Fwd: SUPERIOR COURT OVERTURNS MITSU

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Subject: Fwd: SUPERIOR COURT OVERTURNS MITSUBISHI DEAL/Burma loophole

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> Subject: SUPERIOR COURT OVERTURNS MITSUBISHI DEAL
> Date: Tue, 11 Feb 97 20:40:51 +0000
> From: ranmedia@xxxxxxx (Mark Westlund)
> To: rags-rap@xxxxxxx
> 
> RAINFOREST ACTION NETWORK
> 
> Media Advisory: February 11, 1996
> Press contact: Mark Westlund - ranmedia@xxxxxxx
> 
> HUMAN RIGHTS CLAIMS VINDICATED BY
> SUPERIOR COURT RULING AGAINST MITSUBISHI
> 
> "The Court's ruling confirms what social change activists already know:
> Mitsubishi shows little concern for human rights.  The company is still in
> bed with Burma's repressive military government.  Additionally, Mitsubishi
> is proceeding with plans to destroy one of the last gray whale calving
> lagoons in Mexico to build a salt mine there.  However, now that Mitsubishi
> has lost a $137-million contract in San Francisco, company executives
> should realize they've got to make fundamental changes in the ways they do
> business."
> 
> Randall Hayes-Executive Director, Rainforest Action Network
> 
> SAN FRANCISCO -  Superior Court Judge William Cahill threw out Mitsubishi's  contract to build a people-mover at San Francisco International Airport on the grounds that The City's Human Rights Commission (HRC) has ultimate power to decide whether a city contractor fits human rights guidelines.

HRC recommended against awarding Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of America
> (MHIA) the $137-million contract.
> 
> The San Francisco Airport Commission voted December 23, 1996 to accept
> MHIA's low-ball bid, in face of HRC opposition, and objections from area
> human rights and environmental organizations.  Besides ignoring the HRC recommendation, Commission president Henry Berman said he believed the people-mover project is exempt from The City's Burma selective-purchasing ordinance due to a loophole in its wording.  The Burma ordinance prevents The City from contracting with corporations that do business with Burma's
> State Law and Order Restoration Committee (SLORC).
> 
> Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) is supplying the material for a
> SLORC-sponsored oil pipeline project with Total Petroleum and
> California-based Unocal. The project will displace upwards of twenty
> traditional communities and will destroy part of Burma's rainforest.
> Total's coordinator of operations for Thailand and Burma, Herve Chagneaux,
> has acknowledged "I could not guarantee that the military will not be using
> forced labor."  The Airport Commission sought guarantees from MHIA that MHI
> would participate in the SFO project.  MHIA has never built a people-mover.
> 
> Rainforest Action Network works to protect the Earth's rainforests and
> support the rights of their inhabitants through education, grassroots
> organizing, and non-violent direct action.
> 
> ###
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