March 16, 2005
(Washington, DC) – The California State Assembly Committee on Public Employees, Retirement and Social Security passed legislation today aimed at getting the California Public Employees Pensions System (CalPERS) to divest from companies doing business in Sudan.
“No Californian should have to worry that their retirement is being financed by genocide,” said Rep. Lee. “I applaud Assemblymember Dymally and the committee’s efforts on this issue.”
The legislation, introduced by Assemblymember Merv Dymally (D-Compton), urges CalPERS to divest from companies doing business with Sudan in response to the Khartoum government’s ongoing involvement in systematic violence in Darfur that Congress and the Bush administration have called genocide.
“In the refugee camps I witnessed first-hand the depths of the human suffering; I saw the missing limbs, and I looked in the eyes of the girls who had been raped,” said Rep. Barbara Lee in prepared testimony. “The experience only strengthened my conviction that we must take every action to end the ongoing genocide in Darfur. And it only strengthened my conviction that we must go beyond diplomacy to end the killing.”
A group of young people from the East Bay read from Rep. Lee’s testimony at the hearing. 16 year-old Natalia Casella, from Berkeley, came to the hearing with 17 year-old Veronica Gutierrez, from Oakland, 16 year-old Michaela Sorina, from Berkeley, and 15 year-old Laura Byrne, from Richmond because they are concerned that action be taken to stop the genocide.
“This issue is important to me because I know there are young people and children just like me in Darfur and they desperately need our help,” said Casella. “It is morally wrong and goes against the values of this country to just sit back and watch hundreds of thousands of people die without doing anything.”
According to independent reports, CalPERS holds $7.5 billion of investments in 44 companies doing business in Sudan.
The California legislation marks the emergence of a growing movement to divest state pension funds from companies doing business in Sudan. In February, the New Jersey state Assembly approved divestment legislation, and Texas introduced divestment legislation earlier this month. Similar legislation is under consideration in Massachusetts, Illinois and Arizona.
Divestment of state pension funds and university endowments is considered by many to have played a critical role in ending apartheid in South Africa. In 1986, California passed legislation to divest CalPERS from South Africa. By 1994, when the first free elections took place, 114 states, counties and cities had adopted partial or total divestment policies.
Rep. Lee has played a leading role in the divestment effort. In November, Rep. Lee wrote to CalPERS and requested that they determine if any of the companies in which they are invested have direct business ties with the Khartoum regime. CalPERS agreed, and sent letters of inquiry to all companies and fund managers. Only a handful of companies reported any ties, and, although less than 10 percent of companies replied, CalPERS was content to assume that the rest conducted no business with Khartoum.
Dissatisfied with the perfunctory investigation, Rep. Lee publicly called on CalPERS to divest from all companies doing business with Sudan in an Op Ed that ran in the Los Angeles Times on January 30th and suggested that the state legislature should act if CalPERS would not.
Rep. Lee stated that CalPERS has a financial responsibility, in addition to having a moral responsibility, to divest from such companies, pointing out that companies run a significant financial risk by associating with governments such as Khartoum, and that that risk is assumed unnecessarily by pension funds.
“It’s against our values and it’s bad business,” said Rep. Lee. “Californians don’t want blood on their pensions, and they don’t want their pensions assuming these risks.”
Rep. Lee is the most senior Democratic woman on the House International Relations Committee, where she serves on the Africa Subcommittee. In late January she visited refugee camps along the Chad-Sudan border as part of a Congressional delegation that included actor Don Cheadle, who was nominated for an academy award for his role in the film Hotel Rwanda.
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Rep. Barbara Lee Hails CA Assembly Committee Passage of Sudan Divestment Legislation
Bay Area Young People Lee’s Testimony on Darfur Genocide
(Washington, DC) – The California State Assembly Committee on Public Employees, Retirement and Social Security passed legislation today aimed at getting the California Public Employees Pensions System (CalPERS) to divest from companies doing business in Sudan.
“No Californian should have to worry that their retirement is being financed by genocide,” said Rep. Lee. “I applaud Assemblymember Dymally and the committee’s efforts on this issue.”
The legislation, introduced by Assemblymember Merv Dymally (D-Compton), urges CalPERS to divest from companies doing business with Sudan in response to the Khartoum government’s ongoing involvement in systematic violence in Darfur that Congress and the Bush administration have called genocide.
“In the refugee camps I witnessed first-hand the depths of the human suffering; I saw the missing limbs, and I looked in the eyes of the girls who had been raped,” said Rep. Barbara Lee in prepared testimony. “The experience only strengthened my conviction that we must take every action to end the ongoing genocide in Darfur. And it only strengthened my conviction that we must go beyond diplomacy to end the killing.”
A group of young people from the East Bay read from Rep. Lee’s testimony at the hearing. 16 year-old Natalia Casella, from Berkeley, came to the hearing with 17 year-old Veronica Gutierrez, from Oakland, 16 year-old Michaela Sorina, from Berkeley, and 15 year-old Laura Byrne, from Richmond because they are concerned that action be taken to stop the genocide.
“This issue is important to me because I know there are young people and children just like me in Darfur and they desperately need our help,” said Casella. “It is morally wrong and goes against the values of this country to just sit back and watch hundreds of thousands of people die without doing anything.”
According to independent reports, CalPERS holds $7.5 billion of investments in 44 companies doing business in Sudan.
The California legislation marks the emergence of a growing movement to divest state pension funds from companies doing business in Sudan. In February, the New Jersey state Assembly approved divestment legislation, and Texas introduced divestment legislation earlier this month. Similar legislation is under consideration in Massachusetts, Illinois and Arizona.
Divestment of state pension funds and university endowments is considered by many to have played a critical role in ending apartheid in South Africa. In 1986, California passed legislation to divest CalPERS from South Africa. By 1994, when the first free elections took place, 114 states, counties and cities had adopted partial or total divestment policies.
Rep. Lee has played a leading role in the divestment effort. In November, Rep. Lee wrote to CalPERS and requested that they determine if any of the companies in which they are invested have direct business ties with the Khartoum regime. CalPERS agreed, and sent letters of inquiry to all companies and fund managers. Only a handful of companies reported any ties, and, although less than 10 percent of companies replied, CalPERS was content to assume that the rest conducted no business with Khartoum.
Dissatisfied with the perfunctory investigation, Rep. Lee publicly called on CalPERS to divest from all companies doing business with Sudan in an Op Ed that ran in the Los Angeles Times on January 30th and suggested that the state legislature should act if CalPERS would not.
Rep. Lee stated that CalPERS has a financial responsibility, in addition to having a moral responsibility, to divest from such companies, pointing out that companies run a significant financial risk by associating with governments such as Khartoum, and that that risk is assumed unnecessarily by pension funds.
“It’s against our values and it’s bad business,” said Rep. Lee. “Californians don’t want blood on their pensions, and they don’t want their pensions assuming these risks.”
Rep. Lee is the most senior Democratic woman on the House International Relations Committee, where she serves on the Africa Subcommittee. In late January she visited refugee camps along the Chad-Sudan border as part of a Congressional delegation that included actor Don Cheadle, who was nominated for an academy award for his role in the film Hotel Rwanda.
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