JCRC supports divestment as means to fight Darfur genocide
By Kristin Erekson
The Jewish Advocate
The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston is stepping up its political efforts against genocide as it puts pressure on the Massachusetts State Legislature to enact a bill that could bring an end to the atrocities in Sudan.
On Oct. 12, JCRC officials unanimously voted on a resolution that would support the divestment from companies whose business ultimately funds the murder of thousands of people in Darfur, according to Irit Tamir, the director of government affairs at the JCRC. The legislation would direct the state's pension fund to sell shares in entities that purchase oil and other commodities from the Sudanese government or supply its military with arms.
"This is a targeted divestment where we would request divesting from the worst of the worst companies," said Tamir. The JCRC has partnered up with the Sudan Divestment Task Force in Washington, D.C., the Massachusetts Coalition to Save Darfur and State Rep. Jay Kaufman (D-Lexington) in this widespread effort to stop the bloodshed.
Since 2003, at least 400,000 black Sudanese have been killed and more than two million civilians have been displaced by the governement sponsored Arab militias.
Boston University, Harvard University and Yale University are a few of the institutions that have already vowed not to invest in companies doing business with Sudan.
"As the generation after the Holocaust, it is incumbent among Jews and humanity to make sure that the genocide in Sudan be stopped, and we should use every tool of advocacy possible to do so," added Tamir.
Though some may be wary of a Jewish organization promoting divestment from a country, since Israel is often the target of divestment campaigns, the JCRC said it stands behind its decision.
"There is a clear moral difference," said Alan Ronkin, deputy director of the JCRC. "In Sudan there is an immoral genocide. In Israel there is a political conflict that can be resolved by negotiation."
The Sudanese divestment legislation had originally crossed the desks of the state's political leaders during the last legislative assembly, but was stopped on the floor by the Senate Committee on Ways and Means and died at the end of the session in July. Now, the bill – which was rewritten by Daniel Millenson, president and national advocacy director of the Sudan Divestment Task Force – will be reintroduced to the Legislature by Kaufman in January.
"I think the history in South Africa tells us that there are a number of ways to change policy in the country like Sudan and we need to make a strong economic statement that their policy will not stand," Kaufman said.
Millenson said he revised the divestment legislation in such a way so that it would not have any devastating effects on the inhabitants of the country. If passed, Millenson added Massachusetts would only pull out investments from companies that meet all three criteria: providing revenues to the Sudanese government; offering little substantive benefit to those outside of the Sudanese government; and having demonstrated complicity in the Darfur genocide.
So far, Tamir said, there are six companies that have been dubbed the biggest threat by supporters of the bill: PetroChina in Beijing; the Oil and Natural Gas Company in Dehradun, India; Sinopec Corp. in Beijing; Petronas in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Schlumberger in Paris; and Tatneft in the Republic of Tartarstan, Russia.
Yet not all state officials share the same outlook on pulling their funds from foreign countries.
Michael Travaglini, the executive director of the Pension Reserves Investment Management Board of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, testified in opposition to the Sudan divestment bill, noting that he doesn't support the situation in the country but he is opposed to all divestment. If approved by the legislature, Travaglini's office would be responsible for pulling the assets.
Travaglini said that out of the state's $42 billion in investments, an estimated $500 million to $1 billion is endowed in Sudan. He added that the only time he can recall Massachusetts divesting from a country was during the South Africa apartheid.
"A lot of our investments are in international stocks, and the more the Legislature says 'you can't invest in these stocks' the more it keeps limiting the places where we can invest our assets," Travaglini said.
Several phone calls to the Embassy of the Republic of Sudan in Washington, D.C., were not returned for comment.
Alan Greenfield, a member of the Massachusetts Coalition to Save Darfur and creator of the "Not on Our Watch – SaveDarfur.org" lawn signs in Needham, said the only way to make an impact on the government of Sudan is to apply economic pressure.
According to Greenfield: "There is a glimmer of hope in the sense that this is the first genocide in history where grassroots movements seem to be having an effect."
