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Private investors—public pension funds—college and university endowments—and institutional investors divested stocks in companies that did business in South Africa, helping to end apartheid:
Probably the most forceful pressures, both internal and external, eroding the barriers of apartheid were economic. International sanctions severely affected the South African economy, raising the cost of necessities, cutting investment, even forcing many American corporations to disinvest, for example, or, under the Sullivan Rules, to employ without discrimination.
Now it’s time to…
Last Saturday at a private home in Los Angeles, Frank Gaffney, Jr. spoke on this subject. Mr. Gaffney is President of the Center for Security Policy. From their web site:
Mr. Gaffney formerly acted as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy during the Reagan Administration, following four years of service as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy. Previously, he was a professional staff member on the Senate Armed Services Committee under the chairmanship of the late Senator John Tower, and a national security legislative aide to the late Senator Henry M. Jackson.
NATIONS THAT SUPPORT TERRORISTS
The U.S. State Department has designated specific nations as state sponsors of terrorism. Of these, the foremost offenders are:
From a 2001 U.S. State Dept report:
Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Cuba, North Korea, and Sudan continue to be the seven governments that the US Secretary of State has designated as state sponsors of international terrorism. Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism in 2000. It provided increasing support to numerous terrorist groups, including the Lebanese Hizballah, HAMAS, and the Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ), which seek to undermine the Middle East peace negotiations through the use of terrorism. Iraq continued to provide safehaven and support to a variety of Palestinian rejectionist groups, as well as bases, weapons, and protection to the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), an Iranian terrorist group that opposes the current Iranian regime. Syria continued to provide safehaven and support to several terrorist groups, some of which oppose the Middle East peace negotiations. Libya at the end of 2000 was attempting to mend its international image following its surrender in 1999 of two Libyan suspects for trial in the Pan Am 103 bombing. (In early 2001, one of the suspects was convicted of murder. The judges in the case found that he acted “in furtherance of the purposes of…Libyan Intelligence Services.”) Cuba continued to provide safehaven to several terrorists and US fugitives and maintained ties to state sponsors and Latin American insurgents. North Korea harbored several hijackers of a Japanese Airlines flight to North Korea in the 1970s and maintained links to other terrorist groups. Finally, Sudan continued to serve as a safehaven for members of al-Qaida, the Lebanese Hizballah, al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the PIJ, and HAMAS, but it has been engaged in a counterterrorism dialogue with the United States since mid-2000.
FREE MARKET COMPANIES UNWITTINGLY SUPPORT TERRORISTS
U.S. companies are not permitted to do business with these states; however, that restriction does not apply to foreign companies. Also, there is a loophole in U.S. law, via which some U.S. companies are still doing business with these states. Specifically, offshore subsidiaries of some U.S. companies are doing so.
Mr. Gaffney presented a report (available here) which noted:
...the economic life-blood of terrorist-sponsoring rogue regimes is being unwittingly provided by the pension systems and other investment portfolios of average Americans.
...Acccording to former Clinton Under Secretary of State Peter Tarnoff:
“A straight line links Iran’s oil income and its ability to sponsor terrorism, build weapons of mass destruction, and acquire sophisticated armaments. Any government or private company that helps Iran to expand its oil must accept that it is contributing to this menace.
The “dirty dozen” companies which are currently doing the most business with these states include:
From Mr. Gaffney’s report:
This report proves empirically that this nation’s largest and most prominent public pension systems tend to be heavily invested in global publicly traded companies that have business activities in terrorist-sponsoring states.
Together, these funds invest over $1 trillion in stock alone on behalf of this country’s fire fighters, police officers, teachers, state and local officials and other public employees, making this collection of funds one of the most powerful investment blocks in the world. Given this extraordinary financial influence and the important role played by public companies in the economies of terrorist-sponsoring states,the Center for Security Policy has reached a key finding: America’s 100 largest and most prominent pension systems have the power to help defeat terrorism.
YOU CAN HELP
Mr. Gaffney believes that we are at a tipping point in efforts to defund terrorists via the same methods that successfully combatted apartheid.
The movement is bipartisan, with the Left leading the effort to divest companies that trade with Sudan.
Here’s how you can help:
Download the first letter on this page of the Divest Terror web site and send it to your state legislature:
The most important target for your efforts is your state legislature, which holds the power to mandate legislatively the divestment of stock by your state’s public pension systems. As illustrated by our report entitled Terrorism Investments of the 50 States , most of America’s public pension systems invest in scores, or even hundreds, of companies that do business with terror-sponsoring states. Because these public funds invest billions of dollars in such companies, pension systems have enormous leverage. They also represent the quickest and most effective route to pressuring target companies to suspend their business operations in these countries until such time as state-sponsorship of terrorism there is ceased.
Download the second letter on this page of the Divest Terror web site and send it to your state legislature:
...we call on EVERY American to send THIS LETTER and demand from state legislators, governors and treasurers that YOUR state pass legislation to require state and local public pension funds to divest the stock of every company that does business in countries that sponsor terrorism.
To learn more, visit the Divest Terror web site.
All emphasis is in the original quoted material.
