Toronto (CUP) .- A 27-hour sit-in, a rally and a. near-riot in the chambers of the University of Toonto’s Governing Council did not convince council members to put a di- vestment motion on the agenda of a March 5 meeting.
About 28 members of the U. of T’s Anti- Apartheid Net- work took over presi- dent George Connell’s office shortly after noon on March 4. Ste dents held the sit-in to protest an earlier de- cision by a Governing Council executive com- mittee not to propose a divestment vote for the March 5 meeting.
U of T has $4 mil- lion and $280,000, re- spectively, invested in American and Cana- dian companies with South African ties. In Sept. 1985, the Gov- erning Council voted to divest of all companies
L not compl with the federal Reid ernment’s criteria out- lined in a Code of Con- duct.
: Connell was not in his office when the stu- dents entered, but ar- rived shortly after 6 p-m., and met privately with Anti-Apartheid Network leaders Tom Parkin and Akwatu Khenti.
’The sit-in is a way to show our disgust with the watered-down divestment policy U of T came up with, and as a way of getting media attention to the issue.” said Khenti.
Campus police were called to. the scence. but did not remove the protestors, who spent a night in the president’s office. Protestors left the office the next af- ternoon to attend a pro-divestment rally outside.
About 300 students attended the rally,
where sit-in organizers distributed lyrics to a song called “Come On, George”, typed on off- ical Office of the Presi- dent note paper.
When Khenti demonstrators he been pemitted a five-minute address at the Govern- ing Council meeting, the crowd followed him into the council cham- ber. However, campus police would only al- low 150 of the students into the chamber, and barred entry to televi- sion cameras.
Before Khenti’s ad- dress, Connell told the meeting he had ‘sent a letter to External Affairs Minister Joe Clark, asking that the Code of Conduct be re- vised. He said U of T administrators were not satisfied with the code.
“T believe the uni- versity policy on divest- ment should
told had
a Rally fails to spur divestment vote
be reviewed in Octo- ber 1987.” said Con- nell, evoking boos and hisses from the crowd. “The U of T pol- icy on divestment has racist and paternalis- tic connotations,” said Khenti. “It implies a few white people in North America can de- cide what is right for the black people of South Africa. ~Avoid- ing the issue through non- action will not make us go away,” Khenti said. “Bring this motion to the floor. Divest now.” After Khenti’s ad- dress, which was peppered by chants and cheers from = sup- porters in the crowd, Claire Johnson, a part- time students’ repre- sentative on council, in- troduced a motion to add a divestment mo- tion to the meeting’s agenda. "We
sider this
should — con- motion (to
divest) now.” Johnson said. ~”No reconsider- ation or review of the policy, will address the concerns of the stu- dents here today... The Code is utterly inap- propriate.” When
mo-
tion was defeated 16 to 13, the crowd erupted into chants of “Racist scum” ‘and ~Freedon yes, apartheid no.” Protestors weaved their way through the meeting room, and some climbed onto ta- ble, pointing and yelling at council mem- bers who had _ voted against Johnson’s mo- tion.
Johnson's
"It gives me_ not pleasure in disrupting a meeting,” said Khenti into the chair’s micro- phone. ~But the time for debate, for talk is over. You leave us no choice - there is blood on your hands.”
Con’t on Page 7
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