Cambodia bans relay aimed at pressuring China on Darfur
January 17, 2008 (PHNOM PENH) — Organizers of a symbolic Olympic torch relay by Cambodian survivors of genocide and international advocates wanting China to play a more positive role in the Darfur crisis vowed Thursday to go ahead with the event planned for this weekend in Phnom Penh despite the government’s refusal to allow it.
Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak told Kyodo News, “The Olympic Games are not held in Cambodia and nor is it a political forum. Therefore, any relay in Cambodia, a sovereign state, shall not be allowed.”
But Seng Theary, executive director of the Center for Social Development, a local nongovernmental organization which has been conducting grassroots dialogues with Khmer Rouge victims and perpetrators and which is co-organizing the symbolic Olympic torch relay, said the event would go ahead as planned.
“We are not changing our plan, but will go ahead with our set date because this event is not a political but a humanitarian one in nature,” she told Kyodo News.
The event is being co-organized by the CSD and Olympic Dream for Darfur, a U.S.-based advocacy group, at Tuol Sleng genocide museum in the Cambodian capital.
Organizers say the relay is aimed at convincing China to play a more positive role in bringing security to civilians and humanitarian workers in Darfur, beyond its vote at the U.N. Security Council last year authorizing deployment of peacekeepers to Darfur.
“The symbolic Olympic Torch Relay is urging the Chinese government as both Olympic host and Sudan’s strongest political and economic partner, to use its special influence with the Sudanese government to ensure a robust civilian protection force in Darfur before the Games begin,” they said in a statement.
U.S. movie actress and human rights activist Mia Farrow, who has traveled to the Darfur region seven times, is scheduled to lead the team and light symbolic Olympic torch at Tuol Sleng, which was a torture center under the Khmer Rouge regime in the late 1970s.
Other participants are to include Omer Ismael, a Sudanese from Darfur and a human rights advocate; Freddy Mutanguha, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide and director of the Kigali Memorial Center; and U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia Joseph Mussomeli.
Jeff Daigle, a U.S. Embassy spokesman, said, “It would be disappointing if the ceremony were not allowed to take place. The event is strictly intended as a way to remember and honor all those killed during Khmer Rouge rule and to focus attention on the horrible tragedy of genocide.”
Cambodia is the sixth stop on the symbolic Olympic torch relay that began in August near the Darfur border and has since been to Rwanda, Armenia, Germany and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Organizers say that because of China’s “complicity” in the humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur and its extensive economic interests in Sudan, leaders in Beijing are in an unrivaled position to persuade Sudan to consent immediately to a full-fledged U.N. peacekeeping operation in Darfur.
But organizers stress that they do not support a boycott campaign of the Beijing Olympics.
China has said the relays, though well-intentioned, run counter to the Olympic spirit and politicize sports events.
(Kyodo)