Cambridge Common

money, death and Harvard

In case you missed it, in today's Crimson (and very unfortunately buried on the third page): Harvard Grows Sinopec Holdings.

In case the Harvard Administration missed it:

A report by the Harvard Corporation Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (CCSR) stated that “substantial revenue from Sudan’s oil production has gone toward the purchase of weapons.”

Weapons? For what?

U.S. Secretary of State Colin S. Powell said in September 2004 that “genocide has been committed” in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, and that Sudan’s government along with so-called Janjaweed militiamen “bear responsibility.”

Remember when we invaded Iraq and retrospectively decided that it was because Saddam killed his own people? 250,000 dead. 2 million displaced, homeless, starving and desperate. In Sudan. Killed and displaced with our money. But hey, I'm sure the profit makes it well worth it.

UPDATE: I quoted 250,000 dead from DivestSudan. Last year, I read numbers around 400,000. Eric Reeves puts the number at 340,000. The official UN number is set at 70,000, but the BBC describes that number as "obviously wrong." Read the BBC's full discussion of the difficulty of getting an exact number.

posted by andrew golis @ 3:27 PM