Students Demand Divestment from Apartheid
Aidan Macdonald, The Bullet, 1 February 2010
General Dynamics. Shell. Apache Corporation. Philip Morris. Pfizer. These are weapons manufacturers, oil companies, mining corporations, tobacco companies, and pharmaceutical giants. Notorious war profiteers, environmental destroyers, and human rights violators. Morally and ethically, these are not the types of firms with which one would expect Ottawa’s Carleton University to have any sort of affiliation.
And yet, despite Carleton President Roseann Runte’s characterization of the university as an institution that is “engaged in solving real-world problems,” and her proclamation that it emphasizes human rights and social justice, Students Against Israeli Apartheid – Carleton (SAIA) has discovered that the Carleton University Pension Fund has tens of millions of dollars invested in these and other companies, which are willing contributors to the litany of social and political ailments that plague our global community.