The York Coalition for Responsible Investment (YCRI), an initiative of concerned York students and professors seeking to put a social and environmental spotlight on the university’s investments launched a petition calling for the university to review its Burma-related investments.

The group compiled information on the scope and nature of these investments and identified 13 companies including Total, Chevron, Petrochina, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Hyundai, LG, and Samsung.

In the petition, the York Foundation and Endowment Fund is urged to stand up for its stated mission statement “a commitment to global concerns and social justice,” and to respond to the calls of the Burmese people, and divest from corporations that are doing business with Burma.

YCRI participants have great hopes that this campaign marks the beginning of growing awareness about York investment.

A similar campaign was successfully launched at McGill University in 2006, and McGill Board of Governors eventually adopted an ethnical investment proposal. Canadian Friends of Burma coordinated the campaign at McGill University in Montreal.

York students had led a five-year boycott of Pepsi products in the mid 1990s following the opening of their operation facilities in Burma for gross human rights violations there.