Anti-mining campaigners were left to dig themselves out of a hole last Thursday as their proposed talk, hosted by Fossil Free UCL, was cancelled at the last min- ute, forcing organisers to find an alterna- tive venue at SOAS.
The speakers, who had travelled from Colombia, Indonesia and the Phillipines, are currently touring the UK with the London Mining Network (LMN) to highlight the destructive activities of min- ing company BHP Billiton, who have a whopping £6 million association with UCL.
Along with Fossil Free UCL, LMN had organised a meeting to bring the university’s close relationship with the company to light and deliver letters voic- ing their concerns to the provost. Their plans were foiled, however, when their their room booking, which was organised weeks in advance, was cancelled with little explanation and their speakers were not permitted to appear on campus.
Pekka Piirainen from Fossil Free UCL cast doubt on the idea that the cancella- tion was due to bureaucratic error, say- ing “It smacks of bullshit considering it shouldn’t take two weeks to do a simple background check.”
“Clearly UCL wants to close its eyes to the human rights abuses and the soci- etal and environmental destruction done by its corporate donor. I’d imagine this played into the Union’s reluctance to let the speakers tell their stories at UCL.”
To rub salt into the wound, when the group of protestors tried to hand their letters to Michael Arthur, they were given the cold shoulder. Not a single member of staff appeared to meet the concerned party, and they were forced to entrust the letters to a security guard.
Richard Solly, co-ordinator for LMN, told The Cheese Grater that the university had shown them “gross disrespect”. He continued, “Whatever the supposed ex- planations, this cancellation has had the effect of censoring those who are directly affected by the consequences of BHP’s activities”.
The meeting cancellation is the latest controversy surrounding BHP’s invest- ment in UCL. In 2011 it was announced that the mining leviathan’s charitable arm would be investing £6 million to help the university set up UCL Australia and, ironically, the Institute for Sustainable Resource (ISR) in London. The deal led to the resignation of the then Vice Dean of Research at the Bartlett, Professor Jane Rendell. In an interview with the Lon- don Student, Rendell cited her inability to find concrete information surrounding UCL’s decision to accept funding from BHP Billiton as one of the main reasons for leaving her position.
There are concerns that BHP Billiton has effectively set up two lobbying insti- tutes, though Paul Ekins, director of ISR, assured The Cheese Grater that “UCL pursue research and organise activities unrelated to the company’s business”. However, UCL Australia has released several papers which coincide nicely with the aims and business interests of BHP Billiton and other funders, whilst a pro- fessor joined the ISR as “BHP Billiton Chair in Sustainable Global Resources”.
What’s more, BHP Billiton have an ethically dubious past outside of their relationship with UCL – as highlighted in the letters written by the anti-mining protestors, seen by The Cheese Grater. In Colombia, inhabitants were forced off their land by hundreds of armed police to make way for the construction of coal mines, and in Indonesia, indigenous peo- ple were subjected to coercive relocation from the forests they were managing. Their compensation, however, consisted of a measly Rp100 (about half a penny in UK money) per square metre and two community leaders who refused this compensation deal were imprisoned for 14 days.
Solly expressed concerns in his letter that “the relationship [with BHP] may undermine UCL’s Charter” and that “ac- cepting funding from a company which is so heavily involved in coal mining con- flicts with UCL’s own Environmental Strategy”. Indeed, despite the university’s self-proclaimed aim that UCL will “con- duct itself ethically and fairly, and in an environmentally sustainable manner, lo- cally, nationally and globally” they also have more than £14.5m of investments (CG 41) in other fossil fuel giants such as Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Occidental Pe- troleum Corp and Cairn Energy.
UCL’s current partnership with BHP Billiton lasts until 2016 and should BHP attempt to renew their funding, their bid will be assessed by the Gift Accept- ance Committee. It remains to be seen whether the allure of corporate cash will motivate UCL to eschew ethical respon- sibility and pursue an ill-fated love affair with the mining and energy industry.
When asked for comment on the sor- did relationship, Piirainen, UCL’s answer to Al Gore, did not mince his words.
“The UCL-BHP Billiton partnership is inherently corrupt and undermines UCL’s core values and academic research. It is nothing sort of grotesque – surely UCL’s founders would roll in their graves if they knew what had become of the uni- versity’s Benthamite vision.”