Not on Our Watch

by Don Cheadle

  5. Write a letter to the editor of your local paper and support specific policies while targeting specific elected officials.

  Strategy Four

  STOP FUNDING THE GENOCIDE—CALL FOR DIVESTMENT

  Not since South Africa’s brutal and repressive apartheid system of racial segregation has an African tragedy generated such outrage within segments of the public. Through the 1980s and the early 1990s, citizen-driven divestment from companies doing business with the racist government in Pretoria helped free Nelson Mandela and end apartheid. And as with the anti-apartheid movement worldwide, a nascent divestment effort has begun with Darfur activists. Traditionally, Khartoum responds to the stick, not the carrot, and foreign direct investment is a lifeline that helps keep its war machine afloat.

  Anti-genocide activists are now calling for the removal from school, state, and personal pension and mutual funds of assets that are tied to the Sudanese government. The objective of many advocates is targeted divestment, which focuses on companies providing revenues for the government. Such targeting allows the penalty to be focused directly on the perpetrators, not indirectly on the Sudanese victims. By depriving the Khartoum government of investment from abroad, particularly in the oil and energy sector, these activists are helping cut off the funding for the genocidal campaign in Darfur.

  The push for divestment from Sudan began before the conflict in Darfur. Despite a restriction on conducting business in Sudan, oil companies were hampering the boycott by continuing to operate there. A growing number of grassroots organisations began pushing for divestment from these companies, including Canada’s largest private oil company, Talisman Energy. Since 1995, Canadian NGOs and student groups had pressed Talisman shareholders to sell their shares in protest and demanded that Talisman (and earlier its predecessor Arakis) pull out of Sudan.

  As a direct result of this pressure, Citizen’s Bank of Canada sold its Talisman holdings and the Ontario Teachers Federation said it would divest its $184 million (Canadian) of Talisman stock. In the United States, pressure from activists, spearheaded by Professor Eric Reeves, led to the divestment of more than $100 million by ten major shareholders and additional divestments by New York City’s pension fund, Teacher Retirement System of Texas, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (Cal Pers), and the Vanguard Group. As a result of the divestments, Talisman announced in 2000 that it would have to buy back $300 million of its own shares to buoy the share price, which had dropped by 35%. Because of economics and public relations, the company was soon forced to seek a buyer for its oil concession holdings in southern Sudan and leave the country.

  Universities, private investment firms, and public retirement systems should make it a priority to review their portfolios and divest themselves of any holdings in companies that act as patrons to human rights violators and war criminals. The divestment should also be made public, to generate media coverage and send a clear message that the actions of perpetrators of mass atrocities and the companies that support them are intolerable.

  In October 2004, a couple of students at Harvard University, Ben Collins and Manav Kumar Bhatnagar, read an article in the school paper that compelled them to act. The article, ‘Endowment Tied to Sudan’ by staff writers Daniel Hemel and Zachary Seward, described how the university was heavily invested in the Chinese parastatal oil company PetroChina, a major player in the Sudanese oil sector. The article outlined how oil revenue funds Khartoum’s killing machine and how Chinese support at the United Nations helped deflect stronger international action to end the slaughter. Collins and Kumar decided to start a movement to call on Harvard to sell its stock in PetroChina and four other oil companies operating in Sudan. They paid $10 for a domain name and started an online petition. They e-mailed students and professors asking for support, and within a week they had 1,000 signatures.

  As the genocide in Darfur worsened, press coverage increased and a student activist group—the Darfur Action Group—formed and began holding rallies to urge Harvard to divest. Harvard President Lawrence Summers, who students felt was sympathetic to the cause, helped convene a special session of the university’s Advisory Board on Shareholder Responsibility. Collins and Kumar spoke at the meeting, and the advisory board submitted a report recommending that the university divest from PetroChina. On 4 April 2005, following intense pressure from students, the Harvard Corporation voted to sell its stock in PetroChina only. Harvard students kept pushing, and eventually the university divested from another Chinese oil company, Sinopec.

  Following Harvard’s April 2005 decision to divest from PetroChina, Stanford University’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously to divest from PetroChina and three additional companies: Sinopec, Tatneft, and ABB. Since then, more than two dozen US universities and colleges, including Yale, Brown, Brandeis, University of Vermont, and the University of California system, have enacted divestment programs. Another almost three dozen, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, the University of Illinois, and the University of Washington, have ongoing divestment campaigns. Daniel Millenson of the Sudan Divestment Task Force, which now helps to generate and coordinate divestment efforts on campuses and in cities and states across America, says, ‘I think that one of the best ways of encapsulating the strength of the movement is by comparing it to South African divestment. There, a decades-long campaign yielded investment decisions from about 55 universities.’ During the Darfur campaign, 31 schools divested during the first year and a half, with more student groups pressing their schools each day.

  Having first learned about Darfur from reading Nicholas Kristof’s articles (yet another example of the power of the pen, particularly Nick’s pen), Adam Sterling and Jason Miller joined the Darfur Action Committee on their campus of the University of California at Los Angeles. It was here that they developed a divestment proposal that eventually turned into the University of California Divestment Taskforce, a student activist organisation that is pushing the UC system to divest from companies that do business with Sudan. In March, the University of California Regents voted to divest all UC shares of the following nine companies with business in Sudan: Bharat Heavy Electricals, Sinopec, Nam Fatt Co., Oil & Natural Gas Co., PECD Bhd., PetroChina, Sudatel, Tatneft, and Videocon Industries.

  In terms of private investments, one campaign targets Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, which holds $1.9 million shares of PetroChina. Tools for those investors who want to avoid Sudanese holdings are being developed by Northern Trust, Barclays Global Investors, and State Street Global Advisors.

  Backed by Congressman Donald Payne and Governor Jon Corzine, Joe Madison, a radio host in Washington, DC, helped start up a campaign for New Jersey to divest its pension fund from companies doing business in Sudan. Joe gathered information about companies investing in Sudan and joined with former congressman and co-founder of the Congressional Black Caucus Reverend Walter Fauntroy to begin to push for divestment. In part as a result of their combined efforts, New Jersey formally divested in June 2005. They continue to push other states for formal divestment.

  In September 2006, Congress passed the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act, which urges the president to prohibit Sudanese oil tankers from entering US ports. It also freezes and blocks assets of individuals involved in the genocide. In October, President Bush signed it into law and issued an executive order ‘blocking property of and prohibiting transactions with the Government of Sudan.’

  However, a key amendment, which received bipartisan support, was dropped due to corporate pressures. The National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC), representing more than 300 multinational companies, led the campaign against the provision that would protect states’ rights to pass divestment laws. NFTC says the amendment would have encouraged states to develop their own foreign policy. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar agreed, arguing that with said clause the bill was unlikely to pass. Despite
the setback, states and municipalities have continued to pass or debate their own divestment schemes.

  The state legislatures of New Jersey, Illinois, Oregon, Maine, Connecticut, and California have all approved divestment plans. Non-binding divestment resolutions have passed in Ohio and Vermont. North Carolina’s state treasury independently divested a selection of Sudan-related holdings. Several states, including Missouri, Louisiana, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and Arizona, have passed or are considering rules requiring regular reports on how state funds are linked to terrorist states, including Sudan (some of which are nonbinding). Many of these states have left open the option of subsequent divestment. Finally, over a dozen states have active divestment movements with varying levels of involvement from state officials. Cities have begun consideration of divestment as well: San Francisco, Providence, New Haven, and Philadelphia have passed measures prohibiting certain Sudan investments while the fiduciaries of Los Angeles; Newton, Massachusetts; and some other smaller US cities are considering the issue.

  ‘The genocide in Cambodia happened under Carter’s watch. The genocide in Rwanda happened under Clinton’s watch,’ notes Jason Miller. A president will not necessarily act alone to do the right thing. In fact, failure to act is the rule, not the exception. But if citizens, through their actions, show that they support stronger action to end genocide, our leaders will be more confident to take those actions.

  US Senator Sam Brownback took matters into his own hands. In November 2006 the senator’s family decided to divest their holdings of mutual funds whose investments include companies that the Sudan Divestment Task Force identified as the ‘worst offenders’. Any citizen can follow his example. All you have to do is get your mutual fund’s annual prospectus or call them and find out whether they own any of the stocks listed by the Sudan Divestment Task Force. If they do, then sell the shares, inform the mutual fund why you sold them, and buy one of the growing number of Sudan-free funds. You can also go to the Sudan Divestment Task Force website—www.sudandivestment.org—and use their screening tool. This simple web-based tool allows you to enter in the name of US mutual funds and quickly learn whether or not the fund is invested in a targeted list of offending companies.

  Divestment is a concrete action that citizens and institutions can take to say ‘NO’ to crimes against humanity, but most universities will not take on this task without encouragement from students. At Stanford and Harvard and many other universities around the world, student pressure was instrumental, and student-led activist groups such as STAND and GI-Net have made their voices heard.

  University administrations, mutual fund company heads, and state government officials need to hear directly from students, alumni, and average citizens that investments in companies who are in partnership with genocidal governments are unacceptable and that investors who fail to take the simple step of reviewing their portfolios have chosen to be bystanders to crimes against humanity.

  DON:

  I never slow-play aces. Let me explain. Over the last couple of years or so I have become a big fan—not unlike thousands of others—of no-limit poker. It is a seven card stud game where each player is dealt two facedown cards and then sees five more community cards dealt face-up on the table. Each player then uses these cards to make the best five-card poker hand possible. I love the game and find myself looking for excuses to play all the time: ‘The casino’s only 30 minutes away, honey’ (if I drive 90mph the whole way). Or, ‘I’m much happier when I come home, aren’t I?’ (if I’ve won, that is). So shooting the latest Ocean’s flick in Las Vegas, it’s a surefire bet that I will find myself at almost any off-camera hour sitting at the no-limit table at the Bellagio. Today is no different. I’ve been on a little card rush (when the cards dealt to you are winners) over the last hour, and right now I’m looking at pocket rockets, American Airlines, aces in the hole, the best hand you can have before the other cards hit the board (table). But though the hand is the strongest at this point, the cards that are about to come could spoil it all for me, so when it’s my turn to bet, I push all in—committing all of my chips to the pot, putting the pressure on the other players to call my bet. And I do immediately get a caller, but it’s not the one I was expecting. It is Theodore Braun, the director of the Darfur activism documentary that I am producing, An Indifferent World, calling me on the cell to let me know that two very important bills currently sitting on the governor’s desk concerning California’s divestment from Sudanese companies might get vetoed within hours.

  Bills AB 2179 and 2941, authored by Republican Assemblyman Tim Leslie of Tahoe City and Democratic Assemblyman Paul Koretz respectively, direct two major California retirement funds (CalPERS and CalSTRS) as well as the University of California schools’ regents from investing funds in companies with active business operations in Sudan. The bills were solid and had been specifically modified to address problems that had occurred with similar divestment legislation passed and pending in other states. But we knew that the bills’ veto was a definite possibility, a probability even (this information coming from a source inside of the governor’s advisory circle), so Ted’s news wasn’t a complete shock. It still had me pretty angry, though. Just one month earlier I had stood shoulder to shoulder with Adam Sterling, executive director of the student-led UC Sudan Divestment Taskforce, one of the subjects in our documentary and a man with whom I shared the spotlight at the UCLA Darfur rally, as well as Assemblyman Paul Koretz, author of AB 2941, and several other civic leaders on the steps of Los Angeles City Hall, holding a press conference concerning the bills. We then walked (an unfortunate theme for my knee) the over 4,000 signed postcards in support of our request to the governor’s office. Governor Schwarzenegger did not meet us that day, but someone from his office collected the postcards and dutifully thanked us for our efforts. We all felt we had just received the high-class brush-off and left much less than enthused. Knowing that George Clooney and the governor had worked together in the past, when Clooney had donned the Bat Cape and Schwarzenegger had tried to freeze Gotham City, I had called George earlier that week to see if he would put in a call on our behalf; a request he obliged, but he had yet to receive a return call. Given all this, I had all but written off the bills as dead. But Ted’s call, albeit poorly timed for my poker game, put a blip back in the flat line.

  ‘Don, we may have some daylight. Governor Schwarzenegger is going to be calling for George and you any minute now to talk about the bills.’

  Sure, I’m happy, but ...

  ‘Now? I’m all in, here, Ted!’

  ‘Damn right! Me too. What number should I give him?’

  I forgo clarifying things, give him the number to George’s bungalow, and hang up. Everybody at the table here recognises my huge raise for what it is and folds his hand, giving me just enough time to stack my chips and break for the exit, making a call to George on the way.

  ‘George, it’s Don. Mr Freeze is going to be calling us in your room in a minute about these bills. You ready?’

  ‘Yeah. Could you come by, though, and we’ll go over everything first?’

  ‘Already moving.’

  Some back story: This last calendar year has seen George Clooney join in our fight for Darfur in a very robust and demonstrative way, from going to the huge DC rally held on 30 April, to speaking to the UN Security Council, to actually travelling to the region with his father Nick, a journalist, in tow, to see and chronicle the horrors for himself. His participation has given a great lift to our efforts, and we are incredibly grateful. But this particular issue today is somewhat outside of George’s purview, so now I’m sprinting to the business centre at the hotel to print up some bullet points on the bills and then on to the bungalows to get George up to speed before the phone call comes in.

  When I arrive at his room, the door is cracked so I let myself in, finding George kicked back on the couch.

  ‘Yo.’

  ‘Yo
,’ he shoots back. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Good. Check this out.’

  I hand George the bills’ descriptions, and we break them down to their most salient points, going over what exactly it is George should say to the governor and, if a handoff is necessary, how I’ll chime in. Minutiae aside, our request is simple: We want the governor to lead the way in divesting by signing the bills into law, and if he is going to veto these bills, we want to let the governor know that we intend to voice our displeasure publicly, loud and clear.

  We don’t have long to review before the phone rings. When he answers, George’s salutation is surprising yet definitely appropriate.

  ‘Hello, Mr Governor.’

  Not Arnie or Arnold or Big Freezie or A Swizz? How diplomatic. This guy really should run for office. I grab our prepared document and start circling bullet points for George’s easy viewing but quickly surmise from George’s side of the conversation (‘Oh ... Okay, that’s great ... We had heard that ... Great.’) that our convincing offensive may not be necessary. The governor instructs George that he was always going to sign the bills into law and doesn’t know where the idea came from that he wasn’t. I don’t know either and frankly don’t care; we’re about to ‘move the chains’. George thanks the governor for his very necessary leadership and support and hangs up.

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Yeah.’ I’m surprised too. ‘That was easier than I thought.’

  ‘Wonder what happened.’ George pondering now. ‘Maybe he heard the cavalry coming and backed down?’

  Our inner circle ‘source’ had told us without equivocation that the bills were indeed in jeopardy. The source had repeated this to us on more than one occasion over the last week, every time we had called in to check on the bills’ progress, in fact. Was George right? Had we just seen our unwavering determination in the face of adversity overcome an obstacle, or had we simply been misinformed of the gov’s intentions?