Church sale of southern Africa investments

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33003, 24 August 1972, Page 13

Church sale of southern Africa investments

(N.Z P A.-Reuter—Copyright) UTRECHT, Aug. 23. The World Council of Churches’ policy-making central committee will end a 10-day session in Utrecht today after deciding to sell the councils shares in companies with an interest in southern Africa. In a hard-hitting resolution, the 120-man committee yesterday also called on its 250-member churches, with more than 350 million followers, to use economic pressure on international corporations to pull funds out of Southern Africa too. The member churches are not bound to act on the resolution, but are under clear moral pressure to do so. They have hundreds of mil-

lions of dollars invested, and the recommended course for them is stockholder action oi selling stocks and shares. The W.C.C., a Genevabased organisation, has only some SNZ3.2m invested.

The resolution was overwhelmingly approved. Its opponents were the United States Lutheran churches, which argued that the W.C.C. should not sell but itself try to influence company decisions through stockholder action. Some British churchmen also abstained. The British and American churches are those believed to have the most funds tied up in companies dealing with the Southern African countries—South Africa, Namibia (South-West Africa), Rhodesia, Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea Bissau. In a separate vote, the central committee also called for churches to mount a campaign against white migra-

tion to the Southern African countries as this, it said, perpetuated racial discrimination in the labour market. The main dispute in the race debate was whether selling shares could help black people, or whether the aim should be to get companies to bring about reforms such as job equality there. The central committee also approved a doubling of its controversial fund to combat racism to SNZB4O,OOO.

The year-old fund, fed by contributions from member churches, has already channelled $NZ335,850 to antiracism groups, including outlawed African liberation movements.

The committee also called for stronger sanctions against Rhodesia, and urged total United States withdrawal from Vietnam by the end of the year. Today, the committee will turn to theology and education.