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Divest for Darfur

SINCE early 2003, government-sponsored attacks on the black African populations of the Darfur region of Sudan have left 400,000 dead, 2.2 million displaced and 50 percent of Darfur's population reliant on humanitarian aid that is increasingly dangerous and difficult to deliver. These brutalities prompted former Secretary of State Colin Powell in September 2004 to declare the events in Darfur genocide. Yet the international community has been tragically slow to react.  

Given the number of humanitarian crises occurring in the world today, perhaps we should not be surprised that the world has chosen to respond to the atrocities in Darfur with rhetoric and not action. As in Rwanda -- whose genocide began in earnest 12 years ago this month -- the international community finds it easier to deplore than to act. Yet stability in Darfur not a lost cause: rather, it is a matter of mobilizing political will. How can we do this? All of us at universities founded upon values of knowledge, learning and respect for human dignity hold particular responsibilities. Indeed it was a professor, Rafael Lemkin, who began the movement to define genocide and to declare it a war crime that required action.  In the case of Darfur, as with apartheid in South Africa, we here at the University can work to inspire action by insisting that our $3 billion endowment divest from companies that continue to do business as usual with Sudan.   

Dozens of publicly traded companies are active in Sudan. Sinopec, Total, PetroChina, ABB, Alcatel, ONGC, and Petronas, among others, continue to operate in Sudan despite the risk to their reputations. Although it is a public university, the University is not transparent about its investments, so we cannot say whether our endowment aids these companies; but we believe that it is highly probable that these companies are part of the funds in which the University invests. If not, why not say so, and lend our moral authority to those opposing the genocide?  If so, can we justify earning investment returns on companies that aid the Khartoum regime in its continuing genocidal policies? We think not. Rather, we should join other leading universities who have divested from companies who generate profit for the Sudanese regime without providing infrastructure for the country at large.  

The governing boards of universities such as Harvard, Dartmouth, Stanford and University of California, along with the states of New Jersey, Oregon and Illinois, have already passed resolutions to divest from companies doing business with Sudan. It is time for the University to join their ranks. The University's failure to divest from South Africa until it became Virginia law stands as an embarrassing moment in the University's past

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