California sign law blocking invest in Sudan
Sept 25, 2006 (BURBANK, Calif.) — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, accompanied by activist actors George Clooney and Don Cheadle, on Monday signed legislation to end investment in Sudan by California public employee pension funds and the state university system in an effort to pressure that nation to stop genocidal violence in the Darfur region.
“We cannot turn a blind eye to any genocide,” Schwarzenegger said Monday after alluding to the horrors of the Holocaust. “We cannot watch from the sideline and be content to mourn this atrocity as it passes into history. We must act.”
Clooney, who has urged the Bush administration and the United Nations to help end bloodshed in the African nation, said, “There are no Democrat or Republican sides to this, there is only right and wrong.”
The Republican governor signed the new laws in a hotel meeting room surrounded by a bipartisan group, including former Reagan administration Secretary of State George Shultz; Alice Huffman, president of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and Assemblyman Paul Koretz, a lead sponsor of one of the bills.
The governor called Darfur _ where ethnic violence has killed some 200,000 people and displaced 2.5 million more _ a “humanitarian crisis.”
One of the new laws prohibits the state’s huge public pension systems _ the California Public Employees Retirement System and the State Teachers Retirement System _ from investing in companies with active business in Sudan. A second law sets up legal protections for the University of California, which will guard against liability that might result from divestment from Sudan.
In the 1980s the state approved similar restraints on investments in South Africa, as a protest against its apartheid policies of racial separation.
The event was also a political boost for the election-bound Schwarzenegger: At a time when Democratic rival Phil Angelides has been trying to paint him as a hard-line Republican, he stood side-by-side in front of TV cameras shaking hands and exchanging compliments with Clooney, a self-proclaimed liberal Democrat.
Clooney sidestepped a question about whether publicity from the event would help the governor’s re-election drive.
“Neither party has moral high ground on this issue,” he said at one point.
Angelides, who has been supportive of efforts to divest in Sudan, praised the new laws.
“Californians have a moral responsibility to help end the genocide in Sudan,” he said in a statement.
Officials could not place a precise value on state investments in Sudan.
The University of California system does not hold any stock directly in companies doing business with Sudan, but it does have pooled investments in those companies. The amount of money involved, officials said, would be a small fraction of its $66 billion (A51.7 billion) in pension and endowment funds.
The state pension system is trying to identify any Sudan investments.
In addition to any direct economic impact, officials said the California law would carry powerful symbolic value around the globe.
“I believe that other states and other countries will follow our lead,” Koretz said.
Cheadle said that “life should trump dividends, that human common sense should trump dollars and cents.”
(AP/ST)