Here are just a few of the dubious investments listed in the Super Fund’s last statement of equities (30/6/06):

Lockheed Martin (USA) $15,806,421

Huge weapons manufacturer. According to their own website 60% of their business comes from the US Department of Defense. Produces cluster bombs, which have left thousands of unexploded bomblets littered around after being used by the US in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq and Israel in Lebanon. These bomblets are brightly coloured and are often picked up by children. Since the end of Israel’s war on Lebanon last year left over cluster bombs have blown up scores of Lebanese people. Lockheed also designs nuclear weapons.

Raytheon Company (USA) $1,525,773

Another big arms manufacturer. Their profile on Corpwatch.org says it all ‘Raytheon means "light from the gods." Makers of "Bunker Buster" bombs, Tomahawk and Patriot missiles, this company loves big noises and large civilian casualty counts. When a missile killed 62 civilians in a Baghdad market, that was Light from the Gods.’

Halliburton (USA) $10,711,931

Infamous engineering firm whose former CEO is US Vice President Dick Cheney. Halliburton has been given the largest share of contracts to provide logistical services to the US Military in Iraq. It also built the prison camps on Guantanamo Bay, where the US is torturing and incarcerating terror suspects without trial – violating all the basic tenets that are meant to be the basis of civilized democracies’ legal systems. When the US and Britain forcibly removed the entire population of Diego Garcia, and island group in the Indian Ocean, to build a military base in the 1970s, guess who was given the construction contract.

Northrop Grumman (USA) $9,006,267
The Boeing Company (USA) $4,980,844
United Technologies Corporation (USA) $4,438,914

All three of these companies have been blacklisted by the Norwegian Government’s pension fund for having contracts to maintain and upgrade the engines and guidance systems of the USA’s Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) arsenal. These missiles are for nuclear weapon use only. New Zealand is meant to be proudly nuclear free. Why is the Super Fund investing in these companies?

Freeport McMoRan (USA) $954,608
Rio Tinto (Australia) $8,068,140

Freeport and Rio Tinto run the Grasberg goldmine in West Papua that dumps 700,000 tonnes of mining waste into Papua’s rivers everyday. The damage is so bad it can be seen from NASA satellite photos. Freeport pays the notorious human rights abusing Indonesian Military to act as security guards. Freeport has also been blacklisted by Norway’s Pension Fund. Rio Tinto also mines uranium in Australia.

Alcatel (France) $521,984
PetroChina (China) $3,968,696
Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical (China) $2,155,374

These three companies have been blacklisted by Columbia University’s Endowment Fund because of their significant investments in Sudan, which have helped prop up the genocidal Sudanese Government. Since 2003 the Sudanese Government’s Jangaweed militias have killed 200,000 people in Darfur province and have displaced several million people from their homes.

The New Zealand Superfund is helping provide a financial base to the companies that make the mass murder of innocent people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, West Papua and Sudan possible. During the 1970s and 80s the global campaign to make companies and pension funds divest from Apartheid South Africa proved to be an effective tool to help black South Africans fight for change. By the end of the 1980s some racist supporters of Apartheid even admitted that the campaign was making it hard for Apartheid to continue. Today we must stand up and tell the NZ Super Fund to stop bankrolling state terror.

Tuesday March 20th Global Day of Direct Action against War Profiteers

Tuesday marks the fourth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. Across the globe people will be taking part in actions against companies profiting from the war. Students for Justice in Palestine have organised a protest against the NZ Super Fund’s investments in companies backing war, human rights abuse and environmental destruction. Meet in the Auckland University quad at midday for a rally followed by a march to the NZ Super Fund offices on Customs Street.

For more info email studentsforjusticeinpalestine(at)gmail.com