File #: Res 1115-2007    Version: * Name: Pension funds to support the goals of Burma’s democracy movement by introducing shareholder resolutions to pressure companies to suspend operations in Burma.
Type: Resolution Status: Filed
Committee: Committee on Finance
On agenda: 10/29/2007
Enactment date: Law number:
Title: Resolution calling upon the boards of New York City and New York State’s pension funds to support the goals of Burma’s democracy movement by introducing shareholder resolutions to pressure companies to suspend operations in Burma.
Sponsors: Bill De Blasio, Gale A. Brewer, Lewis A. Fidler, James F. Gennaro, Alan J. Gerson, Letitia James, G. Oliver Koppell, Melissa Mark-Viverito, Michael C. Nelson, Robert Jackson
Council Member Sponsors: 10

Res. No. 1115

 

Resolution calling upon the boards of New York City and New York State’s pension funds to support the goals of Burma’s democracy movement by introducing shareholder resolutions to pressure companies to suspend operations in Burma.

 

By Council Members de Blasio, Brewer, Fidler, Gennaro, Gerson, James, Koppell, Mark-Viverito, Nelson and Jackson

 

Whereas, The military junta currently ruling Burma is one of the most repressive in the world; and

Whereas, Since taking power 19 years ago, the military dictatorship has engaged in murder, torture, and forced labor; and

Whereas, The ruling military junta has imprisoned Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s rightfully elected leader who won a landslide victory in 1990 for the National League for Democracy party, making her the world’s only imprisoned recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize; and

Whereas, The regime has brutally persecuted the ethnic minorities in Eastern Burma by destroying thousands of villages and forcing as many as one million people from their homes; and

Whereas, In response to the junta’s drastic and arbitrary increase in fuel prices in August 2007, Burma’s citizens have taken to the streets in peaceful protest; and

Whereas, Since September 2007, when the country’s revered Buddhist monks began leading the protests, Burma’s military junta has violently suppressed tens of thousands of peaceful demonstrators;

Whereas, The junta’s brutal tactics have included dispersing crowds with gunfire, arresting and beating protesters, seizing cameras and other recording equipment, barring journalists, and banning citizens’ access to independent media and internet; and

Whereas, A variety of companies around the globe, including a number based in the U.S. continue to do business with Burma, despite the country’s vicious documented human rights abuses; now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Council of the City of New York calls upon the boards of New York City and New York State’s pension funds to support the goals of Burma’s democracy movement by introducing shareholder resolutions to pressure companies to suspend operations in Burma.