Darfur campaign rejects China Olympics boycott

June 13, 2007 (WASHINGTON) — U.S. activists launched a fresh campaign on Wednesday to press 2008 Olympics host China to persuade its ally Sudan to stop the violence in Darfur, but rejected calling for a boycott of the landmark Beijing event.

The Olympic Dream for Darfur Campaign, spearheaded by Hollywood actress Mia Farrow, will stage an Olympic torch relay through Rwanda, Cambodia, Armenia, Bosnia and other historic genocide sites to prod China to use its considerable clout with Sudan to stop the killings there.

“There is one thing that China holds more dear than its unfettered access to Sudanese oil and that is their successful staging of the 2008 Olympic Games,” said Farrow.

“That desire does present a point of unique leverage with a country that has thus far been impervious to criticism,” she told reporters on a telephone call launching the campaign.

The goal of the Colorado-based movement is to get Beijing, Sudan’s main oil customer and arms supplier, to make the Khartoum government stop blocking deployment of United Nations and African Union peacekeeping forces, organizers said.

The group also wants China to end arms transfers to Sudan and stop diplomatically shielding Khartoum in U.N. debates.

Campaign director Jill Savitt said the group rejects calling for a boycott of the Beijing games for “philosophical reasons and strategic reasons” and to retain the potential ability to influence China.

“If we can’t persuade China to bring the Olympic dream to Darfur, we intend to use the international spotlight that the Olympics provide to put Darfur at the world’s center stage and then to bring Darfur to the Olympic dream,” she said.

Farrow will launch the international torch relay in Chad, an African country adjacent to Darfur, on August 8, exactly a year before the Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing, the actress said.

After touring countries associated with genocide, the torch relay will end in Hong Kong, Savitt said. The group will team up with the umbrella Save Darfur Coalition in a parallel torch relay across the United States, she added.

International experts estimate that fighting between government-linked militias and rebel groups has killed 200,000 people in Darfur. Sudan puts the toll at about 9,000.

(Reuters)