Amnesty International denies link to 'divestment' campaign

A new campaign to persuade the University to sell its investments in companies doing business in Israel has wrongly linked itself to Amnesty International, University students and Amnesty employees said.

The University invests in many multinational corporations with substantial operations in Israel — including General Electric Co., IBM, Intel and Merck. "Divesting" from these firms would end tacit University support for human rights abuses by the Israeli government, the campaign's backers say.

"[There is] one group of people who is in power and has guns and has tanks and has nuclear weapons," said Vincent Lloyd '03, an organizer of the campaign. "And one group of people who has been oppressed for the last 35 years and is unarmed and is innocent civilians and is being occupied by the government of Israel."

According to a petition being circulated by the group, the University should not invest in any Israeli companies until Israel complies with United Nations resolutions by withdrawing from certain territories, ending the practice of sending settlers into Palestinian areas and allowing the return of refugees to Israel, among other changes.

The only moral issue which has ever moved the University to change its investments is apartheid in South Africa, said Robert Durkee '69, University vice president for public affairs.

There is a complex, years-long process for evaluating proposed socially-motivated changes to University investments that involves an inquiry by the U-Council.

The divestment campaign, whose advertising until recently included the Internet address of Princeton's Amnesty chapter, was still using the Amnesty name at its display table in the Frist Campus Center yesterday.

Lloyd said students posted an Amnesty sign only after they were told to do so by campus center director Paul Breitman.

Divestment advertisements in the 'Prince' are now being billed to the University's chapter.

Lloyd explained that the use of Amnesty web space and funds is temporary, and that alumni who support the divestment campaign — rather than the Amnesty organization — will ultimately foot the bill.

Josh Rubenstein, the Northeast Regional Director of the U.S. branch of Amnesty International, vehemently denied that his organization supports the campaign.

"We do not advocate divestment in any country, in any region of the world," he said.

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Individual campus chapters are not permitted to take positions that contradict the group's shared mandate, said Cynthia Gabriel, an Amnesty staffer who works directly with student groups.

Lloyd, the Amnesty member who posted divestment information on the group's website, said a group of about six student activists at a recent Amnesty meeting thought the campaign was compatible with Amnesty's mission.

"The attendees were all in agreement that the divestment campaign was supporting human rights," he said.

But other student Amnesty members — and off-campus leaders of the organization — insisted that the campaign dissociate itself from the group's name.

Lloyd said he has removed the Amnesty Internet address from pro-divestment ads and allowed that the campaign is not consistent with the international organization's mandate.

The group's website is now hosted by Students for Progressive Education and Action, but a link on the Amnesty page still connects to the site. During the last few days, a changing disclaimer on the Princeton chapter's site has said first that the divestment campaign may not be, and then that it definitely is not, linked to Amnesty International.

Christina Alvarez '03, president of the Princeton chapter of Amnesty, explained that some members thought the local group could go against Amnesty's position because they were not an active dues-paying subsidiary of the larger organization.

Rubenstein, the Northeast Regional Director, said the campus chapter renewed its dues-paying membership in the larger organization this weekend.

Alvarez, who was not at the meeting where members decided to go against Amnesty's platform, said Lloyd was aware of Amnesty's neutrality on the divestment issue when he decided to use the group's name for the campaign.

"Vincent knew that the national office did not want him to do it," she said. "Amnesty has a very clear mission statement that does not take a political side . . . They call human rights violations on all sides of an issue."

Lloyd denied last night that he or the other students involved in the divestment campaign knew of Amnesty's stance when they first decided to use the organization's name.

He did not think Amnesty's position on divestment was "relevant," he said, because the Princeton group was not an official part of Amnesty when the divestment campaign was launched.

Jewish student leaders questioned both the accuracy of the divestment campaign and its use of the Amnesty name.

"They're trying to get a large umbrella organization to give themselves more legitimacy," said Leo Lazar '05, co-chair of the Princeton Israel Public Affairs Committee. "In the process, though, they're just being dishonest with students."

Sam Spector '03, a former PIPAC chair, said he talked yesterday with divestment advocates who were seated behind a table with an Amnesty International logo on it.

Spector said that when he asked those behind the table to support their claim that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is similar to the struggle against apartheid, they asked him to go away.

"They, as an organization who put up a display on one of the most prominent locations on campus, should be prepared to respond to questions being asked of them that directly pertain to their campaign," Spector said.

Behind questions of Amnesty's involvement lies an ongoing debate between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian groups on campus. Students on the two sides will hold dueling demonstrations tomorrow afternoon, one at Frist and the other at Center for Jewish Life.