Darfur Crisis Update 11-14-07: Investors Against Genocide Report on Progress, & Identify Those Still in Denial
From Investors Against Genocide via Mia Farrow --
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has completely divested its massive holding in PetroChina. Berkshire sold 2.3 billion shares of the worst of the companies funding the genocide in Darfur. Buffett denies his actions had anything to do with public pressure or genocide, but his complete divestment of PetroChina cuts the connection between Berkshire Hathaway and the genocide in Darfur. The sell-off by one of the world’s most respected investors is also a clear demonstration that ethical responsibility and fiduciary responsibility are not mutually exclusive. Since Berkshire no longer holds Petrochina, we have dropped it from our list of problem investment companies.
UBS (which owns the former Paine Webber) was added to our list of target companies. UBS not only acquired more than 1 billion shares of Petrochina, but also acted as the underwriter for the recent $8.94 billion Petrochina public offering in Shanghai. Nobel laureates Elie Wiesel, Jody Williams and Betty Williams, along with Mia Farrow, Ruth Messinger, Justice Richard Goldstone, and Mukesh Kapila, called on UBS to aggressively engage with PetroChina. UBS ignored their request.
The Congressional Human Rights Caucus has scheduled a hearing on genocide-free investing for December 11, 2007. The hearing will shed light on the problem of so many ordinary investors being inadvertently connected to the genocide in Darfur by virtue of the large investments financial institutions make in companies like PetroChina. We will keep you posted as more information becomes available.
Franklin Templeton. Demonstrations and advertising in the San Francisco Bay Area have increased visibility to the problem investments by Franklin Templeton, now the mutual fund company with the largest holdings of PetroChina. [NOTE: You can view the Save Darfur Coalition ads on You Tube. I have included a window to them below.]
Here’s what you can do to help:
Submit a shareholder resolution. Our shareholder resolution drive is gaining traction. We’ve submitted nearly 75 resolutions to 61 mutual funds across multiple companies. To put this in context, according to a recent article in IR magazine, there were a total of 322 environmental and social resolutions submitted to all companies for all of 2006. We’re enthused by our progress but want to do much more. We need your help. If you own shares in any of our targeted problem investment firms, please review the information on our shareholder proposal program <http://investorsagainstgenocide.org/shareholderresolutions> and contact us for further information on how you can help.
Send a complaint to UBS, Franklin Templeton, and other problem investment companies at InvestorsAgainstGenocide.org.
Forward this note to your friends. We need every supporter to help us find more supporters so our numbers become too large to ignore.
Thanks for your ongoing support for genocide-free investing as a minimum requirement of the financial institutions that serve us.
The Investors Against Genocide Team
For a Words of Power Archive of posts on the Crisis in Darfur, click here.
If you want to help save Darfur, here are sites that will show you how:
Mia Farrow
Dream for Darfur
Enough: The Project to End Genocide and Mass Atrocities
Genocide Intervention Network
Divest for Darfur.
Save Darfur!
Darfur, Africa, Franklin Templeton, Genocide, Mia Farrow, Berkshire Hathaway, UBS, PetroChina, Sudan, Investors Against Genocide, Richard Power, Words of Power