More than 100 Harvard students have signed a petition urging Harvard to sell its shares in PetroChina, a Beijing-based oil firm with links to the Sudanese government.

Two Eliot House juniors launched a website, www.harvarddivest.com, late Sunday night giving students, faculty and alumni the opportunity to voice their concerns regarding Harvard’s estimated $4 million stake in PetroChina.

Activists say that revenues from oil companies such as PetroChina prop up the Sudanese regime, which is accused of systematically slaughtering its own people.

Meanwhile, PetroChina may dramatically expand its holdings in Sudan as part of a multibillion-dollar restructuring deal with its parent company, China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC).

Experts said that the PetroChina restructuring could leave the firm’s shareholders more vulnerable to criticism from human rights groups.

After The Crimson reported last week that the University had purchased 72,000 shares of PetroChina’s stock, several clergymen and actvists lambasted Harvard for holding onto its shares in a company that John Prendergast, the former African Affairs director at the National Secuirty Council during the Clinton admininstration, called a “blood-oil stock.”

When PetroChina first listed itself on the New York Stock Exchange in 2000, the company promised investors that none of the capital raised from the initial public offering would end up in the coffers of the Sudanese regime. The company asserted that a “firewall” separated its assets from those of its parent company—and that the Sudanese holdings would remain in CNPC’s hands.

But PetroChina is now preparing to acquire full control over CNPC’s massive joint venture with the Sudanese government, according to the Financial Times.

The London-based newspaper reported last month that PetroChina had hired Citigroup to manage the restructuring deal.

“The case for divestment becomes significantly stronger with this development,” said Eric Reeves, an English professor at Smith College and independent Sudan analyst. “There is no cover whatsoever for any American investor.”

PetroChina’s initial firewall arrangement “was specifically aimed at institutional investors who feared public backlash,” said Frank Gaffney, who acted as assistant secretary of defense under the Reagan administration.

Gaffney, now the president of the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, said the arrangement was a “scam” intended to deceive stockholders who wanted to clean their hands of any involvement with the Sudanese regime.

“Now there is not even a pretense of a firewall,” Reeves said.

PetroChina’s Beijing office did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

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