BURBANK, Calif.-
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation Monday to end state investments in Sudan in an effort to pressure that nation to stop genocidal violence in its Darfur region.
“I grew up in Europe after the Second World War so I remember the dark and heavy shadow cast by the Holocaust,” Schwarzenegger said. “It has become clear to me that we cannot turn a blind eye to any genocide.”
The governor was accompanied by George Clooney and Don Cheadle, actors who have been outspoken about Darfur. Ethnic violence has killed at least 200,000 people and turned 2.5 million people into refugees in the region since 2003.
“There are no Democrat or Republican sides to this, there is only right and wrong,” Clooney said.
Cheadle added that “life should trump dividends, that human common sense should trump dollars and cents.”
One of the new laws prohibits the state’s huge public pension systems–the California Public Employees Retirement System and the State Teachers Retirement System–from investing in companies with active business in Sudan. A second law sets up legal protections for the University of California, which will guard against liability that might result from divestment from Sudan.
Officials could not place a precise value on state investments in Sudan. In the 1980s the state approved similar measures for investments in South Africa, as a protest to its apartheid policies at the time.
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