UUSC President Charlie Clements urged the Massachusetts
Legislature on Thursday, March 29, 2007 to prohibit state
pension funds from being invested in companies doing business
with Sudan.
Testifying at a State House hearing in Boston on divestment
legislation before the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Public
Service, Clements said that economic and political pressure from
the international community is essential to persuading Sudanese
President Omar al-Bashir to stop his regime’s campaign of
genocide against the Darfurians.
“Until now, President Bashir has thumbed his nose at demands to
allow a strong international force into his country to end the
violence, and he continues to deny the reality of the rapes and
killings,” said Clements. “But he will find it very difficult to
continue his rampage in Darfur if the flow of oil revenue from
multinational corporations is no longer available to fuel the
genocide.”
Clements was one of several prominent activists who testified at
the hearing, which also included actress and activist
Mia Farrow;
Omer Ismail,
a Darfurian
refugee who is now a fellow at Harvard University’s Carr Center
for Human Rights Policy; and
Eric
Reeves, a professor at Smith College in Northampton,
Mass., and a leading Sudan researcher and analyst. The
legislative proposal under consideration would divest
Massachusetts pension funds from certain multinational
corporations that have been identified as doing business with
Sudan in ways that support the genocide.
UUSC’s Drumbeat for Darfur campaign is mobilizing social
activists across the country to pressure United States
policymakers to help bring peace and justice to Darfur, where
more than 300,000 have been killed and 2.5 million displaced.
The campaign encourages UUSC members and supporters to make it
clear to the Bush administration and Congress that ending the
genocide in Darfur must be one of their highest priorities. For
more information about UUSC’s Drumbeat for Darfur campaign,
visit
http://www.uusc.org/drumbeatfordarfur/.
Clements said that Massachusetts historically has been a
national leader in previous divestment campaigns, first against
the apartheid regime in South Africa and, more recently, in the
attempt to bring economic pressure against the brutal military
junta that rules Burma.
“The taxpayers of Massachusetts do not want their money to be
used to purchase weapons that terrify, maim, and kill innocent
people,” said Clements, who 18 months ago visited Darfurian
refugee camps in neighboring Chad. “I heard from Darfurian
refugees their stories of rape, torture, and the murder of their
family members. The one thing that gave these women, men, and
children hope was that people halfway across the world – people
such as us in Massachusetts – cared about what was happening to
them.” To see the full text of Clements' testimony,
go here.
For more information and to respond to an action alert in
support of a Sudan divestment bill pending in Congress, visit
http://www.uusc.org/news/alert020607.html.
Read the article from the
Cambridge Chronicle.
Read the latest news!
Divestment bill passes Mass.
legislative committee
.
Posted March 29, 2007
