Where Does Staples Come In?

One last post today...

Staples is a sponsor of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. A few entries back, I explained how China plays a role in the Darfur but here's a one-sentance refresher: They send lots and lots of money and weapons to the government in Khartoum. As a sponsor of the Olympics, Staples has a lot of sway over China right now, and until the closing ceremony in August. STAND chapters around the country have asked Staples to use that influence and ask China to call for end to the genocide.

This would involve signing the Dream for Darfur pledge, making a public appeal to China to do all it can to stop the genocide, ask China to ban the Sudanese officials currently indicted by the International Criminal Court from the Olympic Games, send a letter to the UN expressing concern for Darfur and asking for information about the action the UN is taking on the ground there, and work with other corporate sponsors on the issues.

The Dream for Darfur organization gave Staples an "F" on their recent 2nd Olympic Corporate Sponsor Darfur report card for failing to take any of these steps.

OUR RALLY


On April 27, Massachusetts STAND chapters held a rally to ask Staples to take action. Ron Seargant, CEO of Staples, was invited to the rally, but didn't attend. Instead, STAND recieved an e-mail, saying that Staples is not a corporate sponsor, only the sole office furniture provider for the games, and that as such, the company didn't feel it would be appropriate to take a stance on a foreign policy issue as complicated as the conflict in Darfur.

The Staples campaign didn't end with the rally, and I'll have more details about how you can take action on that as they come to me.

For more information about the national corporate sponsor campaign - which is not just calling for action from Staples, but from every sponsor of the Olympics, including Coca Cola, General Electric, Johnson and Johnson, etc - go here : http://www.dreamfordarfur.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33&Itemid=75

Sidenote: All but four of the Olympic Corporate Sponsors have been ruled "silently complicit" in the Darfur genocide by Dream for Darfur; those four are Adidas (which recieved a B+ on its report card), Eastman Kodak (also got a B+), Johnson & Johnson (C+) and MacDonald's (C+).