Sudan Crisis: Divestment Movement
Medical Community Joins Divestment Movement
By Regina-Celeste Ahmad, MS 2, Medical Scientist Training Program
Regina-Celeste Ahmad, MS 2
Since 2003, militias financed by the Sudanese government have committed crimes against humanity with 400,000 civilians killed and over 2 million refugees. Despite the passage of a May 2006 peace treaty, the situation in Darfur is worsening. The refusal by the Sudanese government to allow entry to UN peacekeepers and the increasing restrictions on humanitarian aid means those fortunate enough to settle in a refugee camp face rape and death by violence, disease, and starvation.
In protest, groups worldwide are divesting from businesses involved with the Sudan government as a means of applying pressure to the government by removing financial resources funding this genocide. In the US, medical students led the recent divestment of University of California Regents, joining the numerous schools and states already divested including Stanford, Harvard, and the state of Illinois. This spring, a divestment campaign was initiated at the University of Chicago by a coalition of social justice activists. Recently, many medical students and BSD faculty have signed petitions supporting divestment.
Photo courtesy of Jenny Fisher
Physicians have played a critical role in providing aid for victims and raising awareness. Physician reports from Médecine Sans Frontières and Physicians for Human Rights have been instrumental in documenting the ongoing atrocities. The University of Chicago has its own history of international health and human rights work, most notably efforts by the late Robert Kirschner, a prominent forensic pathologist and world-renowned human rights activist. Emeritus Professor Dr. James Bowman recalls attending a campus-wide faculty meeting with Dr. Kirschner during the South Africa apartheid era. They and faculty colleagues experienced great frustration over the University's decision not to divest from investments with ties to South Africa. Today, many in the University's medical and research communities carry these same convictions for Sudan divestment, believing that not to act would be antithetical to the fundamental values our professions and the University holds.
For physicians and students concerned about international health and social justice, grappling with human rights issues is unavoidable because they are intertwined with public health factors over which doctors often have little control. Physician activists, both past and present, impart inspiration to a profession that struggles through medicine, research, and activism to defend the health and human rights of everyone, but especially society's most vulnerable.
Visit www.uchicagoSTAND.org (Students Taking Action Now Darfur) for more information on the genocide in Darfur and the divestment campaign.
