Idaho reconsiders Sudan fund

BOISE – Idaho’s public pension fund managers, under fire for investing money in companies that could be fueling genocide in Sudan, have decided to set up a group to consider ending those investments.

But critics said the move Tuesday by the board of directors for the Public Employees Retirement System of Idaho isn’t good enough.

“There is a saying in the law: Justice delayed is justice denied,” said John Sullivan, a Boise lawyer working with the Washington, D.C.,-based Sudan Divestment Task Force. “These companies are documented as financially, and in some cases militarily, enabling genocide.”

Sullivan said the retirement system has invested $52 million in nine companies that do business in Sudan.

An estimated 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million have been forced from their homes in the Darfur region of oil-rich Sudan. President Bush has called the violence genocide.

Jody Olson, the board’s chairman, said that the board needs to learn more before deciding about the investments.

“There are legal questions to be answered,” Olson told the Idaho Statesman.

The fund’s total portfolio is about $11 billion, representing about 115,000 people whose retirements savings are overseen by PERSI.

One of those is Mark VanSkiver, a retired teacher in the Meridian and Kuna school districts. He said the board should poll its members to see if they want to pull the money out of companies with ties to Sudan.

“If they support it, it would be a great way to send a message that Idaho does not support genocide,” VanSkiver said.

Sullivan said that after three oil companies said they would stop investing in Sudan, the Sudanese government ended a 20-year war in the southern region.

“So (PERSI) pulling its money out of that country would not be just a symbolic gesture,” Sullivan said.