DARFUR: THE ONLY HOPE
The Phoenix, MA
May 17 2007
It is time for corporations and investors to disinvest in Sudan
The genocide in Darfur continues. With the exception of former
Secretary of State Colin Powell, no one in the Bush Administration
has ever been concerned with the ethnically inspired, predominately
Muslim-on-Muslim killing that has claimed a minimum of 250,000 lives
and displaced another 2.5 million in the drought-stricken wastes of
western Sudan. While the murder is horrible, and the magnitude of
the refugee problem is staggering, the widespread and systematic
rape of women and girls that is an integral part of the terror is
almost incomprehensible.
Now that the United States is hopelessly mired in Iraq and stalemated –
if not losing ground – in Afghanistan, the long-shot hope that the US
would intervene has evaporated. It is true that the United Nations
does a credible job of providing humanitarian aid in Darfur, but it
does not have the political or military will to stop the terror.
Neither do the European Union and NATO have the stomachs or the spines
to step in. And intervention by African nations is a pipe dream. That
which New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff, writing in the New
York Review of Books, has called "genocide in slow motion" grinds on
with no end in site.
The best hope of curtailing the slaughter, and perhaps even ending
the genocide, now rests with the international financial community.
Oil profits, which are used to fund genocide in Darfur, are Sudan’s
only substantial source of revenue. And it is China that buys the
most oil from Sudan. PetroChina, a Beijing company that trades on the
New York Stock Exchange, acts as the middleman in the blood-soaked
transaction.
According to the most recent information available from the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which polices Wall Street,
the Boston-based Fidelity family of mutual funds is PetroChina’s
largest US investor, with $1.3 billion worth of shares.
The Save Darfur Coalition is mounting a campaign to pressure
corporations and investors, such as Fidelity, to divest in Sudan –
just as opponents of apartheid in the 1980s targeted companies who
conducted business in and with South Africa. Success is mounting:
just a few weeks ago, the British aerospace firm Rolls-Royce, which
has supplied engines to oil firms in Sudan for the past five years,
announced it is pulling out of Sudan. That came on the heels of a
similar announcement by two of Europe’s largest companies, German
engineering giant Siemens and the Switzerland-based ABB Limited
energy company.
Persuading investment firms and mutual funds such as Fidelity to
disinvest in PetroChina and the companies that service and supply it,
however, will be a formidable battle. Television viewers may have
seen the stark 30-second advertising spot in which a female refugee
reads a list of Fidelity’s reasons why it feels its duty to make its
customers a profit is more important than genocide. But they did not
see it on CNN, which succumbed – at least for now – to pressure from
Fidelity, which is a large advertiser. Newsweek likewise declined to
run print versions of the ads, as did the New York Times and its local
subsidiary, the Boston Globe. T riders can view anti-genocide ads,
but if they look closely they will discover no mention of the local
financial company.
Fidelity has thrown up a successful smokescreen. It argues that it
has special, socially conscious funds for altruistic investors.
That’s great. But what does that have to do with its past and/or
present holdings in PetroChina? And why will it neither confirm nor
deny whether it continues to hold it? It’s conceivable that when
the SEC releases its latest reports, Fidelity will have reduced its
PetroChina holdings. But will it commit to stop investing in other
companies that do business in or with Sudan and thus fund genocide?
Harvard, the world’s richest university, is backing away from
Sudanese investments. And a move is afoot to bar such holdings from
Massachusetts’s state-pension funds.
Publications and broadcasters have every right to accept or reject
advertisements as they see fit, just as they have the right to
determine what news stories and commentary they publish. But it is
indeed a bitter irony that the New York Times, which, by sponsoring
the reporting and commentary of Nicholas Kristoff may have done
more than any other media outlet to bring the plight of Darfur to
the public’s attention, won’t accept ads that could lead to the
slaughter’s end. It’s understandable to give a big customer such as
Fidelity a break or the benefit of a doubt. But what sort of break
do the victims of genocide get?
It may be hard to find people who defend genocide, but it is even
harder to get anyone to do anything about it. The genocide of the
Armenians, European Jews, Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge, and Rwandans
are testimony to that. Governments everywhere have failed in their
moral obligation. It’s time for people to act.
Act Now To find out more about divestment efforts on the federal
level, go to For
state-by-state efforts, check out