Darfur: a crisis set to continue
FDI by corporations such as CNPC and Petrochina have funded pro-government forces accused of genocide.For four years, the government of Sudan and rebel groups have been engaged in a bloody conflict affecting 4.5 million people in the Darfur region of Sudan.
According to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), some 400,000 people have died in Darfur since 2003. Those remaining have been displaced from their homes and now live in camps across the region. A further 230,000 are estimated to have fled to neighbouring Chad as the conflict threatens to spill across state borders.
The government in Khartoum has been accused of genocide by George Bush and by the Sudan Divestment Taskforce. Some refugees and commentators have even alleged that the actions by the Janjaweed militia—the government-backed forces—amount to an attempt to drive black Africans out of the region.
The real truth in this matter is unclear. This conflict, like so many contemporary incidences of civil war, is not simple. Its sources are multi-layered and the warring factions are blurred and constantly changing.
The United Nations has yet to recognise the situation as genocide. It has acknowledged that war crimes have been committed by members of the Sudanese Government, particularly the Border Intelligence Guards and pro-government militia forces. But according to the UN, while there have been mass murders and rapes, ‘genocidal intent’ is not present, and thus it has yet to secure the trial of the Sudanese Government in the International Criminal Court.
Whether a genocide is taking place in the eyes of the UN or not, the extent of Sudanese suffering is extremely severe. Nevertheless, the crisis appears to continue to be escalating. Of the estimated 4.5 million affected, nearly one million people cannot be reached by humanitarian assistance. The area deemed unsafe for humanitarian workers has quadrupled in size over the past year, according to UN humanitarian access maps.
According to Darfur expert Hamid Ali Nur, “The government is continuing to create this conflict by giving money and arms to different groups”.
Like many African states, Sudan carries a large burden of debt. The country relies heavily on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to sustain government expenditures. “But the government redirects the overwhelming majority of this FDI into military outlaysm,” claims a report published last month by the Sudan Divestment Taskforce (SDT).
Among those foreign corporations investing in Sudan is the China National Petroleum Company (CNPC). According to the SDT, the CNPC “plays the role of the enabler in the Government of Sudan’s genocidal campaign against its own people”.
The news that this University owns shares in CNPC’s majority-owned, publicly-traded subsidiary Petrochina means that it is indirectly supporting the continuation of the conflict and human rights abuses in Darfur.
The question now is: how soon will this University engage in an ethical investment policy?
While divestment of this kind will in no way simply solve the problems in Darfur, it would nevertheless start the ball rolling in terms of removing the pro-government force’s ability to arm themselves and thus perpetrate these kinds of atrocities.
