OurPledge

ACTION: Tell TIAA-CREF to put genocide-free investing on the ballot

Join Investors Against Genocide and tell TIAA-CREF to put genocide-free investing on the ballot for their shareholder meeting on July 15. To learn more about this campaign, read IAG’s Op-Ed in The Chronicle of Higher Education. For your convenience we’ve included the Op-Ed below.

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Tell TIAA-CREF You Do Not Want Your Retirement Money to Support Genocide

By Eric Cohen

TIAA-CREF, a $400-billion provider of financial services, promotes itself with the tag line “financial services for the greater good.” In a recent television commercial, the company proclaimed its “unique insight into the hearts and minds of those who give us hope for the future.” Its literature asserts that it has been “refining our approach to Socially Responsible Investing for nearly 30 years” and that it is “bound to do things very differently” from other financial institutions.

While TIAA-CREF’s marketing messages may be well-suited for its target customers in the academic, medical, cultural, and research fields, its record of actively investing in the worst companies financing the genocide in the Darfur region of western Sudan, tells a different and far less noble story.

ACTION: Collect some signatures for Darfur

I received this email from the Save Darfur Coalition earlier this week. Will you help them collect grassroots signatures in advance of the U.S.’s presidency of the UN Security Council? – Nikki

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You may have heard about the recent escalation of violence in Sudan. We are already receiving word that the government is retaliating. Reports indicate that government forces have been detaining, torturing and killing Darfuris in and around Khartoum, and Janjaweed militias have commenced attacks in North Darfur.

As leaders of local Darfur activist groups, I wanted to make sure to send you have the most up-to-date information as we receive it, and that you are equipped to react.

Last week many of you signed our online petition urging President Bush to help expedite deployment of peacekeepers and help protect Darfuri civilians. Now we’re asking local activist groups like yours to get the word out the old-fashioned way — within your own community.

Can your local Darfur group help us reach our 75,000 signature goal by the end of May? Click here to learn more and to download our printable petition to gather signatures in your community.

A need for vigilance

A statement from the ENOUGH Project, released yesterday:

The unprecedented attack on a suburb of Khartoum by the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) demonstrates once again the urgent need for a credible and inclusive peace process to resolve the crisis in Darfur. It is too early to predict what effect the attack will have on the political and military dynamics of the conflict going forward, but Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party is making clear that its response will focus on civilians. The government and its proxies are launching a new round of assaults against civilian targets in Darfur and we are receiving credible reports of arrests, beatings, disappearances, and executions of Darfuri civilians (particularly Zaghawa) in Khartoum and Omdurman. Today’s alarming reports of heavy fighting in Abyei–a flashpoint that threatens to ignite full scale civil war–further underscore the urgent need for sustained, high-level diplomacy. To prevent the further deterioration of the volatile situation in Sudan, ENOUGH and the Save Darfur Coalition urge the U.S. government and the international community to take immediate steps to launch and sustain an all-encompassing peace process that addresses the local and national issues that are fueling conflict.

Read ENOUGH’s Re-Released report “Creating a Peace to Keep in Darfur”

To learn more about the violence in the Abyei region of Sudan, read ENOUGH’s report, “Sounding the Alarm on Abyei”

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UN Global Compact Called Upon to Influence Petrochina to Help Darfur

[A press release this week from Investors Against Genocide:]

Over 80 organizations and individuals ask UN Global Compact to uphold its principles

Boston, MA – May 12, 2008 – Three days before PetroChina’s annual meeting of shareholders, over 80 civil society organizations including human rights, corporate accountability, religious and anti-genocide groups from 17 countries have signed an open letter to the United Nations Global Compact. The letter calls upon the UN Global Compact to use its influence with PetroChina, a compact participant, to help bring an end to the humanitarian crisis in Sudan. PetroChina, the listed arm of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), Sudan’s largest oil industry partner, is indisputably linked to the regime perpetuating the five-year humanitarian crisis in Darfur which many consider to be genocide.

The letter, which was coordinated by Boston-based Investors Against Genocide, was also signed by members of US Congress, Canadian Parliamentarians, actor Mia Farrow, and Sudan researcher and analyst Eric Reeves. For the full text of the letter including signatories, visit www.InvestorsAgainstGenocide.org/UNGCandPetroChina.

Darfur Now College Tour

[Note from AADG: For more info on this film tour, please visit www.darfurnowtour.com]

Los Angeles, CA, March 28th, 2008 – STAND and Participant Media are proud to sponsor a nationwide tour of the critically acclaimed new documentary, Darfur Now, which will be available on DVD May 27th. Schools around the country, chosen for their outspoken efforts to fight genocide, will host a special screening of Darfur Now and a concert to raise awareness, funds, and send the message that NOW is the time to end genocide in Darfur. Across the country, tens of thousands of students have shown that they will not stand idly by in the face of genocide. From passing legislation to fundraising for relief and protection efforts in Darfur, they have declared that they are the anti-genocide generation. But we can do more…

ACTION: Tell President Bush – Don’t Normalize Ties with Khartoum

[Apr. 23, 2008 Update: This is a key action alert, so please keep calling! Thank you. -Nikki]

How: Call the White House comments line (202-456-1111), and leave this message with the operator on the other end:

“The U.S. must NOT normalize ties with the Government of Sudan. If anything, our administration should do the opposite in order to pressure the perpetrators of the Darfur genocide. Namely, the U.S. should lead the international community in imposing targeted multilateral sanctions against Khartoum’s senior leaders.”

Why: Now’s not the time to let up. Last week, The New York Times reported that the U.S. is considering normalizing ties with the Sudanese government and lifting the unilateral sanctions that are currently in place against it. This would be in exchange for Khartoum’s acceptance of Thai and Nepalese peacekeepers into Darfur, among other things.

Here’s the problem, though: Sudan has already formally agreed to let these UN peacekeepers in.

The U.S. cannot take this conciliatory approach to stopping genocide. If anything, the current administration needs to do the exact opposite — it needs to ramp up the pressure by helping to impose targeted multilateral sanctions against Khartoum’s senior leaders.

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ACTION: Stay home, Mr. President

[From the Save Darfur Coalition:]

If you were invited to a party hosted by the enablers of the genocide of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, would you go?

Join me in urging President Bush not to attend the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Tell President Bush to take a stand for human rights and skip the opening ceremony of the Olympics.

China has the power to convince the Sudanese government to accept deployment of the United Nations-African Union (UNAMID) peacekeeping forces for Darfur. But instead China remains Sudan’s major weapons provider, largest foreign investor and trade partner, and diplomatic apologist.

J.K. Rowling and others take action for Darfur – a letter from children’s authors

Signed by: Mike Berenstain; Judy Blume; Gillian Cross; Anne Fine; Cornelia Funke; Julia Golding; Michael Morpugo; J.K. Rowling; Louis Sachar; Rawya Sadek; Amanda Sthers; R.L. Stine; Tracey West

In Darfur there is a story that is being told, re-told, and told again. It is a story of loss, fear, and trauma. Of children’s fates being dictated by armed men. It is a not a story that we want to tell you. But it is a story you must hear.

Join us on April 9

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ACTION: Darfur can’t wait. U.S. aid needed now

[From American Jewish World Service:]

In response to the ongoing suffering of the Darfuri people, the very least our Congress can do is provide the funding needed for peacekeeping and humanitarian aid.

The upcoming emergency supplemental bill is the only opportunity for Congress to provide critical financial assistance to the Darfuri people this year. Please click here to send an email to your legislators — demand that the U.S. plays its part by fully funding these urgent needs.

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