Robert Hormats, a former Goldman Sachs executive who played a critical role in financing a Chinese oil company with ties to Sudan’s genocidal regime, will go up in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee tomorrow. Presiding over the hearing will be Senator Ben Cardin.
As we’ve written before, while at Goldman Sachs, Hormats played a key role in Chinese oil giant PetroChina’s initial public offering in 2000. Human rights and religious organizations have consistently lambasted PetroChina for human rights violations in its dealings with Sudan, so it came as no surprise when two major anti-genocide groups picked up on our report.
Last month, Genocide Intervention Network and Investors Against Genocide sent a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee calling for them to question Hormats during his nomination hearing on his involvement in the deal. Hormats hasn’t been through a congressional nomination hearing in over 25 years, so it will be interesting to see if these concerns are raised tomorrow. We’ll be glued to C-SPAN to find out.