November 5, 1995

Dear UT Regent:

This past September, after 10 years as a faculty member, I resigned from UT. I did so based on substantial knowledge about Freeport-McMoRan's environmental and human rights abuses in New Guinea, and in protest of UT's continuing and deepening relationship with this company. As a scholar of New Guinea with 20 years of research experience there, I felt that I could no longer work at a University so directly involved in destructive acts.

Although I sent materials about this matter to Chairman Rapoport at that time, new events of this past week compel me to write to all of you. On October 31 the US government made it quite clear that Freeport-McMoRan has seriously misrepresented their environmental impacts, and is operating in a manner entirely inconsistent with national and international law. This charge -- which was front page in the Los Angeles Times and New Orleans Times Picayune, and featured in the business section of the New York Times the next day -- puts a new light on questions about the ethics and morality of UT's involvement with Freeport.

I urge you to discuss this matter, and toward that end I enclose four documents. The first is the report that appeared this past August by the Catholic church documenting Freeport's complicity in murders, tortures, detentions, harassments, and other hostilities toward the citizenry of Irian Jaya (West Papua). The second document enclosed is by the indigenous Amungme people, the people who are the traditional landowners displaced and dispossessed for the benefit of Freeport's mine. In this document they respond to the Indonesian Human Rights Commission and make it clear why they believe Freeport's operation is at the root of their troubles. These two documents will give you some sense of the human rights issues at stake.

The third document is the letter of termination by the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, cancelling Freeport's insurance. It makes it clear that Freeport has lied to the US government about the nature of its operation, and is known to have created and caused substantial adverse environmental impacts. In response to all of this there is a fourth document, my most recent appeal to Chancellor Cunningham to resign from Freeport's Board of Directors.

I hope these documents make it clear that the reputation of UT, and especially science at UT is going to be on the line here. These issues, the press they generate, and the kinds of investigations and lawsuits that will emerge can only get more messy. Freeport must now face up to its atrocious environmental and human rights record. As regents of UT I sincerely hope that you carefully consider the university's position in this matter, and take appropriate action.

Sincerely,
Steven Feld,
Professor of Anthropology, University of California Santa Cruz (beginning January 1996)

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