Divesting from Darfur

VIII. Stopping genocide versus long-term economic consequences of targeted divestment

Even with the tailoring of divestment from Sudan in a "targeted" fashion and despite evidence that government revenue is rarely funneled into substantive social development projects, there is still a chance that divestment will have some negative impact on Sudan's underprivileged. Because this report has outlined the numerous reasons that targeted divestment from Sudan is likely to positively influence Khartoum's behavior, it is reasonable to ask whether any negative impact from divestment would be more than offset by the benefits of pressuring Khartoum to halt the most heinous of human rights abuses - genocide. Furthermore, in contrast to the decades-long US-based divestment from South Africa, the targeted divestment campaign from Sudan is intended to be a temporary stopgap measure for urgently countering wholesale slaughter.

In considering the possible long-term implications for divestment, it is instructive to draw parallels to the most widely recognized genocide of the 20th century, the Holocaust. Many foreign firms had business ties with Nazi Germany, including IBM. Given that IBM's products were important both for building Germany's technology infrastructure and for assisting Germany in efficiently categorizing and exterminating Third Reich victims, would any modern institutional investor seriously debate the merits of whether IBM's business in Germany was ethical? Would divestment critics be significantly worried about the effect of IBM divestment on long-term economic growth in Germany when of millions victims were being immediately butchered in the here and now, thanks, in part, to IBM's business relationship with the Third Reich? While the parallels between Darfur and Germany are obviously inexact, reframing the divestment question in the context of the more familiar and famous genocide of WW II Germany clearly offers an alternative perspective.

*All information provided by the Sudan Divestment Taskforce, www.sudandivestment.org

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