moral and ethical considerations that can apply to other situations that would require similar divestment action in the future. ABOR set up the framework that we are simply applying in this case against CAT & Motorola.3 How is the UA invested in these companies? In 1999, the Motorola Corporation partnered with the UA to provide communication technology for the UA Police Department.4 In 2004, the UA entered into a business licensing agreement with the Caterpillar Corporation5 regarding a software program provided to the College of Engineering. Both contracts remain active. The terms of each contract demonstrate a long-term, committed relationship, or quite simply, a mutual investment. The University may also be invested in the companies through stocks, bonds, pension or endowment funds. The UA Investments Office has not substantiated this possibility either way until it provides the Universitys investment portfolio for public inspection. But arent CAT and Motorola products on campus helping the UA community? Absolutely. This is exactly why these companies should understand that their involvement in activities contrary to University
As just two examples (of many), see: Human Rights Watch, Remote Control Death (3/20/09) and Razing Rafah (Oct. 2004). Amnestys quote 22 days of death and destruction is the subtitle of their report released on 2 July 2009. For references, see UANMDs divestment statement at www.uanomoredeaths.org. Then see: Arizona Daily Star, 27 January 2012. For Regent Reillys quote, see: ABOR, Meeting Minutes, 6-7 Sept. 1985. Contact: www.azregents.edu. For Daily Star quote, see: Arizona Daily Star, Regents order divestment of S. Africa-linked holdings, 7 Sept. 1985. 4 Arizona Daily Wildcat, 15 Feb. 2010; Motorola contract: http://www.scribd.com/gschivon/d/79115618-Motorola-Contract 5 To view the CAT contract, see: http://www.scribd.com/doc/44211685/UA-CAT-Contract
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policies, US law and international agreements will not be tolerated. Furthermore, the University cannot be selective with its principles, utilizing benign and beneficial products from CAT and Motorola while turning a blind eye to the destructive uses and effects of other company products. The University of Arizonas Policy on Corporate Relations6 commands no less: The name of the university should never be used to endorse any products or corporations whose products are instruments of destruction or known to cause harm to humans (emphasis added). The issue of ignoring destructive uses of company products has been addressed in the court of law. In April 2009, the very month that the Arizona Daily Wildcat first publicized the UA-CAT-Motorola partnership7, a respected New York District judge, Shira Scheindlin, allowed lawsuits to proceed against several companies accused of aiding and abetting vicious apartheid crimes in South Africa. The crimes aided by these companies included torture and extrajudicial killings (exactly among the abuses in which CAT and Motorola continue to be complicit). When the defense counsel of IBM Systems said the company couldnt be expected to police the uses of their products by clients (not surprising, also arguments mouthed by CAT and Motorola over the past decade), Judge Scheindlin sharply retorted: "That level of willful blindness in the face of crimes in violation of the law of nations cannot defeat an otherwise clear showing of knowledge that the assistance IBM provided would directly and substantially support apartheid."8 Termination of University-corporate partnerships should occur until CAT and Motorola respect human rights and can then be reconsidered for reinvestment. But if the companies fail to remedy their involvement in human rights abuses, then their contracts should remain terminated. After all, the products are not irreplaceable. There are always alternatives, in particular those that maintain fiduciary duties and equipment that provides services just as good as, or better, than CAT and Motorola products. If the UA divests from CAT and Motorola now, when will divestment stop? Where do we draw the line? Principles and policies that serve to animate human and communal values compel the University to embrace eternal vigilance. But interestingly, the draw the line quip was one of the most popular anti-divestment arguments raised time and time again during the South African apartheid era. In fact, the argument appears virtually word-for-word in the 1985 Staff Report to Finance Committee on Divestment9 authorized by AZ Regents President Donald Pitt tasked to study the issues relating to university investment policies while specifically address the question of apartheid in South Africa. The report includes the words of anti-divestment speakers, including corporate representatives, who testified on the matter: To disinvest would set a senseless precedent restricting U.S. business operations in any countries whose social policies might be objectionable. Where will we draw the line? AZ Regent Reilly agreed, according to the Arizona Daily Star: if we react to one pressure issue, there is no saying what the next one will be.10 Nevertheless, the AZ Regents vote to divest even though the UA and ASUs investments, on the whole, is a drop in the bucket and sadly may not save one life (Regent Auslander). Then, why divest? Because, as Auslander said, it is the right thing to do to take a powerful symbolic step,11 with Regent Chanen adding that universities are responsible for shaping and refining the political minds of the future.12 Also, divestment is simply the decent thing to do. Regent Capin explained: investment has become a symbol for support of policies that I find obscene and abhorrent.13 In other words, divestment is morally imperative. The answer remains the same today namely, it is minimally appropriate to properly draw the line at the UAs own principles and apply them case by case. In July 2009, when the UA divested from the Russell Corporation (a subsidiary of Fruit of the Loom), which enjoyed one of the UAs top financial contracts, the UA Spokesperson vowed that the University "will continue to work" with the appropriate labor and human rights monitoring bodies "to hold corporations accountable in supporting" international human rights standards.14 So, the University itself answers this question. And we couldnt agree more with UA administrators on this point. In the throes of a financial crisis, how can the UA, on behalf of ABOR, be expected to divest? In the mid-Reagan years, during a deep economic recession, the UA and ASU found it not only possible and necessary to divest a whopping $3.4 million (roughly $7 million today), the institutions found it financially safe and prudent to do so. Following ABORs divestment order, the Arizona Daily Wildcat quoted UA Senior Vice President for Administration and Finance, Ben J. Tuchi, who assured the UA community that [t]he health of our investment portfolio should not be affected15 His assurance was expressed confidently despite the UAs share of the divestment order ($2.2 million) was about 10% of the universitys entire endowment, and double that of ASUs South Africa investments. Contrarily, CAT provides software to the UA at no cost; Motorolas equipment, in all, cost the University $200,000. A pale comparison. Alternatives are available if UA leaders are serious and honest about honoring their own principles, not to speak of US law and international agreements. Join us today to help Restore the UAs Former Human Rights Principles! Mtgs Fridays, 5pm, Chavez, Rm. 211 / www.uanomoredeaths.org / contact@uanomoredeaths.org / Twitter: @uaNMD
Instituted on 29 January 1999; http://web.arizona.edu/~policy/corp-rel.shtml Arizona Daily Wildcat, 21 Apr. 2009. U.S. judge rules apartheid suits can proceed, 8 April 2009. 9 Provided as an attachment to ABOR, Meeting Minutes, 6-7 Sept. 1985. See note 3. 10 See note 3. 11 Arizona Daily Wildcat, Regents order universities to divest, 9 Sept. 1985. 12 See note 9. 13 See note 10. 14 Arizona Daily Wildcat, Russells reign officially comes to an end, 20 October 2009. 15 See note 10.
6 7 8Reuters,