Nadine,
Here's a little glimpse back to last week, before the blast. Wall St. didn't give a hoot about terrorists then. What's couple million dead when we're talking oil?~s~ Nobody on Wall St. seems to get it. Maybe they will now.
Tune sure changed in a hurry after the heat got turned up close to home...
Boston pastors, ex-slave tell story
Submitted By:mark
Click for Source Article
Francis Bok used to lie awake at night and wonder if anyone
would
ever come to free him. Since being swept up by an Arab militia
at
age seven from his village market in southern Sudan, he had
been a
slave, beaten daily, and forced to sleep with the animals he
tended.
"For 10 years, I never had anyone to laugh with," he says.
Ready to
die rather than go on, he finally escaped on his third attempt.
Now the young man, in his work with the
American Anti-Slavery Group, speaks for the
tens of thousands in his country who remain
in bondage. His voice is part of a rising
chorus in the US that is trying to salvage
legislation that would change the way the
world does business.
As the US Congress gets back to work, a
broad-based, bipartisan coalition is calling
for the Sudan Peace Act - as passed
overwhelmingly (422-2) by the House in June
- to become the law of the land. The bill
includes provisions that would ban oil
companies in partnership with Sudan from
US stock exchanges, and require other firms
active in the country to disclose the nature of their
activities in the
process of entering US capital markets.
But the House version has formidable opponents: Wall Street,
Federal Reserve Bank chief Alan Greenspan, and President Bush.
The Senate passed the act, minus the sanctions, without holding
hearings and with a voice vote held at night. It encourages
peace
efforts and gives added authority for humanitarian relief. Now,
a
Senate and House conference committee must work it out.
The coalition of religious and anti-slavery groups,
conservatives and
liberals, small business, labor, and national security
organizations
insists that market sanctions represent the one hope for
bringing
enough pressure to bear on Khartoum to end the civil war, which
has
killed 2 million people, displaced 4 million, and led an
estimated
100,000 into slavery. Congress has termed the government's
practices genocide.
The radical Islamic government has tepidly engaged in peace
talks
with southern rebels for years, but it is widely acknowledged
that
revenues from rapidly expanding oil exploration - in
conjunction with
Canada's Talisman Energy, Sweden's Lundin Oil, and China's
PetroChina - have boosted its war capacity, further reducing
peace
prospects.
The coalition had planned a Capitol Hill press conference on
Tuesday, with congressmen joining in, but it was cancelled due
to
the day's terrorist actions. On Monday, American pastors who
traveled 9,000 miles to see the situation first hand spoke out
in
Boston, along with Mr. Bok.
"On July 4th, our Independence Day, I participated in a mission
to
redeem slaves," says the Rev. Gloria White-Hammond, of Bethel
A.M.E. Church. "I interviewed women and children and heard
stories
of youngsters who saw their parents slaughtered, and women who
endured unimaginable sexual abuse, including forced genital
mutilation.
"I came back a mad woman," she continued, "and I ask the Senate
to have courage to risk the wrath of Wall Street and to invest
in
morality over money."
In opposing the bill, Wall Street and the US Treasury reject
mixing
capital markets with foreign policy and say such steps could
drive
investors away from US markets.
Proponents point to the comments of Talisman's James Buckley,
who has stated that no company "could afford not to have access
to
the US capital market."
The US Commission for International Religious Freedom, which
held
hearings on Sudan, recommended the market sanctions that were
included in the House bill. Some religious groups that are part
of Mr.
Bush's constituency are members of the coalition, and have
urged
his support. Instead, the president last week named a special
envoy
to Sudan, former Senator John Danforth, an Episcopal minister.
While applauding the appointment of Mr. Danforth, Wesley
Roberts,
president of the Black Ministerial Alliance, said that to drop
market
sanctions "would make the act meaningless."
The pastors, who traveled with Christian Solidarity
International to
Sudan, said they redeemed 6,700 slaves. "As ministers of the
gospel
and descendants of slaves, we have a moral responsibility to
act,"
Dr. Roberts added. |
