Bosnia genocide survivors join relay for Darfur
December 7, 2007 (SARAJEVO) — Hollywood actress Mia Farrow joined families of Bosnian Muslim victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre and activists at a torch-lighting ceremony on Friday calling on Olympic host China to help stop genocide in Darfur.
Farrow and Hatidza Mehmedovic, who lost her husband and two young sons in Srebrenica, lit a torch as a symbol of peace and solidarity with the victims of genocide in the African nation.
“We are passing this torch to call for an end to the ongoing crime of genocide in Darfur,” Farrow told the crowd in Sarajevo. “We are calling upon China to end the suffering in Darfur by forcing Khartoum to allow a protection force in Sudan.”
Critics say China’s military aid to and oil purchases from Sudan give it influence it could use to push Khartoum to halt the violence in Darfur, where some 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes in fighting since rebellion broke out in 2003.
The Sarajevo event was part of an Olympic-style torch relay, the “Olympic Dream for Darfur” campaign, led by Farrow and launched last August at the Chad-Darfur border to press for action by China, which hosts the Olympic Games next year.
The relay has already passed through genocide sites in Darfur, Rwanda, Armenia, Bosnia and Germany. Next month the torch will be lit in Cambodia and the last destination will be Hong Kong.
“China is the host of the 2008 Olympic ggames and China is also an accomplice in Darfur genocide,” Farrow said. “It cannot sponsor the Olympic Games at home and underwrite genocide in Darfur.”
People in Sarajevo cried while watching pictures taken by Farrow in her seven visits to Darfur, in remote western Sudan.
Bosnian Serb forces besieged Sarajevo for 43 months during the 1992-95 Bosnia war.
The United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague considers the death of some 11,000 people during the siege as genocide, along with the slaughter of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim males by Bosnian Serb forces near Srebrenica.
Bosnian Serb wartime commander Ratko Mladic and his political boss Radovan Karadzic, indicted by the court for their role in the atrocities, are still on the run.
Other activists, survivors of genocide in Rwanda and Darfur, said they felt they had to react to genocide anywhere in the world. “We are trying to link genocide survivors so that they call in one voice ‘Never Again’,” said Omer Ismail from Darfur.
The delegation also visited the cemetery and memorial for the Srebrenica victims on Thursday.
“Instead of waiting for wedding bells and grandchildren, instead of building factories for them, we are building the cemetery,” said Mehmedovic, who found the remains of her husband and one son after 12 years. “I don’t wish it on anyone.”
(Reuters)