City Will Investigate Holdings With South Africa Connections

The Cambridge City Council last night instructed the city's Retirement Board and other city officials to identify city investments in companies doing business in South Africa and to suggest ways to "redirect" those investments.

Acting unanimously, the council "took an important first step" toward ridding the city ledgers of investments in South-Africa-connected companies, Councilor David Sullivan, who sponsored the resolution, said yesterday.

"I think there is a very real possibility of the city divesting some of its holdings," Sullivan added.

No Friends

The order condemns the South African government for "continuing to engage in the racist policy of apartheid, the practice of which is abhorrent to every principle of human rights," and urges city divestment "both in order to avoid participation in injustice and to take some small action to end it."

The Retirement Board and George O'Brien, assistant city manager for fiscal affairs, have until March 1 to respond to the order, which was drawn up in response to a citywide referendum vote last fall against South African investments.

Popular Refrain

In that referendum contest, residents voted 15,442 to 7,480 to advise the city to "refrain from investing monies in banks or other financial institutions doing business in or with the Republic of South Africa."

The Retirement Board which funds employee pensions, controls most of the city's investments. It holds stock in companies connected with South Africa, Sullivan said, citing investments in the First National Bank of Boston as an example.

Sullivan credited student divestiture groups with providing the original impetus for the motion. "Student groups were the only force pushing that particular question, and it was in response to their efforts that I filed this," Sullivan said.