Governor signs bills to aid in divestment
As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed two bills that will allow the University of California and the state of California to move ahead with divestment, his words echoed the statements students have been making for more than two years.
“Today I am signing two bills that will send a clear message across the globe: California will not stand for murder and genocide,” Schwarzenegger said, referring to the situation in the Darfur region of Sudan, a conflict which the United States’ Congress has labeled a genocide.
“We cannot watch from the sidelines and be content to mourn this atrocity as it passes into history.”
On Monday the governor signed AB 2179, which will protect the UC from any damages or liability that could result from divestment from Sudan, and AB 2941, which prohibits the state’s two largest pension funds from investing in companies with active business in Sudan, as well as companies that supply military equipment to Sudan.
“This is the final piece of the puzzle,” said Adam Sterling, executive director of the UC Divestment Taskforce. “Now (the UC) can begin pulling affected security.”
Since February 2003 government-sponsored Sudanese militias have carried out a series of massacres which have resulted in more than 400,000 deaths and displaced millions.
In March, the UC Board of Regents voted to divest from nine companies with holdings in Sudan. These nine companies were found to support the Sudanese government while providing the lease benefits for the people of the country.
But the UC is still months away from divesting.
“The regents’ plan provided for an 18-month period for implementation after indemnification,” UC spokesman Trey Davis said.
That period begins now.
During the implementation phase, the regents will calculate the amount of investments that must be withdrawn, review the companies targeted for divestment, and contact the investment managers responsible for divesting, Davis said.
Though the UC will reevaluate the companies it will divest from, Sterling said he expects the final plan to be similar to the plan set out by the regents in March.
The process of reevaluating companies and withdrawing funds takes time, which is why the UC left an 18-month window in which to complete the process, Sterling said.
“Financially, you can’t withdraw all your stock from a company at once,” Sterling said. “If you were to withdraw it all at once, the price would drop.”
The state’s divestment plan is similar to the UC’s, but the state bill is a “bit more developed in terms of how far it goes into divestment,” Sterling said, explaining that though the state’s plan was modeled after the UC’s, it was developed over a longer period of time.
Divestment has garnered a great deal of support in the state in the past several months and divestment campaigns have been set in motion in 15 other states, Sterling said.
“The bill passed on consent in both the House and the Senate, which means it got no opposition from anyone,” Sterling said.
“For me it was pretty surreal,” he said. “I remember when we started this campaign, we couldn’t even get a meeting with the regents. Now I’m standing side by side with the governor (and) George Clooney.”
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