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During her sophomore year at Lafayette, Jillian Gaeta ’07 (Middletown, N.J.), took a course on human rights and modern war with Joshua Sanborn, associate professor of history. As part of the course, she studied the on-going armed conflict in the Darfur region of western Sudan, which the United States has described as genocide.
Always having a strong interest in human rights, Gaeta took a particular interest in the Darfur crisis, in which militias supported by the Sudanese government have been carrying out attacks against specific ethnic groups since 2003. She became active in raising awareness of the issue – founding a chapter of Amnesty International on campus, bringing speakers to Lafayette to discuss the problem, and organizing student trips to participate in rallies against the genocide.
Now a senior, Gaeta’s interest in the Darfur genocide is being developed into her honors thesis.
Gaeta will examine China’s growing demand for energy and natural resources and how it has led China to work with countries in Africa that violate human rights. Her research focuses on China’s business relationships with Sudan as well as neighboring countries Nigeria and Chad.
“My project is looking at the relationship between the United States and China and how both are competing for oil resources. The U.S. has outbid China for oil resources in many countries that are stable and this, along with other factors, has led China to work with countries that the U.S. would classify as ‘rogue governments,’” says Gaeta, an international affairs and French double major.
“In the past, China has blocked action in the United Nations Security Council to take action against the genocide in Darfur because of their oil concessions in Sudan,” she says.
“It’s unusual and ambitious for a student to take on a project like this,” says Sanborn.
“She thought about the ways the Sudanese government could finance the genocide in Darfur, and it led her to business relationships with Chinese oil companies.”
Students who do honors projects spend two semesters conducting research, designing an original empirical study, analyzing their data, and finally writing a full-length article reporting the results of their study. Students are also required to orally defend their thesis twice, once at the end of each semester.
Although Gaeta’s thesis focuses on China’s financial relationship with corrupt African nations, she points out that other countries, including the United States, France, and Canada, also have oil interests in the region.
“It’s certainly not a problem that can be blamed solely on one country,” she says.
In addition, American investors are often backing China’s oil investments in these African nations.
“Many of these Chinese companies are publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange,” says Sanborn. “One of the tragedies of this situation is the way that day-to-day operations occur. No one in New York is thinking of how they’re going to help genocide today. The human impact of these decisions may be hidden from investors.”
Gaeta, who aspires to obtain a master’s degree in international affairs, believes that Lafayette has provided her with a supportive environment in which to conduct her research.
Lafayette’s Academic Research Committee provided a grant to cover her participation this November in an African oil and gas forum sponsored by the Corporate Council on Africa. She expects to meet with representatives of the U.S. Department of Energy, African financial ministers, investors, and others at the conference and plans to incorporate their perspectives into her thesis.
In addition to her role as president of Lafayette’s chapter of Amnesty International, Gaeta is president of Holla Back, a student coalition to register students to vote, and co-president of Alternative School Break. She is also a member of Students for Social Justice and the Newmann Association, is involved with student government, and is on the mock trial team. She has been an intern at the New York Stock Exchange for three summers, studied abroad in Paris, France for a semester and took an interim course on sustainable development in Kenya and Tanzania.
Honors theses are among several major programs that have made Lafayette a national leader in undergraduate research. The College sends one of the largest contingents to the National Conference on Undergraduate Research each year; 40 students were accepted to present their research at this year’s conference.