Divestment:
Solution or Diversion?
By Kevin Funk &
Steve Fake
07 October, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Evoking
memories of global
activism against apartheid in South Africa, the Save Darfur
movement is aiming to address the humanitarian crisis in the beleaguered
region by campaigning for divestment
from certain companies operating in Sudan.
Though there are ample grounds
for criticizing
other stances taken (or not taken) by many in the Save
Darfur movement – such as support for a no-fly zone,
or the general failure to put substantial pressure on Washington to
adequately fund the African Union (AU) forces on the ground in Darfur
– the focus on divestment is not in and of itself objectionable,
and to the extent it can aid efforts to stop the atrocities, it should
certainly be pursued. However, it is important to understand the limitations
and potential pitfalls of such advocacy, as well as the political context
that has allowed divestment from Sudan to progress in ways that divestment
from other human rights abusers has not.
As explained
by the academic Eric Reeves,
who has written extensively on Darfur, the goals of the movement are
as follows:
The divestment campaign targets
those companies that list on the New York Stock Exchange and other U.S.
exchanges which provide key commercial and capital investments in the
economy of Sudan, supporting the National Islamic Front, National Congress
Party regime in Khartoum, and insulating them from the consequences
of their massive external debt and their profligate expenditures on
military weapons and the prosecution of genocidal war in Darfur.
Note that this is divestment
from companies "that list on...U.S. exchanges" - it is not
divestment from U.S. companies operating in Sudan, since they are already
prohibited from doing so by U.S. sanctions. Accordingly, the divestment
campaign is targeting foreign (mostly Asian) firms, most prominently
oil companies such as PetroChina.
While urging individual and
corporate investors in the U.S. to sell their holdings in foreign companies
because of their links to human rights abuses in Sudan is laudable in
principle, it is also, at the very least, convoluted. One issue is simply
the practicality of such an aim; in light of the extended degrees of
separation of influence between perpetrators and activists, it is not
obvious the campaign can be effective. While divestment from South Africa
is often cited as a precursor to this divestment movement, it is in
reality a poor basis for comparison in this regard, as U.S. companies
operated in South Africa without legal impediment for most of the duration
of the U.S.-allied apartheid regime, and thus were directly susceptible
to pressure from U.S. activists. As noted, this is not the case with
Sudan, and the added layer of complexity may render this campaign a
waste of time and energy that could be applied to helping the people
of Darfur in a more concrete fashion.
Yet even if the campaign
were successful in forcing total U.S. divestment from foreign oil companies
operating in Sudan, it is not clear how much pressure these firms would
actually feel to pull out of the country, especially since some of them,
such as PetroChina, are state-backed. There is, to be sure, no shortage
of businesses or governments willing to invest in oil-producing countries
without any consideration for human rights (as the U.S. does in Equatorial
Guinea, "among the world's worst" dictatorships),
and thus any ostensible success in the divestment movement may simply
lead to a shuffling of the line-up of investors rather than meaningful
pressure on Khartoum.
Just as fundamentally, pursuing
a divestment strategy fails to take into account that the Save Darfur
movement has far greater leverage vis-à-vis the U.S. government,
for whose policies U.S. activists bear direct moral responsibility.
As an elementary statement of principle, activists concerned with improving
the world will focus their efforts where they can most effectively influence
change, generally the policies of their own governments. Yet Darfur
activists have largely failed to pressure Washington to take basic steps
– beyond ultimately meaningless rhetorical grandstanding –
to improve the situation on the ground in Darfur, such as funding AU
troops, "many of whom have not been paid for months."
Nevertheless, the Save Darfur Coalition clings to its curious official
posture that Washington is doing " good
work" in resolving the crisis, evidence for which
has not been forthcoming, as it does not exist.
In no small part because
it largely frees domestic elites of moral culpability by focusing instead
on China's role in perpetuating the crisis in Darfur - which is significant,
though again, less subject to pressure from U.S. activists than Washington's
own cynical
policies - this divestment movement has gained significant
ground in a relatively short period of time.
Across the U.S., states
, major cities, presidential
candidates , and dozens of universities
have moved to discuss and/or implement varying levels of divestment
from companies with Sudan operations, as well as U.S.-based firms such
as Berkshire
Hathaway and Fidelity
Investments which hold stock in such businesses.
Yet if divestment is a valid
tactic for effecting change in a country which seriously violates human
rights - that is, if divestment is supported by the victims of the abuses,
and can be "
targeted" in such a way that it does not have adverse
affects on the general population - then where is the rush to divest
from Israel's " war
crimes"?
The contradiction is explicit
in the case of Harvard University. In 2002, in response to a petition
to divest the university from the Israeli
Occupation, then Harvard President Lawrence Summers condemned
the campaign as "anti-Semitic in effect, if not intent." Yet
in April 2005, Harvard became "the first major victory in a national
campaign for divestment from Sudan" as it divested
from PetroChina. As Summers commented,
Divestment is not a step
that Harvard takes lightly, but I believe there is a compelling case
for action in these special circumstances, in light of the terrible
situation still unfolding in Darfur and the leading role played by PetroChina's
parent company in the Sudanese oil industry, which is so important to
the Sudanese regime.
Employing his own perverse
logic, why is this campaign not anti-Chinese, anti-African, or anti-Muslim?
As the Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz asks
about those advocating divestment from the Israeli Occupation,
Why don't they say anything
about Cuba's chilling of dissent or China's occupation of Tibet? Why
don't they feel a personal stake in getting Jordan, Egypt, and the Philippines
to stop torturing people? ... The only reason they feel so strongly
about Israel is because it is the Jewish nation.
Yet it would be unimaginable
for a figure even as crass as Dershowitz to openly condemn Darfur activists
for bigotry and failing to "say anything about Cuba." Instead,
Darfur activism receives extensive and favorable coverage in the mainstream
media, while the voices of opponents of U.S.-Israeli policies vis-à-vis
the Palestinians are marginalized and ridiculed, if they are heard at
all.
Accordingly, the campaign
of targeted divestment from Sudan owes much, if not all of its success
to the fact that it harmonizes with official U.S. rhetoric on Darfur.
Divesting from Israel's human rights abuses, substantial
as they are, does not accord with establishment prerogatives, and thus
the campaign to divest - though longer running - has failed to resonate
in the tender hearts of city legislators, state government officials,
or the Lawrence Summers of the world (evidently, no small category).
Nor is the mainstream press chomping at the bit to take concrete steps
to end the war in Iraq, a humanitarian crisis of immense proportions
with a death toll that dwarfs that of Darfur, and one that the U.S.
public more directly has the power to halt. It is because the war in
Iraq is of our making that antiwar activism has failed to resonate in
the media, while officialdom has nurtured the flourishing Save Darfur
movement.
That the campaign to divest
from the Israeli Occupation has failed to gain Darfur-like traction,
while we bear a much more direct moral responsibility for Israel's actions
- which the U.S. government could likely halt almost immediately - makes
the reasons for the relative success of the Sudan divestment campaign
clear enough. Lamentably, the Sudan divestment campaign has failed to
make overtures to divestment activists working to end the Israeli Occupation,
or other human rights abuses.
That the Save Darfur movement
is, in the eyes of its leaders, the " biggest
such activism" since Vietnam - instead of the movement
to end the war in Iraq, which, again, is a crime of Washington's making
- is perhaps an even clearer indication of the failures in our intellectual
culture.
Kevin Funk and Steve
Fake are social justice activists who are currently writing
a book about Darfur. They maintain a blog with their commentary called
" confronting
empire". They are contributors to Foreign Policy In
Focus.
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