Sudan's Enablers

WSJ, Opinion Journal ^ | Wednesday, May 23, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT | BY JODY WILLIAMS AND MIA FARROW

[Eva]

....................................Fidelity has not been the only, or even the largest, U.S. firm enabling the slaughter in Darfur. Earlier this month, Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway, which has roughly $3 billion invested in PetroChina, voted not only against divesting, but against taking any shareholder action on the issue.

Mr. Buffett points out that only PetroChina's parent company, China National Petroleum Company (CNPC), operates in Sudan. Since subsidiaries generally do not have control over parent company operations, Mr. Buffett argues that targeting PetroChina for CNPC's transgressions is misguided. But PetroChina and CNPC are two faces of the same entity. The management of the two overlaps: The president of CNPC is the president of PetroChina, and the CFO of CNPC is PetroChina's CFO as well. Billions of dollars are routinely transferred between the companies. PetroChina is CNPC's largest customer and accounts for at least 63% of CNPC's total assets. Furthermore, PetroChina was explicitly set up to shield CNPC from investor scrutiny and complaints about the underwriting of atrocities in Sudan.............

[Eva]

These aren't the only companies to come under fire for involvement in the PetroChina Sudan interests. In March of 2000, one month before the BP takeover of ARCO was to be completed, based on the price of BP stock on the day the takeover was completed, PetroChina released an illegal IPO, partially intended to retire their debt in the Sudan. BP made a big show of suppporting this IPO, triggering a widely publicized protest and a percipitous drop in the price of BP stock, making the takeover of ARCO a bargain basement sale. BP withdrew their support of the IPO, after the takeover was complete.

[wideawake]

Warren Buffett: disgusting scumbag masquerading as American hero.

And spare me the: "he's a great investor" rhetoric.

He's not a great investor. Benjamin Graham was. He is a lackluster student of Graham.

His primary skill is not investing: it's public relations.

[denydenydeny]

Mr. Buffett points out that only PetroChina's parent company, China National Petroleum Company (CNPC), operates in Sudan. Since subsidiaries generally do not have control over parent company operations, Mr. Buffett argues that targeting PetroChina for CNPC's transgressions is misguided.

As I recall, the sanctions movement against South Africa would not allow corporations to get away with this little maneuver. Nor should we.

[Eva]

bump

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

Until Americans break this link, Islam will continue its murder.

We need a lion heart for a leader, not a frat boy securing his inheritance.

[Eva]

You obviously have no understanding of the situation in the Sudan and wasted an awful lot of time posting irrelevant pictures.

The Sudan was divided into oil districts in the early nineties . These districts were sold to various various countries, one of which sold their share to China. The richest oil districts are all in the southern, non Muslim part of the country. The US owns NO oil interests in the Sudan. France owns the largest, richest district. The gov’t of the Sudan is in the control of the Muslims. Europe is afraid to interfere with the Muslim rulers because they don’t want to jeopardize their oil interests or upset their large Muslim population, or China for that matter. China doesn’t care who it upsets.

The Euros feel that the Muslims already hate the US, so we may as well be the ones to go into the Sudan and rescue the people that are being slaughtered. They, of course feel that the best way to rescue them would be to remove them from the country and bring them to the US, so that they could divide the oil interests without all the hassle.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

You obviously have no understanding of the situation in the Sudan and wasted an awful lot of time posting irrelevant pictures.

You don't get Globalism, how it costs you, and the lives of our children protecting the wealth of the corporate elite, not Americans but Internationalists.