Darfur Divestment Legislation Signed by Gov. Mitch Daniels

“It means everything to me,” said another former Sudan resident, Elsadig Arabi, who hasn’t seen some members of his family for nearly a decade.

The governor’s signature ended a long road for the legislation, which requires the Public Employee’s Retirement Fund (PERF) and the Indiana State Teacher’s retirement fund (TFR) to contact companies with business dealings in Sudan and request they cease those activities so long as that country’s leaders support genocide.
 

“It’s a very rare occasion when what we do here is literally a life and death matter,” Daniels said. “I’m very, very glad Indiana is associated with this cause. It makes an important statement.”
 

According to Lindsey Mintz, director of government affairs for the Jewish Community Relations Council, Indiana was the ninth state to legislatively target Sudan investments. Two others have since followed.
 

“Others are using Indiana as a model,” said Sen. Dennis Kruse (R-Fort Wayne), the Senate sponsor of the legislation. “Other states are starting to follow Indiana’s example in both the legislative process and the actual legislation.”

The Darfur conflict in western Sudan has been called a humanitarian catastrophe.

Currently, an elaborate aid system is keeping the death rate in the northeastern Africa nation from skyrocketing. If the aid network collapses due to violence, however, the monthly death rate in Darfur could top 100,000, according to Jan Egeland, U.N. Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs. Violence in Darfur has claimed at least 200,000 lives and displaced more than two million people.

Kruse steered the legislation through tough times, halting it once when amendments put the measure at risk, then reviving it again through the amendment process with help from State Rep. Cindy Noe (R-Indianapolis) and the bill’s author, State Rep. David Crooks (D-Washington).
 

The signing culminates months of activity in support of the legislation. Some of it was quiet, in the form of thousands of letters. Some of it was boisterous, like the rally attended by more than 800 people at the Statehouse earlier this year.

 
It all was summed up in six words by Sudan youth Mohamed Abdalla of Fort Wayne, also present at Wednesday’s ceremony.