A group of Northeastern students has banded together in hopes of encouraging Northeastern administration to remove, or divest, its assets from corporations that do business with the genocide-ridden country of Sudan.
Despite two weeks of attempting to contact administration to find out if Northeastern has invested in such companies, members of the group, known as FORGE, said they have gotten few answers.
Large universities often invest their endowments and other assets into the stock of strategically chosen corporations to insure the security of the funds.
The group, working with other college groups nationwide, has pinpointed several corporations that do business with the government in Sudan, a country where an estimated 600,000 people have been killed over the past three years.
Some of these companies include PetroChina, a Chinese oil company Harvard University pulled its assets from earlier this year, telecommunications giant Siemens AG and ABB Ltd., a power company that won a contract on a huge hydroelectric power station in 2004.
According to the Web site of the research group the Genocide Intervention Fund, “ABB has signed contracts totaling more than $36 million in that country. Such contracts spur economic growth that benefits the government and contribute to [the killer’s] ability to increase the lethality and scope of its campaign.”
Esther Chou, a junior international affairs major who is spearheading the effort, said divestment is a strategy aimed at raising awareness of the killing, as well as showing students activism can affect universities’ actions.
Chou pointed to the success of similar campaigns that contributed to the end of the policy of apartheid in South Africa as an inspiration for the divestment movement.
“The genocide in Sudan continues today in part because we let it continue,” she said. “As a human being, it unnerves me to know that there are other human beings dying as a result of our unwillingness to care.”
Chou said she was “99 percent” sure Northeastern has assets in Sudan. She pointed to the discovery over the past two years that Harvard, Boston University and Emmanuel College all had investments with the targeted companies.
The group has complained administrators at Northeastern have given them the “runaround” in their efforts to investigate Northeastern’s involvement with the companies.
“The last person I spoke with told me to go to the Treasurer’s Office, and hopefully someone there will know,” said Emily Flynn, a middler communications and political science major. “If this isn’t the right path, then I think we’re going to need to go to President [Richard] Freeland.”
Larry Mucciolo, senior vice president for administration and finance, said the university did not “directly” choose which companies it invested in.
As of press time, he has not disclosed who handles the university’s investments.
Until discovering the nature of Northeastern’s investments, FORGE said they would begin their campaign by attempting to raise awareness.
“You don’t have to be an international affairs major to know what’s going on,” Chou said. “We want to have panels, show films and educate students about what is going on.”
