To UTD student and staff:
The following petition is planned to be sent to president Jenifer in November of 2001, right before Thanksgiving. Student Labor Coalition is asking all the UTD students and staff to sign this letter and express their support for passing a resolution to stop purchasing World Bank bonds by the university.

Click HERE to SIGN the petition

Dear president Jenifer:

We write to you today as students concerned about our university's role in the destructive policies of the World Bank. The World Bank raises 80% of its money through bond sales to institutional investors, including to universities and colleges such as ours. Our university can demand accountability from the World Bank by passing a resolution to not to purchase World Bank bonds.

The World Bank exerts an enormous force in developing countries through harmful "structural adjustment" conditions on loans and its control, along with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), over poor countries' access to credit. In June, for example, over the objections of local groups and environmental and human rights organizations, the Bank approved the Chad-Cameroon pipeline. The project will cause severe, irreversible environmental damage as it cuts through indigenous villages, hundreds of miles of rainforest, and several wildlife sanctuaries. Under "structural adjustment" and capital market liberalization, the IMF and World Bank promote a type of development in the world-south countries which is based on resource exports and debt-servicing, while limiting social development.

According to the head of the World Council of Churches in a June 1999 letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, "Their [IMF and World Bank] policies have not only failed to bridge the gap between rich and poor and achieve greater equality, but rather contributed to a widening gap, the virtual exclusion of an increasing number of the poor and widespread social disintegration.''

Already, the city governments of Oakland and Berkeley and the Communication Workers of America, along with several churches and religious organizations, have passed resolutions not to purchase World Bank bonds. The growing international endorsement of the boycott by institutions serving the public interest is generating pressure on the World Bank to align it new rhetoric of sustainability with its future policies.

Our university can lead by example and sign a socially responsible investment resolution forbidding the future purchase of World Bank bonds. (Labeled "International Bank for Reconstruction and Development," these bonds might be direct investments of our university or grouped in with mutual funds.) The effort does not call for divestment from currently held bonds, so our university will incur no irresponsible financial loss. Even if our university does not currently hold World Bank bonds, a resolution against their future purchase would encourage more socially responsible policies. We look forward to your response.

Student-Labor Coalition at UTD

slcutd@onebox.com - email

(972) 993-2029 x1792 - voicemail/fax

http://members.fortunecity.com/slcutd

Click HERE to SIGN the petition