ACTRESS MIA FARROW TO KICK OFF TORCH RELAY TO PROTEST CHINA’S FAILURE TO PUSH SUDAN ON DARFUR

International Herald Tribune, France
The Associated Press
June 13 2007

NEW YORK: Actress Mia Farrow unveiled plans Wednesday for an
Olympic-style torch relay beginning this summer as part of a campaign
aimed at shaming China into cutting support for Sudan over its role
in the Darfur conflict.

Farrow, a U.N. goodwill ambassador, and a new activist group
called Dream for Darfur are hoping to use the spotlight of the 2008
Beijing Olympics to draw attention to China’s economic and diplomatic
support for Sudan. China buys two-thirds of Sudan’s oil and has close
commercial ties with Khartoum.

They are asking China to suspend debt relief for Sudan, end arms
transfers to the regime, and increase diplomatic pressure on the
Sudanese government.

Jill Savitt, director of Dream for Darfur, said the organization
hopes China will act before the games, reaffirming the Olympics as
a symbol of "world peace through sporting."

"It’s irreconcilable for the host of the Olympics to also be complicit
in an ongoing genocide," Savitt said on a telephone news conference
Wednesday.

More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million made homeless
in Darfur during four years of attacks by Arab militias known as
the janjaweed and allegedly backed by President Omar al-Bashir’s
government. The government denies the charge.

The torch relay will begin Aug. 8 in Chad near the Sudan border and
make its way through countries associated with genocide: Rwanda,
Armenia, Bosnia, Germany and Cambodia, before ending up in December
in Hong Kong. Farrow will attend the launch in Chad and will travel
to Rwanda.

"It’s apparent now that there’s one thing that China holds more dear
than its unfettered access to Sudanese oil," Farrow said. "And that
is their successful staging of the 2008 Olympic Games."

After several months of delay, Sudan said Wednesday it would accept
a joint United Nations-African Union force of between 17,000 and
19,000 troops.

As a veto-wielding permanent member of the U.N. Security Council,
Beijing has blocked efforts to send U.N. troops to Darfur without
Sudanese consent.

Wenji Gao, the chief press officer at China’s Consulate in New York,
said China had played a "positive and constructive role in solving
the issue," pointing to its participation in negotiations at the
U.N. and the ongoing dialogue between Beijing and Khartoum.

"It’s totally groundless to connect the Olympics with Darfur," Gao
added. "The basic Olympic spirit is that the Olympic Games are not
to be politicized."

Sudanese officials in Khartoum did not return calls for comment
on Wednesday.

In what appeared to be a response to international pressure, last
month China appointed a special representative for Africa to focus
on Darfur, and has publicly urged Khartoum to give the U.N. a greater
role in trying to resolve the conflict.