ShareThisBy JAMES W. BROSNAN
Scripps Howard News Service
Monday, June 04, 2007
The U.S. Olympic Committee and the State Department on Monday rejected a proposal by Democratic presidential contender Bill Richardson to have the United States pull its team out of the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing if China does not use its leverage on Sudan to end the violence in the province of Darfur.
"We completely disagree with the point of view expressed by Governor Richardson. The Olympic movement is about sport -- and the unique benefits of participation in sport -- not politics," USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel said. "The Olympic movement and the Olympic Games are a unifying force that helps bring our world together, and never has this been more important and necessary than it is today."
Richardson, the governor of New Mexico and a former U.N. ambassador, proposed the boycott during Sunday night's debate among Democratic presidential contenders in New Hampshire. After Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., called for using NATO troops to enforce a no-fly zone over Sudan, Richardson said he would not use force to end the conflict but would send more U.N. peacekeepers and strengthen economic sanctions.
"Third, we need to lean on China, which has enormous leverage over Darfur (Sudan). And if the Chinese don't want to do this, we say to them, maybe we won't go to the Olympics," said Richardson. "And lastly, what we need is a country, a foreign policy that cares about Africa, that cares that 300,000 human beings have died, have been massacred, that over 2 million have lost their homes."
China is a major investor in Sudan, and an arms dealer. Beijing is also the largest customer for Sudanese oil. China abstained from the U.N. resolution calling for a joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur.
Richardson's idea drew fire from another Democratic contender, Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, who said that stopping the Olympics is "more likely to delay the kind of influence and support China ought to be providing."
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that a boycott of the Olympics "is not something we have supported." He added: "We are working with the Chinese government to see that they bring all the possible leverage to bear on the Sudanese government that they possibly can."
Some African nations boycotted the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal to protest a New Zealand rugby team's visit to South Africa. But it was President Jimmy Carter who brought the Olympics into international diplomacy in a big way when he ordered the U.S. team to boycott the Moscow Summer Games in 1980 to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviet Union and several Eastern European nations in turn boycotted the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles.
Richardson's proposal reflects a growing movement by humanitarian groups to use the prestige of the Olympics as leverage on China.
The Save Darfur Coalition, which sponsored a trip by Richardson to Sudan three months ago that resulted in a temporary cease-fire, has not specifically called for a boycott of the Games, but it recently paid for ads charging that China has paid more attention to the Olympics than Darfur.
Coalition spokesman Allyn Brooks-LaSure Sudan said they are pleased to see that Darfur "continues to receive a significant amount of attention and debate during the overall presidential campaigning."
Actress Mia Farrow, a goodwill ambassador to the United Nations Children's Fund, has started a campaign to pressure corporate sponsors of the Olympics, referring to the 2008 Games as the "Genocide Olympics."
Richardson's statement probably doesn't hurt the effort to bring pressure on China, which in recent weeks has gotten tougher in its public statements about Sudan, said Stephen Morrison, director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"They want to be good citizens. They don't want to sacrifice the Olympics to this mess in Sudan," said Morrison.
But he cautioned, "There is the possibility that even with enormous Chinese pressure that the Khartoum government may balk. What do you do then? Do you still punish China?"
(Contact at James W. Brosnan at woodybrosnan(at)earthlink.net.)
