China: Don’t link Olympics, Darfur
March 29, 2007 (BEIJING) — China on Thursday blasted separate calls by a French politician and Mia Farrow to use the upcoming 2008 Olympic Games to pressure Beijing into doing more to stop the crisis in Sudan’s Darfur region.
“We don’t think it is appropriate to link the Olympic Games in Beijing with the Darfur issue and we don’t think it will be popularly accepted or echoed by people around the world,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang.
“It is a totally misguided approach for people to link the Darfur issue with the Games and try to tip the balance in their favor in order to enhance their own reputation,” he said at a regular press briefing.
China, which buys two-thirds of Sudan’s oil and sells it weapons and military aircraft, has opposed sanctions against Sudan but urged the government earlier this month to follow through on a plan to deploy U.N. peacekeepers to beef up African Union forces in the troubled region.
An editorial by Farrow published in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday called on corporate sponsors of the Beijing Games to pressure China to do more to help stop the bloodshed in Darfur.
“There is now one thing that China may hold more dear than their unfettered access to Sudanese oil: their successful staging of the 2008 Summer Olympics,” said the editorial by the 62-year-old actress and U.N. goodwill ambassador.
“That desire may provide a lone point of leverage with a country that has otherwise been impervious to all criticism.” The editorial was co-authored by Farrow’s son, Ronan.
Qin said he was not aware of who Farrow was and had not read the editorial.
Last week, Francois Bayrou, a center-right candidate for France’s presidency, proposed that his country’s athletes stay away from the Beijing Games in an effort to make China lean on Sudan’s government.
Qin said he believed people who tried to link the Games with Darfur were unclear about China’s policy on Sudan. He said China hopes “efforts by the international community could improve the humanitarian situation in Darfur and that the region could realize a lasting peace and stability.”
A permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, China has come under increasing international pressure to use its influence over Khartoum to resolve the conflict, which erupted in 2003 when ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated central government, accusing it of neglect.
The Sudanese government is accused of unleashing militias known as the janjaweed, which are blamed for the bulk of the conflict’s atrocities. More than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have fled their homes in the past four years.
“We are confident that we will hold a successful and high quality Olympic Games in Beijing,” Qin said.
(AP)