STUDENTS HAVE joined EUSA President Adam Ramsay in renewed calls for an end to Edinburgh University’s investment in Total, a multinational oil company with business interests in Burma.

Yet the global financial crisis has meant that any divestment from Total would lead to the University making significant losses

Students have joined EUSA President Adam Ramsay in renewed calls for an end to Edinburgh University’s investment in Total, a multinational oil company with business interests in Burma.

Yet the global financial crisis has meant that any divestment from Total would lead to the University making significant losses.

People and Planet (P&P), who are leading the move, told Student that they had attended a series of meetings with University officials regarding divestment from Total, which has come under criticism for its links to the Burmese military junta, including alleged human rights abuses.

EUSA passed a motion at its Annual General Meeting last year to urge the university to divest from Total after a Student investigation revelaed Edinburgh University’s shares in the French oil company. Yet university representatives, according to P&P, were “not persuaded that their disinvestment from Total would make any impact.”

Edinburgh University also allegedly “questioned whether Burma would be better with Total rather than without them.”

EUSA president Adam Ramsay has spoken out on the issue, telling Student that “Academics and students alike will be unhappy to learn that our university’s investments are going to a company propping up this horrific regime.”

The finance department at Edinburgh University notes that withdrawal from investments will be considered only if a company’s ethics are “wholly contrary to the University’s value systems…or in regard to wider issues of social, environmental and humanitarian concern.”

In 2006 Edinburgh University had £647, 219 worth of shares in Total, which has been severely hit by recent economic turbulence.

From a high of €58.2 per share, the French oil giant’s shares have slumped to €35.9. Consequently the university could risk losing out financially if it were to divest.

However Ramsay has noted that “the truth is that this costly process [of the University divesting] could be enough to help tip the monstrous regime over the edge.”

Yet it is unclear if a withdrawal of support from the university would affect Total’s global strategy in any significant sense.