Submission: UC should divest from Republic of Turkey

The article and the photo caption accompanying it contained multiple errors and have been changed. See the bottom of the article for more information.

The Armenian Students’ Association at UCLA will present a resolution to the Undergraduate Students Association Council week one of winter quarter calling on the University of California Board of Regents to divest investments made in the Republic of Turkey. The resolution will also call on Associated Students UCLA to boycott products made in the Republic.

The ASA at UCLA will be holding a town hall during week nine to inform the undergraduate student body about the motivations behind the resolution, the historic injustices Armenians and other ethnic minorities have faced in the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey and what they hope to achieve with the resolution. The students will also be encouraging feedback on the language of the proposition.

The resolution calls for divestment from the Republic of Turkey – which is guilty of a litany of human rights violations taking place in the country today, according to countless organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Committee to Protect Journalists – in order to bring the UC’s investment holdings into compliance with the UC’s own guidelines on ethical investments.

The purpose of the resolution is to economically pressure the Republic of Turkey for justice in all its manifestations – reparations, recognition, etc. – for the unpunished crime of genocide against Armenians. This initiative is intended to pressure the Turkish government, and not the Turkish students or people at large; the ASA does not intend to single out any student group on campus.

The resolution specifically targets over $65 million the UC has invested in the Republic of Turkey through bonds. Those $65 million represent the UC system’s contribution to and profit from massive human rights violations by the Turkish government.

The resolution also asks USAC to reaffirm a call made by Armenian students to boycott products made in the Republic of Turkey in the ASUCLA store that was originally passed unanimously by USAC in 2005. The present reality is that Turkish products are still sold in the ASUCLA store, giving Armenian students the impression that the 2005 resolution has either been forgotten or disregarded. We are currently communicating with students and administration within ASUCLA to understand what transpired.

As Armenian students at UCLA, we feel marginalized and that our existence on campus is delegitimized. Without any consent, our tuition dollars are invested in the very same regime that actively evades justice and reaps the benefits of the Armenian Genocide, which resulted in the loss of 1.5 million Armenian lives. The fact that our own tuition dollars are aiding and legitimizing this regime’s crimes is simply traumatizing.

This resolution aims to remind everyday college students that they are complicit in Turkey’s human rights violations through the UC’s investment of their tuition dollars in the Republic of Turkey.

By boycotting and divesting, we put agency back into the hands of the student body to decide which actions we tolerate and which we do not.

Students want to send a clear message to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling regime of the Republic of Turkey: Human rights violations will no longer be a profitable venture.

Turkey’s human rights violations extend far beyond the Armenian community. However, we feel that we can speak only from our own experiences as Armenian students. These include genocide against Assyrians, Greeks, Kurds and other ethnic minorities in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire and in the early years of the Republic of Turkey.

The current Republic of Turkey has also been called the “world’s biggest prison for journalists,” topping the list of nation’s with the most journalists in prison. Its well-known reputation for academic censorship on literature about the Armenian Genocide and the broad grounds of “anti-Turkishness” is also relevant to us as students at one of the most prestigious public universities in the world. Academic freedom is one of the founding principles of our university, and aiding the institutional restriction of that right abroad is highly hypocritical.

We ask the campus community, USAC and the University of California to remain morally consistent and support Armenian-American students at UCLA in this effort.

Kalbakian is a third-year political science student and the external vice president of the Armenian Students’ Association. Sarafian is a third-year political science student and a member of the Armenian Students’ Association. Der-Grigorian is a third-year anthropology student and the activism chair of the Armenian Students’ Association.

Correction: The Committee to Protect Journalists was incorrectly written as the Committee to Project Journalists. The photo caption incorrectly stated that students protested the Armenian Genocide; they protested several countries’ denial of the event.