Call for boycott

Press, 20 April 1979, Page 20

Call for boycott

i A campaign asking people to avoid insuring with the New Zealand and South British insurance companies is being organ- | ised in Christchurch by the Canterbury-Westland Coalition Against Apartheid. The activities of the two companies in South Africa had prompted the campaign, said a spokesman for the organisation, Mr R. Finlay. He said that N.Z.1., especially, had been lobbied by the anti-apartheid movement for many years without success, so the emphasis had shifted to more direct pressure. Persons opposed to apartheid had been requested to cancel policies and inform the companies

why they had done so. Others had been asked to buy s,hares and, as shareholders, attend the companies’ annual meetings, according to the coalition. Mr Finlay said that/the New Zealand companies in South Africa were subject to apartheid laws. Under those laws, black South Africans faced gross inequalities of wages and opportunities for advance ment. Black South African leaders, the United Nations, and the World Council of Churches had ail called for a withdrawal of investment in South Africa, and the coalition’s campaign aimed to support those calls, Mr Finlay said.