US New Illinois law bans state investments in Sudan

SPRINGFIELD, Ill., June 25, 2005 (AP) — A new state law requires Illinois to divest about $1 billion worth of pension investments in companies that do business in Sudan and to sever all financial ties to the violence-ridden country.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed the bill into law Saturday, saying it makes Illinois the nation’s first state to divest all financial interests in Sudan. The Sudanese government has been accused of war crimes and genocide during a civil war against rebel groups.

“The people of Illinois will not condone human rights abuses and genocide. We will take our money elsewhere,” Blagojevich said in a statement Saturday. He urged other states to adopt similar measures.

Similar legislation is pending in other states, and Harvard University also recently announced plans to stop Sudanese investments.

The Sudanese region of Darfur has been the site of an upheaval where about 180,000 people have died since fighting flared in February 2003. An estimated 2 million others have been forced to flee the region.

The conflict erupted when rebels took up arms against what they saw as years of state neglect and discrimination against Sudanese of African origin. The government is accused of responding with wide-scale abuses against the African population.

Sen. Jacqueline Collins, who pushed the bill through the Illinois Senate with unanimous support, said she modeled her proposal on laws passed in the 1980s that put pressure on South Africa to end apartheid.

“We have a moral obligation to stand against oppression when we see it,” Collins said in a statement Saturday.

A message left at the Sudanese embassy in Washington D.C. Saturday was not immediately returned.

The measure prohibits the state from investing in Sudanese government bonds or in companies doing business with or in Sudan. It will require Illinois, within 18 months, to remove from two of its five pension systems about $1 billion worth of pension investments in 32 companies that work in Sudan.

The law takes effect in January 2006.