Gov. Charlie Crist recently signed a bill making Florida the first U.S. state to outlaw pension fund investments in companies doing business with Sudan and with Iran’s energy sector. The ceremony took place in a synagogue immediately after Crist returned from a week-long trip to apartheid Israel.
The bill was tweaked at the last minute to associate Sudan with Iran for the purpose of demonizing them both.
After signing the bill, Crist said, “It’s not just what’s right for Florida. This is
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By signing the bill, Florida’s state government supported the federal bipartisan movement attacking Sudan. The economic implications of this bill are profound. Sudan has struggled for decades to achieve economic sovereignty.
Florida alone has $134 billion in its state pension account. The bill also will discontinue $16 billion in Florida state investments.
Crist has drafted a letter to the governors of the remaining 49 states, urging them to follow Florida’s example. Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, New Jersey and Oregon have already begun divesting public pension funds.
This economic attack is magnified by sanctions imposed by the United Sates on Sudan. According to Sudan’s foreign minister, the sanctions “only serve to extend the armed conflict and prolong the humanitarian suffering in Darfur.”
Save Darfur?
Pressure from the so-called Save Darfur campaign in Europe has resulted in Rolls-Royce and two of Europe’s largest technology companies withdrawing from the country.
The Save Darfur movement in the United States—a very, very well-funded “grassroots” effort calling for U.S. intervention in Sudan—is continually promoted by the capitalist establishment.
The “Save Darfur Coalition” was created in 2005 by two groups: the pro-Zionist American Jewish World Service and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Now, more than 180 organizations belong to the coalition, including the right-wing National Association of Evangelicals. The coalition receives its $15 million annual operating budget from Fortune 500 companies and numerous individuals. (Washington Post, June 1)
Save Darfur has no humanitarian mission. It has not sent a dime to Darfur. Instead, the group lobbies Congress and purchases extravagant ads attacking Sudan and, more recently, Sudan’s biggest trading partner, China.
The creation of Darfur-focused activist groups tied to the Save Darfur Coalition has been encouraged in public schools and universities across the United States.
Of course, anti-Iraq war groups are not encouraged on campuses—nor are they well funded—although over 2 million Iraqis have died because of U.S. sanctions and intervention since 1991. More than 655,000 Iraqis have died since the U.S. invasion in 2003 alone. Are Iraqi lives somehow worth less than people living in Darfur?
The U.S. imperialists do not care about Sudanese or Iraqi lives at all. They only care about creating and exploiting
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The Darfur groups are siding with the aims and goals of U.S. imperialism vis-?-vis Sudan, and they are using anti-Arab racism to do it. These groups are making U.S. government lies more palatable to broad masses of U.S. workers.
Calling for U.S. intervention in Sudan is a pro-imperialist, anti-working-class position. It helps no one but the imperialist governments and their financial backers.
Don’t believe the hype
The United Nations and Doctors Without Borders admit that no genocide has taken place in Darfur. Still, hyperbolic accounts proliferate in the bourgeois press, often equating Darfur with the Nazi holocaust.
Florida’s Gov. Crist referenced the holocaust when signing the bill; President Bush gave a speech at the U.S. Holocaust Museum to call for intervention in Darfur.
With Florida leading the way, U.S. imperialist aggression toward the country increases. A hybrid force of African Union and U.N. “peacekeepers” is being deployed to the Darfur region in the near future. The U.S. government is threatening further sanctions.
Progressive people should not be fooled by the considerable anti-Sudan hype. Organizations and individuals should uphold Sudan’s right to self-determination and struggle against anti-Arab, and anti-Muslim attacks leveled by the U.S. imperialists and their allies.
Students in the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) at Florida Atlantic University and Florida International University have taken up this struggle. They are educating their fellow students and professors and plan to expand this campaign as the fall semester begins.
Click here for more from the PSL on Sudan.
