Olympic athletes urge China to help end Darfur violence

WASHINGTON -- More than 130 former and current Olympic and professional athletes from 22 countries have signed an open letter urging China to pressure Sudan to temporarily end all violence in the Darfur region.The letter came Tuesday, the first day of U.N. Security General Ban Ki-moon's three-day trip to Beijing, site of the summer Olympic Games next month.Ban told reporters in New York last week that the situation in Darfur should be kept separate from China's hosting of the Olympics, and that China has made efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the problem in Darfur.But the athletes' letter calls for a 55-day Olympic truce to take place before, during and after the Games, and for Sudan to allow aid workers to help victims of the Darfur ethnic genocide and resulting refugee crisis."It is my belief and hope that an Olympic truce for Darfur will be the first step and perhaps an important step in finally fulfilling our obligation to the people of that region," said Olympic speed skating gold medalist Joey Cheek, co-founder and president of Team Darfur, an international coalition of athletes dedicated to ending the crisis in Darfur.Activists want China's President Hu Jintao to lead that call for the truce.China spends billions of dollars on Sudanese oil. The state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. holds major shares in Sudan's largest oil companies. Much of that money from China, activists say, is spent on weaponry used against poverty-stricken residents of Darfur. Often, these weapons also come from China.China has repeatedly threatened to use its veto power as a member of the U.N. Security Council to keep U.N. peacekeepers out of Sudan.Last month, China signed eight new economic agreements with the Sudanese government, including two financial assistance grants. The deals help fund a new hospital in Sudan and the establishment of an agricultural center in eastern Sudan.Calls for an "Olympics truce" are a regular feature of the biennial modern Games. The idea comes from the earliest Games, when it is believed warring city-states would institute a limited ceasefire for the contests.In recent times, an Olympic truce formed the basis of a brief 1994 ceasefire in the siege of Sarajevo in Bosnia, which allowed medical workers to enter the war-torn area.In 1997, Winter Games host Japan called for a truce to urge the United States to delay proposed bombings of Iraq, which President Bill Clinton ignored.Now activists like Ellen Freudenheim, research director for Dream for Darfur, an organization created to urge China to exert its influence over Sudan to stop violence in Darfur, want this year's Olympic host to follow Japan's example.Last year, a U.N. General Assembly resolution supported by China urged all nations to observe the truce during the Games but activists said China's continued support of Sudan only perpetuates violence.They hope the small gesture of calling themselves for a truce in Darfur will lead to more comprehensive efforts to address the humanitarian crisis."The Truce alone is not enough to stop war and create peace. It needs to be used as a tool in conjunction with many others," Freudenhiem said.Conflict in Darfur began in 2003 after ethnic African rebels violently rebelled against the country's Arab-dominated central government, which is accused of unleashing Arab "Janjaweed" militias that are blamed for much of the ethnic violence that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)