Par: Hub Intern, Posté le: Aug 18 08

China, Sudan

Armed conflict, Genocide, Impunity, Rape and sexual abuse, Refugees

china

I'm Rikki Gunton, a senior at New York University studying photography and politics, and over the past two and a half months I have been interning at WITNESS, merging my passions for human rights and visual media.

One of the issues I've been most involved with for the past three years is the conflict in Darfur, Sudan, a politically complex situation which Kofi Annan called "hell on earth", and which has been deemed one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. China has given the Sudanese government significant financial and political support which continues to foster and exacerbate the genocidal and civil violence in Darfur, not to mention the poverty gap between Sudan’s elites and those outside of Khartoum. China's list of human rights violations includes its policies towards Tibet, and the rights of Chinese citizens themselves - many Chinese have been evicted to make space for Olympic structures, for example. But China is under particularly intense scrutiny for its relationship with Darfur. With all eyes on Beijing during the Olympics, can global pressure persuade China to improve its human rights record?

For years, activists have been preparing to use the Olympics as an opportunity to highlight China's human rights record - in the case of Darfur, to create additional leverage to stop the genocide. Many human rights activists, celebrities, and scholars such as actress Mia Farrow and Smith College professor Eric Reeves have criticized China’s Olympic slogan “One World, One Dream” as highly hypocritical considering its support to Khartoum. This support involves oil investments, arms trades, and China’s use of its veto power in the Security Council.

Activists have been asking China to “bring the Olympic dream to Darfur”, and some even advocated boycotting the Games. But even with a former “Lost Boy” of Sudan marching in the opening ceremonies, the Olympics have commenced as planned. People around the world are watching the Games, but Farrow has initiated an alternative. Each day, she posts a webcast from the refugee camps along the Darfur/Chad border, interviewing the displaced about their daily lives and the threats they face.
Watch Farrow describe the Alternative Ceremony below.

Throughout the past five and a half years, China has been financially and diplomatically backing the Sudanese regime. The Sudanese government sells about two-thirds of its oil to China, whose state-owned oil (along with other energy and development-related) companies have set up shop on Sudanese soil. Sudan then uses this revenue to buy arms and aircraft from China. This oil-for-arms relationship has created significant revenue for both countries. It has in turn helped to facilitate a government-sponsored, ethnically-based “scorched earth ” policy of genocide against Darfuri civilians, many of whom have taken up arms for their political and civil rights. No wonder these two countries would want to keep that relationship at status quo. International political will to bring peace to Sudan has been shamefully lacking, and in light of this relationship, China has been especially stubborn. China's policies have favored Sudan’s state sovereignty and any attempts at diplomacy have erred on the side of relationship preserving caution. China has vetoed or abstained from several Security Council Resolutions, waiting until they have been watered down to emptiness in order to vote for them, if at all. This has made it clear to Khartoum that it can literally get away with murder, and that member states' demands are not taken seriously.

But are the Olympics a time for politics?

China is using the Olympics to reshape its image around the world with the idea of “One World, One Dream”, and many watching around the world believe that the Olympics are not a place for politics. But when countries come together, politics are difficult to ignore. In addition, China recently denied visa access to Olympic Speed Skater Joey Cheek, who donated his gold metal prize money to Darfuri refugees in 2006. He later founded an organization called Team Darfur, a coalition of athletes engaged in Darfur advocacy. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that “the visa issue is a country’s sovereign affairs.”

Although news from Sudan ebbs and flows from the headlines, the situation on the ground remains urgent. Attacks on peacekeepers are increasing and ethnic-based violence continues. Members of the hybrid UN/African Union force referred to as UNAMID lack the numbers and equipment necessary to handle the situation effectively. And despite the ICC's request to issue an arrest warrant for Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir, Bashir and his policies remain strong. The Olympics bring a lot of power to the host country, but the question is how this power is used. As long as China and Sudan continue to prosper from their symbiotic relationship and as long as the Olympics prove successful, Beijing won’t see any reason to change its policies on Darfur unless their own interests are at stake. But if China ignores global calls for action to end its support of the Sudanese governement, the games will be remembered as the "Genocide Olympics".

Watch this video on the China/Sudan relationship below.