Petition Targets Links To Sudan

More than 100 Harvard students have signed a petition urging Harvard to sell its shares in PetroChina, a Beijing-based oil firm with links to the Sudanese government.

Two Eliot House juniors launched a website, www.harvarddivest.com, late Sunday night giving students, faculty and alumni the opportunity to voice their concerns regarding Harvard’s estimated $4 million stake in PetroChina.

Activists say that revenues from oil companies such as PetroChina prop up the Sudanese regime, which is accused of systematically slaughtering its own people.

Meanwhile, PetroChina may dramatically expand its holdings in Sudan as part of a multibillion-dollar restructuring deal with its parent company, China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC).

Experts said that the PetroChina restructuring could leave the firm’s shareholders more vulnerable to criticism from human rights groups.

After The Crimson reported last week that the University had purchased 72,000 shares of PetroChina’s stock, several clergymen and actvists lambasted Harvard for holding onto its shares in a company that John Prendergast, the former African Affairs director at the National Secuirty Council during the Clinton admininstration, called a “blood-oil stock.”

When PetroChina first listed itself on the New York Stock Exchange in 2000, the company promised investors that none of the capital raised from the initial public offering would end up in the coffers of the Sudanese regime. The company asserted that a “firewall” separated its assets from those of its parent company—and that the Sudanese holdings would remain in CNPC’s hands.

But PetroChina is now preparing to acquire full control over CNPC’s massive joint venture with the Sudanese government, according to the Financial Times.

The London-based newspaper reported last month that PetroChina had hired Citigroup to manage the restructuring deal.

“The case for divestment becomes significantly stronger with this development,” said Eric Reeves, an English professor at Smith College and independent Sudan analyst. “There is no cover whatsoever for any American investor.”

PetroChina’s initial firewall arrangement “was specifically aimed at institutional investors who feared public backlash,” said Frank Gaffney, who acted as assistant secretary of defense under the Reagan administration.

Gaffney, now the president of the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, said the arrangement was a “scam” intended to deceive stockholders who wanted to clean their hands of any involvement with the Sudanese regime.

“Now there is not even a pretense of a firewall,” Reeves said.

PetroChina’s Beijing office did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

RISKY BUSINESS

Gaffney said he sees a diverse political alliance coalescing around efforts to prod investors to cut their ties with Sudan. The coalition includes human rights activists, security hawks who highlight the Khartoum regime’s sponsorship of terrorism, and African American clergymen who are concerned by the regime’s targeting of Christians and dark-skinned Sudanese.

Fighting side-by-side against the Sudanese regime, former Republican administration officials and Democratic congressmen have become “soul mates,” Gaffney said.

Firms with links to the Sudanese regime could see their stock prices crater as divestment pressure mounts, Gaffney said.

“If the reputation of these companies suffers as a result of, say, being implicated in this horror in Sudan, or...if Sudan is tagged in a future terrorist attack,” Gaffney said, “you could see the values of their shares decline. And if that happens, the endowment suffers.”

Clinton administration officials accused Sudan of developing chemical weapons, and the United States bombed a factory in Khartoum six years ago. But both President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry have stopped short of saying they would use force to stop the ongoing slaughter of civilians in the western Sudanese region of Darfur.

Since February 2003, Sudanese bombers and government-backed Arab militiamen have coordinated attacks on black Muslim villages in the region, leaving more than 50,000 dead and forcing over 1.6 million Darfurians to flee from their homes.

A CALL TO ACTION

Since humanitarian conditions in Darfur deterioriated earlier this year, Manav Bhatnagar ’06 began following the situation closely, along with his Eliot House roommate Ben Collins ’06. After learning of Harvard’s involvement in PetroChina last week, Collins said he and Bhatnagar purchased a web domain for $10 and drafted a petition “demand[ing] that the University actively oppose and resist the ongoing genocide in Sudan.”

The petition—which was forwarded widely over e-mail list-servs Sunday night—calls on University President Lawrence H. Summers “to publicly state that the University will not invest in any corporation that conducts business with the Sudanese government for as long as Sudan is in violation of international norms of human rights.”

Summers declined to comment through a spokeswoman, who said he had not discussed the issue with advisers.

Collins and Bhatnagar said they had e-mailed only a handful of professors thus far. They plan to send personalized messages to faculty later this week.

While the petition garnered the support of over 100 students in less than 24 hours, only one professor and one Harvard staff member had signed as of last evening.

The staff member, Chip Robinson, a librarian at Widener and non-resident tutor in Leverett House, said he learned about the petition from the College Democrats list-serv.

“It’s important to me for reasons of moral integrity to make sure that any organization I’m affiliated with, especially the University...help and not hurt the situation,” Robinson said.

Professor of Psychology Patrick Cavanagh, the first faculty member to sign, said he had forwarded the petition to colleagues and expected more professors to join the effort.

Meanwhile, Black Students Association President Lawrence E. Adjah ’06 said his group is co-sponsoring a candlelight vigil in Boston Common this Friday afternoon at 4:30 p.m., featuring escaped Sudanese slave Francis Bok. The event aims to raise awareness of the ongoing genocide, Adjah said.

—Zachary M. Seward contributed to the reporting for this article.

—Staff writer Daniel J. Hemel can be reached at hemel@fas.harvard.edu.