Campaign Launched Against SANFORD BERNSTEIN for ‘Unethical’ Investments in Oil Project on U’wa People’s Sacred
Land
Groups Call on Company to Divest from Occidental Petroleum
AMAZON WATCH * PROJECT UNDERGROUND
RAINFOREST ACTION NETWORK * RUCKUS SOCIETY
December 12, 2000
Contacts:
Atossa Soltani, Amazon Watch: on-site cellular 202.256-9795 Lauren Sullivan, Rainforest Action Network: 917.623.6888, 415.596.7246
San Francisco, CA-U’wa Indian chief Roberto Perez joined activists from environmental and human rights organizations today to launch a grassroots campaign against the largest investor in Occidental Petroleum (OXY), Sanford Bernstein & Co. for its involvement in an oil project on the U’wa’s land in Colombia. Over the last ten months, OXY’s previous top investor, Fidelity Investments, has divested half of its stock in the company following a public campaign against their mutual funds over the U’wa controversy. Building on the success of the campaign against Fidelity, the U’wa and U.S. supporters are now turning their attention to Sanford Bernstein as the central target for activist pressure in the United States.
This morning U’wa leader Roberto Perez delivered a letter to Sanford Bernstein requesting that the company pull its 53 million shares (valued at $1.19 billion) from Occidental Petroleum. (Letter available at http://www.ran.org/info_center/press_release/001212.html). Representatives from organizations that have been at the forefront of the recent, non-violent mobilizations in the US, beginning with the protests against the WTO in Seattle last year, joined the U’wa leader today in launching the campaign.
In the letter addressed to Mr. Hertog, Sanford Bernstein CEO, the U’wa leader stated, “Occidental’s drilling in our ancestral territory runs the risk of destroying the ancient culture of our ancestors that we have carried on from generation to generation. The drilling creates social, economic, and cultural deterioration that has and continues to lead to violence in our territory. For that reason, we demand…that you divest entirely from Occidental.”
The U’wa are adamantly opposed to the oil project. They have repeatedly denounced the escalating violence the project has already brought to the war-torn region as well as the imminent environmental destruction which will result from oil spills from pipeline bombings and deforestation from new oil roads.
“We are urging Sanford Bernstein and other major Occidental Petroleum shareholders to follow Fidelity’s example and divest from this morally bankrupt company and unethical oil project. Fidelity learned the hard way that being Oxy’s business partner is hazardous to your company’s image,” said Atossa Soltani of Amazon Watch.
Sanford Bernstein became the largest investor in Occidental after Fidelity Investments dropped more than half of its investments in the oil company-some 18 million shares representing over $400 million-following a campaign blitz earlier this year. That campaign included more than 75 protests at their offices worldwide and on-going demonstrations at the corporate headquarters in Boston.
Last April Sanford Bernstein President Roger Hertog committed to the U'wa that he would seriously investigate the matter and his company’s investments in Occidental, and then let the U’wa know his position. Since then, his company has acquired an additional 10 million shares of Occidental stock without ever communicating again with the U’wa as promised.
For high resolution, digital photos of the protest available for newspaper use please visit:
http://www.ran.org/info_center/press_release/001212_photos.html.