Last week North Carolina legislators unanimously approved a bill ordering the state’s pension fund to divest from Sudan. The bill, which Gov. Mike Easley is expected to sign, puts North Carolina with 19 other states that have pledged to sell investments in companies linked to the Sudanese government or to groups that support bloodshed in the country’s Darfur region. Here’s a few facts about the bill and the conflict that spawned it:
• N.C. Treasurer Richard Moore in November said the state’s retirement fund had divested from nine companies that provide money or military support to Sudan’s government.
• The approved bill requires Moore’s office to continue to examine state holdings for offending businesses.
• As many as 400,000 people have been killed in Darfur and 2 million more displaced since 2003, according to the United Nations.
• In 2004, then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell was the first high-ranking federal official to label the killings “genocide.”
• Five companies (ABB, CHC Helicopter, ABB, Rolls Royce, Schlumberger and Siemens) have either ceased operations in Sudan or significantly changed their behavior in the country since the start of the divestment movement.
Sources: Save Darfur, Sudan Divestment Task Force, N.C. Department of State Treasurer
This article appears in Aug 8-14, 2007.
