Sign on to urge TIAA-CREF to support human rights in Burma!

Below please find:
 
1). Appeal from Dr. Richard Falk, Center for International Studies at
Princeton, noted Burma expert Josef Silverstein, John D. MacArthur
Professor Joel Rogers of the University of Wisconsin, and Free Burma
Coalition Founder Dr. Zarni to academic colleagues urging their
involvement for TIAA-CREF to support human rights in Burma.

2). Sign-on letter from professors to TIAA-CREF
 
 _______________________________________________
 
1). An appeal from Burma expert Dr. Josef Silverstein and Dr. Zarni,
 Founding Director of the Free Burma Coalition:
 
 Dear fellow colleague,

 Like most Americans, we look forward to someday enjoying a retirement
 that will allow us to spend time with our families, embrace friendship
 with our loved ones, and enjoy the fruits of our many years of hard
 work.  We hope that if we responsibly save and invest money over the
 course of our careers this savings will someday ultimately fund our
 future.
 
 However, we strongly believe that as educators our retirement should
 not be paid for by repression, torture, and other horrific human
 rights abuses.
 
 For this reason, we ask you to join us in calling on the Teachers
 Insurance and Annuity Association College Retirement Equities Fund
 (TIAA-CREF), the pension fund for many teachers and professors across
 the country, to immediately take action to push for greater
 responsibility from two of the companies it invests in.
 
 Here's why:
 
 1) Unocal is a U.S petroleum company based in California. In 1995,
 Unocal invested more than $ 1 billion dollars in Burma, a Southeast
 Asian country, to build a natural gas pipeline called the "Yadana
 Pipeline" project.
 
 Unocal engaged with Burma's military regime, widely considered to be
 one of the most brutal in the world, to profit from this project. As a
 consequence, Burma's military forced thousands of people to relocate
 away from the pipeline region. The military conscripted thousands more
 to be forced laborers in building roads and bridges, clearing forests,
 carrying military equipment and
 
 ammunition, and building the military's headquarters, encampments, and
 offices. Due to these and other human rights abuses by the Burmese
 military junta, many innocent Burmese died in the pipeline area
 between 1995 and 1997.
 
 Since Unocal hired the military junta to help establish this pipeline
 project, we believe Unocal is also responsible for these human rights
 abuses. As if this were not bad enough, Unocal is propping up Burma's
 junta through millions of dollars in the pipeline project, allowing
 the junta  to prolong their dictatorship in Burma. In other words,
 Unocal is directly responsible for the suffering of the people of
 Burma.
 
 Unocal is currently being sued in the both U.S State and Federal
 Courts by Burmese villagers who escaped from the pipeline area,
 survivors of human rights abuses inflicted by Burma's military.
 
 TIAA-CREF invests 1,506,000 shares in stock in Unocal.
 
 2) Singapore Technologies (ST) is a Singapore government-controlled
 company, specializing in engineering and weapons manufacturing. Its
 subsidiary, Chartered Industries of Singapore (CIS) is a weapons
 manufacturer and a major arm suppliers for the Burmese military
 regime.
 
 According to diplomatic sources in Rangoon, Burma's military used
 weapons supplied by Chartered to commit atrocities against people in
 the Unocal pipeline area. Even more heinous, the military regime also
 used Chartered's weapons material to crackdown on Burma's largest ever
 non-violent uprising in 1988, when millions of people took to the
 streets calling for democracy. The military ruthlessly gunned
 thousands of unarmed demonstrators in cold blood. Singapore
 Technologies has even helped Burma's military regime build a factory
 to produce light infantry weapons.
 
 TIAA-CREF has bought a substantial amount number of shares in
 Singapore Technologies.
 
 Our investments, via TIAA-CREF in Unocal and Singapore Technologies
 are not very significant to these multi-billion dollar multinational
 corporations, but the loss to our dignity through our complicity in
 such investments is enormous. By investing our pension fund dollars in
 these companies through TIAA-CREF, we are indirectly supporting
 Burma's military junta, helping them to perpetrate human rights abuses
 against the people of Burma. We are neglecting those people's
 suffering for our own profit.
 
 While we are living safely in a country where we enjoy democracy and
 human rights, millions of people on the other side of the world are
 suffering human rights abuses at the hands of military dictators on a
 daily basis. Supporting democracy and human rights means lengthy
 imprisonment and torture for many of them. Unfortunately, some
 corporations in which we may have investments are these dictators'
 partners in human rights abuses. This makes us culpable as well.
 
 It's time for us to stop our involvement in these abuses.
 
 Please join with us to urge TIAA-CREF to pressure Unocal to withdraw
 from Burma, and to divest its stock in Singapore Technologies
 immediately.
 
 Sincerely yours,
 
 Dr. Zarni
 Founding Director, Free Burma Coalition
 Assistant Professor (Former)
 National-Louis University
 
  
 
 Dr. Richard Falk
 Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice
 Center for International Studies
 Princeton University
 
  

Josef Silverstein
 Professor Emeritus
 Rutgers University
 Visiting Lecturer
 Princeton University
 
  
 
 Joel Rogers
 John D. MacArthur Professor of Law, Political Science, and Sociology
 University of Wisconsin-Madison
 
 
 Daw Kyi May Kaung
 Broadcaster (Former)
 Radio Free Asia
 
  
 
 October 14, 2002
 
 **************************************
 
 *Please sign on and return by November 5 to Dan Beeton, Director,
 Campaigns, Free Burma Coalition, dbeeton@freeburmacoalition.org; Fax:
 202-544-6118; 1101 Pennsylvania Ave., SE, #204, Washington, D.C.
 20003. Please include your name, title, and affiliation*
 
 2). Concerned faculty sign-on letter to TIAA-CREF:
 
 Note: Herbert Allison will take over as Chairman, President, and CEO
 of TIAA-CREF on November 1.
 
 Mr. Herbert M. Allison, Jr.
 
 Chairman, President and CEO
 
 TIAA-CREF
 730 3rd Avenue
 New York, New York 10017
 
  
 
 Mr. Martin L. Leibowitz
 Vice Chairman and Chief Investment Officer
 TIAA-CREF
 730 3rd Avenue
> New York, New York 10017
>
>  
>
> Dear Mr. Herbert Allison and Mr. Martin L. Leibowitz,
>
> We recently learned that through our retirement funds invested in
> TIAA-CREF, we have been made inadvertent supporters of the forced
> labor, forced relocation, rape, torture, and murder of people living
> in the Southeast Asian country of Burma. We are shocked to learn that
> TIAA-CREF currently holds 1,506,000 shares of stock in Unocal (NYSE
> UCL) and substantial shares of stock in Singapore Technologies (NYSE
> STEG).
>
> As you probably know, Unocal is a California-based energy company
> which is currently engaged in a business venture with the illegal
> military regime ruling Burma. Singapore Technologies is a conglomerate
> that supplies Burma's regime with weapons.
>
> Numerous credible groups, including the United Nations, the U.S. State
> Department, the European Union, the International Labor Organization
> (ILO), Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the AFL-CIO have
> all roundly criticized Burma's regime for horrific human rights
> abuses, including widespread forced labor that the ILO calls "a modern
> form of slave labor."
>
> Some of this forced labor took place in the area of Unocal's
> operations in Burma.  In building a pipeline across Burma, Unocal
> worked closely with the military regime whose soldiers raped,
> tortured, murdered and forced ethnic people living in the pipeline
> area to work against their will on building infrastructure used by
> Unocal.
>
> Due to its operations in Burma, Unocal is facing lawsuits in both U.S.
> State and Federal courts.  As U.S. Federal Judge Richard Paez stated,
> "The allegations of forced labor in this case are sufficient to
> constitute an allegation of participation in slave trading."  Unocal
> could face damages in excess of $1 billion.
>
> As if this weren't bad enough, the project itself serves as one of the
> single largest sources of revenue for Burma's illegal military regime.
> Unocal persists in its support for the regime despite the fact that
> over 50 U.S. corporations have cut ties to Burma, including ARCO,
> Texaco, Amoco, Premier Oil, PepsiCo, Wal-mart, and Levi Strauss, which
> stated upon leaving the country, "It is not possible to do business in
> Burma without directly supporting the military government and its
> pervasive violations of human rights."
>
> Singapore Technologies is another company that actively supports the
> Burmese junta's reign of terror. Through its subsidiary, Chartered
> Industries, this company is one of the Burmese military's main weapons
> suppliers. The company has entered into business deals with Burma's
> junta to construct a factory for small-arms production, and, in 1988,
> shipped literal tons of
>
> ammunition, mortars and other war material to Burma as millions of
> people throughout the country took to the streets calling for an end
> to military dictatorship.
>
> The regime in all probability used the materials it received from
> Chartered Industries to kill thousands of unarmed, nonviolent
> demonstrators in a brutal crackdown that dwarfed the bloodshed in
> China's Tiananmen Square a year later. According to diplomatic sources
> in Rangoon, the regime's business with Singapore Technologies has even
> allowed it to supply weapons to troops "guarding" the Unocal pipeline.
> In fact, these troops terrorize the local populace.
>
> We do not want our retirement funds, or any TIAA-CREF funds, to be
> generated from repression and abuse.  This includes both the regular
> retirement fund and the "socially responsible" retirement fund. We
> call upon TIAA-CREF to use its position as a shareholder to demand
> that Unocal withdraw from Burma immediately, and to immediately dump
> its stocks in Singapore Technologies - stocks that are, in effect, an
> investment in murder, rape, and repression. If Unocal refuses to
> withdraw from Burma, we strongly urge TIAA-CREF to then divest its
> Unocal shares as well.
>
> Thank you for your time.  We await your written response on what
> TIAA-CREF plans to do in regards to these two companies.
>
> Sincerely,
>
>  
>
> Dr. Zarni
> Founding Director, Free Burma Coalition
> Assistant Professor (Former)
> National-Louis University
>
>  
>
> Dr. Richard Falk
> Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice
> Center for International Studies
> Princeton University
>
>  
>
> Dennis V. Brutus
> Professor Emeritus
> Department of of Africana Studies
> University of Pittsburgh
>
>  
>
> Noam Chomsky
> Professor of Linguistics
> Massachusetts Institute of Technology
>
>  
>
> Robert F. Drinan, S.J.
> Professor of Law
> Georgetown University
>
>  
>
> Neil Wollman, Ph.D.
> Senior Fellow, Peace Studies Institute and Professor of Psychology
> Manchester College
>
>  
>
> Dr. Josef Silverstein
> Professor Emeritus 
> Rutgers University
>
>  
>
> Dr. Alfred W. McCoy
> Professor of Southeast Asian History
> University of Wisconsin-Madison
>
>  
>
> Joel Rogers
> John D. MacArthur Professor of Law, Political Science, and Sociology
> University of Wisconsin-Madison
>
>  
>
> Daw Kyi May Kaung
> Broadcaster (Former)
> Radio Free Asia
>
>  
>
> Sandi E Cooper
> Professor of History
> College of Staten Island and Graduate School - CUNY
>
>  
>
> Dr. Dean Baker
> Co-Directer
> Center for Economic and Policy Research
> Bucknell University (formerly)
>
>  
>
> Don C. Price
> Professor of History
> University of California, Davis
>
>  
>
> G. William Skinner
> Professor of Anthropology
> University of California, Davis
>
>  
>
> Susan Mann
> Professor of History
> University of California, Davis
>
>  
>
> Joanna Kirkpatrick
> Professor (Retired 1994)
> Bennington College, Bennington, Vt
>
>  
>
> Joseph Beatty
> Professor, Philosophy
> Randolph-Macon College
>
>  
>
> Marjorie Muecke
> Professor of Nursing, Adjunct Professor of Anthropology
> University of Washington
>
>  
>
> Irene Tinker
> Professor of City and Regional Planning/Women's Studies
> University of California, Berkeley
>
>  
>
> Barry L. Gan
> Associate Professor of Philosophy
> Director, Center for Nonviolence
> St. Bonaventure University
>
>  
>
> Jan Edward Garrett
> Professor, Philosophy
> Western Kentucky University
>
>  
>
> Jerald Richards
> Professor of Philosophy
> Northern Kentucky University
>
>  
>
> Brian Turner
> Associate Professor and Chair of Political Science
> Randolph-Macon College
>
>  
>
> Mike Wessells, PhD
> Professor of Psychology
> Randolph-Macon College
>
>  
>
> Michele Bollinger
> Teacher
> Wilson High School
> District of Columbia Public Schools
> American Federation of Teachers, Local 6 (Washington Teachers Union)
>
>  Mark Zorn
> Professor of Biochemistry
> The New England College of Optometry
> Boston, MA 02115
>
>
>
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> ================================