The Chinese Saga of Olympic Shame Continues . . . . China Defends Sudan
Policy and Criticizes Olympics Tie-In/NYTimes
The New York Times
March 8, 2008
China Defends Sudan Policy and Criticizes Olympics Tie-In
By JIM YARDLEY
BEIJING ¡ª China has expressed ¡°grave concerns¡± to the Sudanese
government about the recent violence in western Darfur and is actively
working to resolve delays in establi****ng an international peacekeeping
force, China¡¯s special envoy to Darfur said Friday.
The envoy, Liu Guijin, who recently returned from his fourth visit to
Sudan, offered a detailed defense of China¡¯s role in Darfur at a news
conference at the Foreign Ministry here and repeated Beijing¡¯s stance
that activists were wrong to link the strife in Darfur to the Beijing
Olympics in August.
He also expressed surprise at the film director Steven Spielberg¡¯s
public withdrawal as an artistic adviser to the Beijing Olympics last
month. Mr. Spielberg said at the time that he was stepping down because
China, Sudan¡¯s largest trading partner, had not used enough of its
leverage over the Sudanese government to resolve the conflict. But Mr.
Liu said China¡¯s relation****p with Mr. Spielberg had effectively ended
months earlier, an assertion a spokesman for Mr. Spielberg disputed.
In recent weeks, violence in the western Darfur region of Sudan has
escalated as the Sudanese Army and its janjaweed militia allies have
attacked rebel groups and civilians, creating a new wave of refugees.
Mr. Liu said China was pressing Sudan to do more to end the violence,
but added that rebel groups also shared responsibility.
¡°I conveyed China¡¯s grave concerns about the deterioration of conditions
in western Darfur,¡± Mr. Liu said.
Mr. Liu said he had met with President Omar Hassan al-Ba****r of Sudan
and other top officials. Officials told him that the recent government
attacks were an effort to reclaim land taken by insurgent fighters last
December.
¡°The reality is the clashes there are not yet concluded and the
situation is still quite tense,¡± Mr. Liu said.
Mr. Liu¡¯s recent trip included stops in Chad, where many Darfur refugees
have fled, France and Britain, and was a blend of diplomacy and public
relations as China tries to end the controversy as the Olympics draw
near. China¡¯s role as an arms supplier and oil patron of Sudan has
brought international criticism from advocacy groups, which blame
Beijing for protecting Khartoum¡¯s interests.
Calls for political leaders to boycott the Olympics have mostly gone
unheeded, but the criticism has pushed Beijing to take a more active,
and public, role in resolving the Darfur conflict.
Mr. Spielberg came under pressure for his role in helping to plan the
Olympic opening ceremony when the actress Mia Farrow criticized him for
sup****ting what she called the ¡°Genocide Olympics.¡±
When he announced his withdrawal from the artistic advisory position
last month, Mr. Spielberg said in a statement that ¡°China¡¯s economic,
military and diplomatic ties to the government of Sudan continue to
provide it with the op****tunity and obligation to press for change.¡±
Mr. Liu, in asserting that Mr. Spielberg had no role to resign from,
said he and Mr. Spielberg met for an hour last September in New York. He
said Mr. Spielberg had missed the deadline to sign a formal contract,
and so he told the director that he assumed this meant that any
professional ties were severed. He said he did not try to persuade Mr.
Spielberg to change his mind.
¡°I told him very clearly that, ¡®Mr. Spielberg, I know you are no longer
the artistic adviser,¡¯ ¡± Mr. Liu said.
A spokesman for Mr. Spielberg, Andy Spahn, said that Mr. Spielberg had
left his contract unsigned during the time he was working as an artistic
adviser, a point that he said was made clear when Mr. Spielberg
withdrew. But Mr. Spahn insisted that this had never diminished his
role, and he had still been working as an artistic adviser until he
stepped down in February. ¡°He never signed his contract, but I am not
sure of what relevance all of that is,¡± Mr. Spahn said.
Mr. Liu defended China¡¯s policy on Darfur last month at Chatham House, a
research institute in London. On Friday, he said China¡¯s position on
Darfur was essentially the same as that of the United States and other
Western powers. On arms sales, Mr. Liu said China was one of several
countries that sold weapons to Sudan and ¡°is by no means the biggest
ex****ter.¡±
China, like Iran, Russia and others, sells weapons to Sudan. While China
says it abides by a United Nations embargo on sending weapons directly
to Darfur, a panel of United Nations experts found that Chinese weapons
were making their way to Darfur.
Mr. Liu said that China could not control what happened to weapons that
were legally sold to Sudan¡¯s government. He noted that American weapons
in Iraq had ended up in the hands of insurgents.
Prodded by China, Sudan has agreed to allow a joint United
Nations-African Union peacekeeping force to try to bring stability to
Darfur. But delays have arisen and critics have accused Sudan of
stonewalling.
Mr. Liu said that technical problems were responsible for the delays but
that most of them had recently been solved. He also noted that a Chinese
engineering unit had been working in Sudan since last year and was
installing a water system to sustain the peacekeeping force.
Graham Bowley contributed re****ting from New York.
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