The petition
To: President Mary Sue Coleman and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Regent Board
Petition for the University of Michigan’s Divestment from Sudan
WHEREAS
(1) The government of Sudan has engaged in a policy of genocide against its own non-Arab population in Darfur through use of its military and through sponsorship of attacks by armed militias known as the janjaweed;
(2) The Sudanese government is responsible for the death of 400,000 Darfurians and displacement of 2.5 million more(1);
(3) The U.S. State Department and both chambers of Congress have declared that the Sudanese regime of dictator Omar al-Bashir is committing genocide(2);
(4) Certain international companies, by conducting business operations in Sudan, bring direct foreign investment dollars to Khartoum and provide both moral and political cover to the Sudanese regime;
(5) Khartoum has funneled large portions of direct foreign investment into military expenditures used to perpetuate the genocide while neglecting needed development projects in the Darfur region(3);
(6) The government of Sudan has a history of remedying egregious behavior in response to economic pressure(4);
(7) The policy and practice of genocide is abhorrent to the moral and political values of the members of the University of Michigan;
We, the undersigned, request the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor divest from offending companies doing business with the genocidal government in Sudan immediately.
1 Darfur Mortality Study, Table. Coalition of International Justice. Published: April 21, 2005.
http://www.cji.org/pdf/CIJ_Mor...
2 House Concurrent Resolution 467 and Senate Concurrent Resolution 124
3 Sudan, Oil, and Human Rights. Human Rights Watch. 2003.
http://www.hrw.org/reports/200...
4 Silverstein, Ken. “Official Pariah Sudan Valuable to America's War on Terrorism.”
Los Angeles Times. Published: April 29, 2005. p. A1.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
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