On Sudan’s genocide, lawmakers don’t have to look the other way

Good for members of the Kansas Senate Ways and Means Committee for unanimously advancing a bill to the Senate floor Monday that would divest the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System from Sudan. An estimated $38 million of the pension fund’s $12 billion-plus is invested in companies with ties to the government of Sudan, which has had a role in the killing of 200,000 of its people and the displacement of 2.5 million. Chairman Dwayne Umbarger, R-Thayer, said the committee members “understand the implications of what’s happening in Sudan,” and the “killing of innocent people is not something they want to support.” Now they need to sell that message to the full Senate and to House Speaker Melvin Neufeld, R-Ingalls, who has said, “It’s not a problem that you can solve with KPERS, so I don’t think there’s any interest in going there.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman

8 Comments

  1. thinkfirst
    Posted March 14, 2007 at 7:39 am | Permalink

    No Melvin, you can’t solve the problems of Sudan by not investing KEPERS funds in certain companies. The job of KEPERS is to get the best return for its investors as is possible. A handful of Kansas Legislators who want to risk the money earned by Kansans just to satisfy their personal political games is wrong and should not be allowed. Good call, don’t go there!

  2. fleettwood
    Posted March 14, 2007 at 8:09 am | Permalink

    I would suppose that there are dozens of places to invest the money. I don’t see why it would have to be invested in companies with suspect ties.

  3. GMC70
    Posted March 14, 2007 at 8:39 am | Permalink

    A meaningless symbolic measure. KPERS should be getting the best return, period.

    If such an act had ANY chance of making a difference, it would be worth going there. It doesn’t.

  4. fleettwood
    Posted March 14, 2007 at 8:43 am | Permalink

    There are moral reasons not to invest in the Blood Money.

  5. Econ101
    Posted March 14, 2007 at 9:33 am | Permalink

    I wish we would do something in Sudan, as a country.However, this divestment idea won’t solve anything.Companies don’t care who owns their stock.This will simply transfer ownership of these securities to people who have even less concern about the conditions in Sudan.

  6. GSheridan
    Posted March 14, 2007 at 10:13 am | Permalink

    Can you imagine if we tried to help the folks (militarily) in the Sudan?

    As soon as our soldiers set foot on their lands – the libs would start crying that we were ‘butting in’ where we didn’t belong, but as long as don’t butt in – they will complain about that, also.

    Lose/lose situation.

  7. Republican
    Posted March 14, 2007 at 10:58 am | Permalink

    Hmmm… Hey Rhonda…that link is to a header titled “Regents CEO sees flaws in Sebelius maintenance plan”

    Can you relink so we can see the story on the divestment strategy of the Topeka politicians?

  8. SaveDarfur
    Posted March 14, 2007 at 10:40 pm | Permalink

    Don’t worry guys, Senator Derek Schmidt effectively killed this bill on the senate floor today by ammending it to include the divestment of 5 other countries currently involved in terrorist activites.

    And one question, you all say divestment will not work, but what do you propose we do about the situation? Sudan has historically given into economic pressure ie their terrorism policies in 1997 and ending their 21 year civil war in 2001 after Talisman Energy pulled out. The AU is obviously not capable of solving the problem and there is no way the government of Kharotoum is going to let the UN in seeing as they are the ones committing the genocide.And with China and Russia on the security council any action would be vetoed

    Currently economic pressure is the best bet in ending the situation in Sudan, and with large companies such as Siemens already pulling out of Sudan due to pressure, divestment is obviously having an effect