The governor, state treasurer and comptroller all have agreedto back a measure that moves Maryland toward unloading an estimated $150 million invested in 14 companies that do business with Sudan in an attempt to stop the genocide in Darfur.
The bill “is socially conscious but fiscally prudent,” said Sen. Verna Jones, D-Baltimore City, chair of the Legislative Black Caucus. The measure differs from legislative attempts in past years to punish the government of Sudan because it does not mandate complete divestiture.
State Treasurer Nancy Kopp, who chairs the state pension board overseeing $36 billion invested for 300,000 retired government workers, said it took nine months to craft the “collaborative” bill. The legislation requires the state to contact the companies doing business with Sudan and try to persuade them to stop doing business there. It then authorizes the pension board to unload the shares if the company refuses.
“We are not intending to invest in any company [that does business with Sudan] in the future,” Kopp said. “We realize the horror that is going on.”
Among the companies doing business with Sudan whose stock is currently held by the state are Alcatel Lucent, Royal Dutch Shell, Shlumberger, Total AG, Rolls-Royce equipment and Siemens AG, but Siemens has said it will stop doing business with Sudan by the summer.
Sponsors were quoting widely accepted figures that more 400,000 people have been killed in the civil strife and 2.5 million have become refugees.
The divestiture was inspired by the successful moves in the 1980s to put economic pressure on South Africa to stop its apartheid system of racial segregation.
The Khartoum government has “trained their weapons of war on the weak, the meek and the defenseless,” said Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown. After the genocide in Rwanda, “we said never again,” and the measure “moves Maryland and our nation forward as moral leaders.”
Even though the bill does not mandate divestiture, Comptroller Peter Franchot said he would be “very, very surprised if the state is still is not divested” soon after the bill passes and is signed by the governor.
Joseph Madison, chairman of the national Sudan Divestment Campaign, said, “I knew it was in the bag” after the treasurer and comptroller announced their support, something which has not happened in other states.
