Petition Calls for End to Sinopec Ties

A student petition calling for divestment from firms operating in Sudan has re-emerged with a new focus on the Beijing-based oil company Sinopec and has garnered roughly 200 signatures over the past week, according to organizers.

The original petition last year urged Harvard to sell its stake in PetroChina, another oil company linked to Sudan. Harvard ultimately divested from that firm last spring.

And in a Mass Hall interview yesterday, University President Lawrence H. Summers expressed his hope that Harvard will quickly move to examine the issue of divestment from Sudan-linked companies that remain in its portfolio.

“My view is that the kinds of involvements that were present in the case of PetroChina provided sufficient warrant for divestiture, and I just haven’t looked into the precise situation of other companies in sufficient detail to know whether they’re present or not,” Summers said yesterday. “But I hope that will be done in very short order.”

The former Treasury secretary expressed concern with the decreasing level of attention given to Sudan by the United States. United Nations officials estimate that as many as 200,000 people have died as a result of clashes between Sudanese government-backed militias and black Muslims in the western region of Darfur, and the U.S. Congress passed a resolution in 2004 stating that the situation rises to the level of genocide.

“I’m disturbed that there seems to be some evidence of some diminution of concern by our government about what’s happening in Darfur at a time when the needs are as great as they ever have been,” Summers said.

The impetus for this year’s divestment campaign was last month’s release of Harvard’s Securities and Exchange Commission filings, which showed the University had increased its holdings in Sinopec, said Chad J. Hazlett, an organizer of the petition and a student at the Kennedy School.

“What we’re going with right now is a campaign principally at Sinopec, because it’s the most clear-cut case and because of the similarity to PetroChina,” Hazlett said. The Washington Post reported in December 2004 that Sinopec is constructing a pipeline in Sudan that could substantially boost the country’s oil output.

Hazlett added that the campaign would not stop at one company.

“What we really want is a solid divestment principle with governments that have been declared to be complicit in genocide,” he said.

The recent push for divestment comes after announcements made last month that Yale, Brown and Amherst will divest from Sudan.

“The Yale divestment was a very encouraging sign that divestment has gone mainstream,” said Benjamin B. Collins ’06, one of the petition’s organizers. “But I think that Sinopec made it very clear that there needs to be more done in terms of divestment at Harvard.”

The original petition for divestment—conceived in October 2004 by Collins and Manav K. Bhatnagar ’06—called upon Summers to publicly pledge that Harvard “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.”

Around 800 students, faculty, and alumni had signed the petition by the time the Harvard Corporation, the University’s top governing body, voted last April to divest from PetroChina.

Although the petition’s website—www.harvarddivest.com—showed only the signatures of 73 students as of last night, Hazlett said it would soon be updated to reflect the current tally of approximately 200 names.

“My personal target for this is 1,000,” said Hazlett, expressing confidence that this year’s tally will surpass last year’s total.

“We’re still in the phase of ramping up efforts,” Collins said. “It’s encouraging that even with minimal publicity, it’s taking off.”

“I think there’s a lot of interest of people who were involved last year and are now noticing that the divestment campaign is only half complete,” Collins added.

—Nicholas M. Ciarelli contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff Writer Cyrus M. Mossavar-Rahmani can be reached at crahmani@fas.harvard.edu.