wfn.org | Committee urges PC(USA) to dump stock in oil company exploiting

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Note #6347 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

war-ravaged Sudan
25-January-2001
01026

Committee urges PC(USA) to dump stock in oil company exploiting war-ravaged
Sudan

Members explore teeming settlement on Arizona-Mexico border 

by Evan Silverstein

TUCSON, AZ -- A Presbyterian Church (USA) committee is recommending that the
denomination's General Assembly urge church entities not to own stock in one
of the world's largest oil companies, Talisman Energy Inc., of Calgary,
Canada.

	Talisman drills for oil in Sudan and is a financial partner of the Sudanese
government, which has made the oil fields of south-central Sudan a major
battlefield in the African nation’s 17-year-old civil war.

	During a Jan. 20 meeting in Tucson, the Committee on Mission Responsibility
Through Investment (MRTI) unanimously approved a recommendation that
Talisman be put on the PC(USA)'s divestment list.

	Spokespersons for the committee said Sudan's Muslim government is a
genocidal regime that enslaves women and children, bombs hospitals, and has
been responsible for the starving deaths of more than a million people.

	Foes of the Sudanese regime contend that Americans who invest in Talisman
and other oil companies that do business in Sudan unwillingly become
supporters of genocide, because the oil fields pump millions of dollars into
the government's war effort. The MRTI committee said its action was meant to
keep the PC(USA)'s name from being associated with the bloody war.

	If this summer's 213th General Assembly in Louisville adopts the
recommendation, PC(USA)-related investing entities would effectively be
barred from buying or holding Talisman stock. Last year's GA in Long Beach,
CA, called upon MRTI to monitor the situation in Sudan and decide whether
divestment from Talisman is appropriate.

	"In one sense the question is moot and in another sense it is not," said
the Rev. William Somplatsky-Jarman, associate for MRTI. Somplatsky-Jarman
noted that the Presbyterian Church (USA) Foundation and other church
stockholders have already liquidated their Talisman shares.

	"'A, we could always buy it back if it's not on the list," he said. "B,
there are other entities in the church that may have (Talisman stock). And
C, there is certainly a vocal, if not very large, constituency in the church
(of people) very concerned about the Sudan that supports this kind of
recommendation."

	By divesting in Talisman, the world’s third-largest oil company, the
PC(USA) is saying that it will not have its money spent for such horrific
uses, MRTI members said. Complaints about the government's conduct of the
war prompted U.S. sanctions last year against Sudan's state-owned oil
enterprise, Sudapet Ltd.

	The sanctions also bar U.S. companies from doing business with a joint
venture between Sudapet and three private companies -- China National
Petroleum Corp.; Malaysia's state-owned oil company Petronas; and Talisman,
Canada's largest oil producer.

	Chevron discovered oil in Sudan 20 years ago. Talisman Energy, which
recently took over the franchise, has helped the country develop a major oil
capacity. A 1,000-mile pipeline running from the interior to Port Sudan is
fully operational, pumping at least 100,000 barrels per day. The Sudanese
government has targeted villages and civilians to clear the area around the
pipeline in southern Sudan, according to Somplatsky-Jarman, and has
reportedly spent billions of dollars worth of arms from several countries,
using future oil revenues as credit.

	"(There have been reports) that the Sudanese military used oil-company
airstrips to facilitate its campaign," Somplatsky-Jarman said. "With the
exception of some nominal charitable ventures by the oil companies, it is
clear that the people of the south have not benefited from the pipeline. In
fact, they have been victimized by it."

            The civil war, which has cost more than 1.5 million lives since
1983, pits Khartoum's Islamic government against mainly Christian and
animist rebels in the south.

	The membership of MRTI includes representatives from the Board of Pensions
and the Presbyterian Foundation, as well as other advocacy and advisory
groups -- the Advocacy Committee on Women’s Concerns, the Advocacy Committee
on Racial Ethnic Concerns and the Advisory Committee for Social Witness
Policy.

	The Foundation, a former Talisman shareholder, sold its shares recently,
for economic reasons, although the resolution approved by last year's GA
asked the self-incorporated church entity to maintain a minimal ownership
position to permit shareholder involvement. Similar sell-offs involved the
General Board of Pensions of the United Methodist Church and Christian
Brothers Investment Services, Somplatsky-Jarman said.

	MRTI is not the only group opposed to the presence of foreign oil companies
in Sudan, the largest African nation geographically. The New Sudan Council
of Churches recently called for foreign oil producers to leave the country.
A national campaign advocating divestment has started targeting other major
Talisman Energy shareholders, the largest of which is Fidelity Investments.
This indirectly impacts the PC(USA), because the Board of Pensions (BOP)
recently switched to a Fidelity-managed retirement savings plan,
Somplatsky-Jarman said.

	Participants in the pension program may choose among 10 investment
vehicles, two of which are funds managed by Fidelity that do not own
Talisman. The BOP recently added the Canadian oil producer to its own
divestment list.

	It is unclear which Fidelity fund owns Talisman stock. Fidelity has told
the Board of Pensions that it is not held by any of the other eight plans
available to BOP plan participants. However, part of the national campaign
is aimed at getting individuals and institutions with investments in
Fidelity to pressure the company to sell its Talisman stock.

	If Fidelity declines, investors will be urged to take their money
elsewhere. A small  but vocal group within the PC(USA) actively supports the
divestment campaign.

	MRTI will also verify General Electric's position on involvement in future
land-mine production. The committee wants GE to be among corporations taking
a moral stand by refusing to supply any parts or information useful in mine
and cluster-bomb production. MRTI is corresponding with the company about
possible future production of such devices. In the past, GE has declined to
take such a position, and therefore is on the GA's divestment list.

	MRTI also promotes shareholder engagement through proxy voting, dialogues
with executives and filing shareholder resolutions on issues to which the GA
has spoken.

	Among the shareholder engagements reviewed and supported by MRTI at this
meeting was a request that AT&T Corp. officials prepare a report by May on
the communication giant'’s policies regarding involvement in the pornography
industry and an assessment of the potential financial, legal and
public-relations liabilities. The resolution was prompted by shareholder
concerns after AT&T recently expanded the availability of sexually explicit
content on its digital cable system through an agreement with the Hot
Network, an adult cable channel.

	The committee also approved voting proxies for separate resolutions
requesting that the boards of directors of Coca-Cola Enterprises and Hershey
Food Corp., take steps to phase out the selling and manufacturing of
genetically engineered crops and organisms, unless long-term safety testing
proves that they are not harmful to humans, animals or the environment. Both
resolutions ask that reports on both companies be provided to shareholders
by Aug. 1.

	In a related action, the committee approved a resolution asking officials
of the Kroger Co. to adopt a policy of labeling and identifying all products
sold under its brand names or private labels that may contain genetically
engineered crops or organisms unless testing has indicated they are not
harmful to humans, animals or the environment. The committee requested a
report from Kroger on the matter by Aug. 1.

	The committee met at a facility operated by BorderLinks, a bi-national
ecumenical program that provides educational and nutritional aid to people
living along the Arizona-Mexico border.

	Also during the meeting, the MRTI committee:

* Elected Jim Newland of Northeast Georgia Presbytery as its chair and Adele
Langworthy of Los Ranchos Presbytery as vice chair.

* Visited the Border Patrol station in Nogales, Ariz., before crossing into
Nogales, Mexico,
where MRTI committee members had a BorderLinks-sponsored tour of the city,
meeting residents, officials and clergy and visiting a maquiladora factory.
They also visited a free-lunch program at Casa de la Misericordia (The House
of Mercy), and spent the night at the facility (see note #6348).

	The group met with Francisco Trujillo, director of the Nogales Sonora
Chamber of Commerce, who is leaving that position to work as BorderLinks'
Mexican director.

	The committee members also visited with Roman Catholic Sisters from the
Missionaries of the Eucharist, who joined the BorderLinks staff in 1998 and
work with parish priests in Nogales to develop church-based Bible-study
groups; met with families in Colonia Las Torres, a squatters' settlement on
the edge of Nogales; split into small groups to conduct a "market-basket
survey" of food prices and cost of living in the city; and joined a Nogales
Presbyterian church for dinner and worship.

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