Athletes and peace prize winners pressure Beijing Olympics

Beijing Olympics organisers face possible boycott over Sudan policy

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Thursday, 14, Feb 2008 08:21

A group of athletes and Nobel Peace Prize winners have called for a boycott of the Beijing Olympic Games in protest at China's support of Sudan.

The protestors, including Nobel laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Bishop Carlos Belo and Shirin Ebadi, as well as several former Olympians, say China is directly responsible for the attrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan.

It is widely known that China has been in support of the Sudanese government for much of the five-year conflict, which has resulted in the deaths of more than 200,000 people with around 2.5 million forced to become refugees.

And the open letter from the protestors calls for a boycott of the Games in Beijing this year because, it claims, the Chinese government "has both the opportunity and the responsibility to contribute to a just peace in Darfur".

"Ongoing failure to rise to this responsibility amounts, in our view, to support for a government that continues to carry out atrocities against its own people," the letter also states.

Sudan, a leading oil-producing nation, deals more with China than any other world country in regards to its oil output.

However, the UK's Olympics minister Tessa Jowell has rejected the policy of a boycott as China's policy on Darfur and close diplomatic ties with the Sudanese government have been known about for years, including when the award of the Games was made.

"The world has known for the last seven years that Beijing would host the Olympics," she told the Times newspaper.

"Most progressive governments accept that there are wholly unacceptable aspects of Chinese policy but that did not stop the International Olympics Committee (IOC) awarding them the Games.

"A call for a boycott doesn't serve any purpose and it would be a great pity. This doesn't mean, however, we should we distracted from the urgency of Darfur."