China Support Network
Warns Wall Street:
Divest PetroChina
And CSN introduces new point man to pressure Wall Street:
Former U.S. Senate candidate, attorney Robert Gerald Lorge (R-WI)
is newest addition to CSN Board of Directors
Washington, D.C. (May 13, 2007, China Support Network, CSN)-- The China Support Network warned Wall Street today to start divestment of PetroChina Co Ltd (NYSE:PTR). "Corporations will increasingly be judged based on social responsibility, not just economics. PetroChina fails this test because it and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) government of Mainland China, of which it is a part, both are supporting the genocide in Darfur, Sudan of millions of Christians and other ethnic minorities persecuted by the Islamic Republic of Sudan and its proxy Janjaweed militia death squads. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed thus far and some 2.5 million people have been made refugees. This is the result of Communist China being the dominant player in strife torn Africa today. We can expect more of the same in central Asia, Latin America and everywhere globally that Communist China seeks oil and other vital resources to feed its military industrial complex, which is based in part on slave labor," commented Attorney Robert Gerald Lorge, a 2006 U.S. Senate candidate (R-WI) and the newest board of directors member at the China Support Network.
The China Support Network (CSN) warning aligns with and supports recent efforts by the Save Darfur Coalition to demand divestment by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRKA, NYSE:BRKB) and Fidelity Investments who are the largest stockholders in PetroChina (NYSE:PTR) and its parent company China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., known as Sinopec (NYSE:SNP).
CSN demanded that Wall Street become socially responsible and divest all holdings that support Communist China's human rights abuses in China and around the world, including holdings in PetroChina, Sinopec, China Petroleum & Chemical, CNPC (Hong Kong). The controlling shareholder of PetroChina is owned directly by the Communist Chinese government and does business directly in Sudan. Other socially irresponsible Communist controlled holdings include CNOOC, and China International Trust & Investment (CITIC).
CSN's Founder and President John Patrick Kusumi, a 1984 independent U.S. presidential candidate, added, "We are asking socially responsible investors to call their brokerage firms and demand they sell their shares in these Communist Chinese government controlled companies that are supporting human rights abuses in China, Sudan and around the world, and demand that their mutual funds divest from these socially irresponsible holdings."
Lorge also criticized Fidelity Investment spokeswoman Anne Crowley's statement that the funds will be managed in such a way that meets the funds' investment objectives. "Make no mistake about it, the sole objective of profit above all else is not only pure greed above morality. In the case of genocidal regimes like China and Sudan, it leads to blood-soaked profits!" Lorge warned.
Demetrius Klitou, a CSN board member and author of The Friends And Foes Of Human Rights, also weighed in. "A corporation or an individual judged to have aided, or in any way contributed to the genocide in Sudan must be held responsible," said Klitou.
Lorge concluded, "We the free peoples of the world cannot allow our neighbors or any freedom loving people to have their very lives sold for the profit of a greedy few. After World War II the world vowed to never forget the Jewish Holocaust. We will never forget the genocides of this past century and we will never forget those who financed these human rights abuses and genocides either--whether in China, Cambodia, Darfur-Sudan, and around our world. Wall Street would best serve its own interests by learning from South Africa and make its divestment decisions now, ahead of the time for accounting for what is right and what is wrong market behavior and start investing accordingly."
The China Support Network is one of the leading groups internationally supporting the Chinese pro-democracy movement. Organized after the Tiananmen Square massacre of June, 1989, CSN has long worked in an integrated way with leading Chinese dissidents. The China Support Network has opposed the United States' PNTR (Permanent Normalized Trade Relations i.e. "Most Favored Nation") trade measures for China, and the China Support Network opposes the International Olympic Committee's decision to site the 2008 Olympics in Beijing (Peking), China. CSN has also joined coalitions such as "Boycott Made In China", "Bring Jiang (former Chinese President Jiang Zemin) To Justice", "Bye Bye CCP", and the "Coalition for the International Criminal Court" to hold the Communist Chinese regime accountable for human rights abuses and to promote pro-democracy activists and dissidents in China.
Charles Lee was a high profile case as a U.S. citizen imprisoned by Communist China, until his release in 2006. Reached by CSN for comment, he said, "I would be happy to support the cause of pressuring the CCP on the issue of Darfur, and I would be happy to see foreign investment coming out of China, not just Petro China, so that the CCP would have much less resources to persecute people in China--the sooner to end the persecution."
Lee also offered a first hand account of slave labor by prisoners for export to the West. While incarcerated, he was forced to produce Homer Simpson slippers. Lee said, "As for the Homer Simpson slippers, it is an American company and it is a shame for sure for them to go to China and use prisoners of conscience to produce them -- even though they might not know it, but have they ever cared?"
In addition to its call for divestment on the part of Wall Street, the China Support Network is also calling for long form journalism on issues raised here by U.S. news organizations -- and to include this in coverage of the upcoming June 4 anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in China.
In an exclusive interview yet to be published by CSN, leading Chinese dissident and co-founder of the China Democracy Party Xu Wenli was asked how the U.S. government could improve its support of the Chinese democracy movement. He said, "Most importantly, the U.S. government should increase its attention and spotlight on China's pro-democracy movement and offer at least a symbolic sign of support for the cause. In the last few years, the Bush administration has generally been lukewarm in its support of China's democracy activism at best."
Published May 13, 2007 by the China Support Network (CSN). Begun as the American response group in 1989, CSN represents Americans who are "on the side" of the students in Tiananmen Square -- standing for democratic reform, human rights, and freedom in China. For dissident news; to support a stronger China policy; or get more information, see http://www.chinasupport.net/.
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