Harvard Backs Namibian Freedom

If Harvard gets its way, American businesses will have to withdraw from Namibia.

Of course, the United Nations and the U.S. government have been asking them to withdraw from the southwest African territory for several years--since the U.N. revoked South Africa's mandate there, and South Africa went on ruling anyway.

So the Corporation's decision this week to vote its $2 million in Phillips Petroleum stock for a resolution to get the company out of Namibia may be important chiefly because it is the first time Harvard has ever opposed a company's management's wishes on a substantive proxy fight.

It was also the second time in two decisions that the Corporation followed the recommendation of the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR), the fifteen-member student-faculty-alumni group President Bok set up last Fall.

And the Corporation proceeded to follow the ACSR again on four shareholder resolutions aimed at General Electric, supporting one asking for information on the company's South African operation, and opposing two dealing with G.E.'s military contracting and one asking it not to engage in various forms of political lobbying, most of which are already illegal anyway.

The University's stand against requiring G.E. to disclose its Defense Department contracts and to study ways of converting to peacetime production provoked student criticism, but on the Corporation's subcommittee on shareholder responsibility itself, the only dissent came on the votes against managements.

"There is nothing holy in the specific information being called for on South Africa, even if it is the churches' resolution," George F. Bennett '33, University treasurer, who also dissented last week when the Corporation voted to have Caterpillar Tractor disclose information on South Africa, said Thursday.

Bennett said American companies in southern Africa are "exemplary" in their treatment of black workers, and that American Oil companies' exploration in Namibia--and Angola, the Portuguese colony where Exxon is planning to start operations soon--help the United States, despite the U.S. government's opposition.

The student ACSR, the elected group which makes binding recommendations to the two undergraduates on the full ACSR, denounced Harvard's opposition to the two antiwar resolutions.