China’s special envoy for Darfur to visit Sudan
February 19, 2008 (BEIJING) — China’s special envoy on Darfur will visit Sudan next week, the foreign ministry said Tuesday, amid international pressure on Beijing to do more to end the years of violence there
“He has made great efforts for the solution of the Darfur issue,” Liu Jianchao said, adding that the envoy had been in the western Sudanese region three times.
Liu Jianchao reiterated China’s long-standing policy of negotiation and encouragement to end the conflict in Sudan.
“Relevant countries should maintain patience and carry out dialogue and consultation to resolve the issue properly. We should not use unbridled pressure,” Liu Jianchao said.
China, Sudan’s main overseas supporter and arms supplier, has come under growing pressure to use its influence on the East African regime to end the bloodshed in Darfur.
Activists have sought to pile the pressure on Chinese authorities this year as the world’s spotlight has increasingly turned on China ahead of the Beijing Olympics in August.
Hollywood film-maker Steven Spielberg said last week that his conscience would no longer allow him to work on the Olympics as an artistic consultant while Sudan’s government carried out genocide in its western Darfur province.
On the same day, a group of Nobel Prize winners and Olympic athletes wrote an open letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao, asking him to push Sudan to end the atrocities in Darfur.
US actress and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow has branded the Beijing Olympics the “Genocide Games” in a reference to Darfur.
According to the UN, about 200,000 people have died in Darfur from the combined effects of war, famine and disease since 2003, when a civil conflict erupted pitting government-backed Arab militias against non-Arab ethnic groups.
(AFP)