RAN- Mitsubishi Loses San Fran. Air

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Subject: RAN- Mitsubishi Loses San Fran. Airport Contract

EnviroNews Service wrote:
> 
> This news story is from the Environment News Service:
> http://www.envirolink.org/environews/ens/
> ---
> 
> MITSUBISHI LOSES SAN FRANCISCO AIRPORT CONTRACT
> 
> SAN FRANCISCO, California, Feb. 12'97 (ENS) - Rainforest Action Network
> executive director Randall Hayes is celebrating a ruling Monday by Superior
> Court Judge William Cahill against Japanese industrial giant Mitsubishi. The
> decision threw out a contract to build a people-mover at San Francisco
> International Airport awarded in December to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of
> America (MHIA).
> 
> The judge's ruling was based solely on the grounds that San Francisco's
> Human Rights Commission (HRC) has ultimate power to decide whether a city
> contractor fits human rights guidelines. HRC recommended against awarding
> Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of America the $137-million contract because of
> the activities of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Burma.
> 
> Although the judge's decision was not based on environmental grounds, the
> Rainforest Action Network opposed the contract because Mitsubishi Heavy
> Industries is supplying the material for a SLORC-sponsored oil pipeline
> project with Total Petroleum and California-based Unocal. The project will
> displace upwards of twenty traditional communities and will destroy part of
> Burma's rainforest.
> 
> The Airport Commission sought guarantees from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of
> America that its parent company would participate in the San Francisco
> Airport project. MHIA has never built a people-mover.
> 
> The San Francisco Airport Commission voted December 23, 1996 to accept
> the Mitsubishi bid, in face of HRC opposition, and objections from area
> human rights and environmental organizations. Besides ignoring the HRC
> recommendation, Commission president Henry Berman said he believed the
> people-mover project is exempt from San Francisco's Burma
> selective-purchasing ordinance due to a loophole in its wording. The Burma
> ordinance prevents The City from contracting with corporations that do
> business with Burma's State Law and Order Restoration Committee (SLORC).
> 
> Hayes commented, "The Court's ruling confirms what social change activists
> already know: Mitsubishi shows little concern for human rights. The company
> is still in bed with Burma's repressive military government. Additionally,
> Mitsubishi is proceeding with plans to destroy one of the last gray whale
> calving lagoons in Mexico to build a salt mine there. However, now that
> Mitsubishi has lost a $137-million contract in San Francisco, company
> executives should realize they've got to make fundamental changes in the
> ways they do business."
> 
> ---
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