Another Major Victory for Anti-Genocide Activists

UUSC and Investors Against Genocide (IAG), a colleague organization in the anti-genocide campaign in Sudan, are celebrating the February 18, 2010, announcement that another major financial investment company has joined the growing divestment movement. Following a November shareholder vote, American Funds has divested its extensive holdings — almost $190 million — in PetroChina, a Chinese oil company that has been identified as a major financial and military supporter of the ongoing genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.

As related in IAG’s press release, Eric Cohen, chairperson of IAG, welcomed the news and reiterated the desire for future American Funds investment action: "We congratulate American Funds for divesting from PetroChina. Their action is a positive affirmation of their human rights policy. We trust that, going forward, American Funds will promptly apply their human rights policy to avoid other cases of investments that substantially contribute to genocide." American Funds is the largest mutual fund company to date to divest from PetroChina.

This news comes on the heels of the successful campaign to urge TIAA-CREF’s divestment, announced January 4, from several Asian energy companies that failed to adequately address the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. Together with IAG and several other human-rights organizations, UUSC has urged major U.S.-based financial-services companies to divest from companies linked to the seven-year-old Sudanese genocide.

Learn more about UUSC’s response to the genocide in Darfur.