On Monday 9 February a group of students from Aberystwyth University staged a lunchtime “die-in” in the busy Arts Centre plaza. The students, members of People & Planet and Amnesty, were highlighting University unit-trust investments in companies such as BAE Systems, Europe’s largest “defence manufacturer”.
The students are petitioning the University to adopt an ethical investment policy. Students’ Guild Environmental and Ethics Officer, Tom Marshall, stressed that the protesters wanted to engage constructively with University management:
“We are in the awareness-raising, support-building process at the moment, and will be contacting the Pro-Vice Chancellor soon to ask for a change in the University investment policy.”
Apart from BAE, the unit trust investments include oil companies BP, Shell and Exxon, BA, pharmaceutical giant Glaxo and various suspect mining companies.
Hence, the students believe it is important not just to call for a divestment in BAE, but to adopt an ethical investment policy across the board. They argue that individual investments can easily be changed, but a policy is lasting.
Tom Marshall noted the irony that a University which is home to the renowned David Davies Memorial Institute of International Studies, founded on the issue of peace, justifies investing in BAE.