DENVER-
Sen. Nancy Spence, R-Centennial, urged her colleagues to back a measure pulling Colorado investments from Sudan on Friday after sharing the story of her adopted granddaughter, who lost her family in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
Spence said her granddaughter, now a sophomore at Littleton High School, lost her mother, father, grandparents and other relatives when she was three. Spence’s son, who was working in Rwanda at the time, later adopted her after the bodies of her parents were found in a mass grave and she was officially labeled as an orphan.
Spence, choking back tears, said she wasn’t sure how much the divestiture would do to help people in Sudan but she said lawmakers should try anyway.
“If we can do anything to bring the Sudan issue to a halt, we need to step up and do it,” she said.
The Senate gave initial backing to the measure (House Bill 1184) to divest the investments of Colorado’s public pension plans, which has already been approved by the House. It must now pass a second vote in the Senate.
More than 200,000 people have been killed in a four-year conflict in Sudan. The White House has labeled the Khartoum government’s brutal counterinsurgency tactics as genocide. The government has denied the charges.
