Results of Actress Mia Farrow’s long campaign to stop genocide already felt in Beijing
By Jeffrey Jolson
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 8/16/07 — Actress and activist Mia Farrow, who lit a fire under Steven Spielberg that led to his threat to pull out as artistic director of the Beijing Olympics, lit another flame in Africa this week.
Farrow took part in a torch-lighting ceremony in Rwanda on Wednesday to increase public pressure on Olympics hosts China to end the killing in Darfur.
Farrow’s earlier messages to Spielberg, comparing his promotion of the China Olympics to a Nazi propagandist, in turn saw the superstar director write a letter to Chinese officials that had surprisingly effective results. China sent a top level envoy to the Sudan after US and UN pleas had been ignored for years. See Spielberg-China Article 1
That was back in April, and nothing substantive had come of the visit. Spielberg’s political spokesman Andy Spahn said in July Spielberg was in contact with the Chinese and would resign his role unless some steps were taken to pressure the rogue government in the Sudan. See Spielberg-China Article 2
“China as 2008 Olympic Games host must play an important role to stop the genocide that is now underway in Darfur,” 62-year-old Farrow said at the ceremony in the Rwandan capital Kigali.
The Olympic-style relay organized by the “Dream for Darfur” campaign started on Aug. 9 in Chad to urge China to influence Khartoum to end the suffering in Darfur before the Games begin next August.
At issue is Chinese government policy of not interfering with local governments it does business with — even when they are heavily in debt to the World Bank and killing off large chunks of the population as in Darfur. Western money was cut off long ago due to massacres there, but China is accused of keeping a ruthless dictator in charge by infusing his regime with capital.
The torch-lighting event was held at the entrance of Kigali’s Ecole Technique Officielle, where 2,500 Rwandans were massacred during the 1994 genocide perpetrated by Hutu extremists mainly against the Tutsi minority.
According to the United Nations, at least 800,000 people were slaughtered in the space of a few weeks during the genocide.
The atrocities committed by Khartoum and its proxy militias in Darfur since a rebellion erupted there four years ago have been described by Washington as genocide, although most other states have refrained from using the term.
At least 200,000 people have died from the combined effect of war and famine in the arid western region of Sudan and more than two million have been displaced, according to UN estimates.
In the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, China — which is by far the largest foreign investor in Sudan and absorbs almost two thirds of its oil output — has been under mounting pressure to use its clout on Khartoum.
The four-month torch relay will pass through a number of world cities scarred by mass killings, including Yerevan, Sarajevo, Berlin and Phnom Penh.
Farrow has been at the forefront of the civil society Darfur awareness campaign that started picking up two years ago and also receives the support of Hollywood stars George Clooney and Don Cheadle.
Earlier this month she offered Khartoum her freedom in exchange for the safe passage of a key Darfur rebel figure who is confined to a UN hospital in Sudan’s Kordofan region and needs treatment abroad.
AFP contributed to this report
