September 22, 2009 11:14 AM
- Text
The Genocide Games
(The New Republic)
This column was written by Eric Reeves.
An international outcry over Beijing's hosting of the 2008 Olympic Games has grown steadily louder in recent months. How, it is being asked, can the premier event in international sports be hosted by a nation complicit in the most heinous international crimes? The Chinese regime is guilty of perpetrating the ongoing destruction of Tibet, supporting the vicious Myanmar junta, engaging in gross domestic human rights abuses, and, perhaps worst of all, facilitating genocide in Darfur.
Despite the controversy, President Bush announced last week that he will attend the Games. It's an unprecedented move--apparently no American president has ever attended an Olympic Games held abroad--and China's human rights violations make Bush's decision seem all the more unwarranted. But perhaps he'll be able to shield himself from criticism next summer by sharing a view of the Games with Steven Spielberg, who agreed in March to serve as an artistic consultant for the opening and closing ceremonies.
This is distressing because China has proven adept at generating political cover for its misdeeds. It recently received some excessively generous praise for not opposing U.N. Security Council Resolution 1769, passed on July 31, which authorizes a force of some 26,000 civilian police and troops to protect civilians and humanitarians in Darfur. But China was instrumental in badly weakening the resolution, leaving it without a mandate to disarm combatants, even those carrying weapons introduced into Darfur in violation of previous Security Council resolutions. As both Amnesty International and the U.N. Panel of Experts on Darfur have amply demonstrated, Khartoum continues to violate the weapons embargo on a massive scale. Further, China was also the key player in removing any threat of sanctions against Khartoum for obstructing deployment of the U.N.-authorized force.
China also drew praise for appointing a "special envoy" for Darfur. But Liu Guijin's first carefully orchestrated tour of the region in May was the occasion only for airbrushing its genocidal realities in subsequent public statements. "I didn't see a desperate scenario of people dying of hunger," Liu said at a media briefing. Rather, he said, people in Darfur thanked him for the Chinese government's help in building dams and providing water supply equipment. Beijing has yet to condemn Khartoum for its crimes, or call for a halt to the ongoing aerial bombardment of civilian targets, or offer public criticism of any of the regime's actions, including repeated obstruction and harassment of the world's largest humanitarian operation. By refusing to speak truthfully about Darfur, Beijing has convinced these brutal genocidaires that there will be no real international pressure on them to stop.
An international outcry over Beijing's hosting of the 2008 Olympic Games has grown steadily louder in recent months. How, it is being asked, can the premier event in international sports be hosted by a nation complicit in the most heinous international crimes? The Chinese regime is guilty of perpetrating the ongoing destruction of Tibet, supporting the vicious Myanmar junta, engaging in gross domestic human rights abuses, and, perhaps worst of all, facilitating genocide in Darfur.
Despite the controversy, President Bush announced last week that he will attend the Games. It's an unprecedented move--apparently no American president has ever attended an Olympic Games held abroad--and China's human rights violations make Bush's decision seem all the more unwarranted. But perhaps he'll be able to shield himself from criticism next summer by sharing a view of the Games with Steven Spielberg, who agreed in March to serve as an artistic consultant for the opening and closing ceremonies.
This is distressing because China has proven adept at generating political cover for its misdeeds. It recently received some excessively generous praise for not opposing U.N. Security Council Resolution 1769, passed on July 31, which authorizes a force of some 26,000 civilian police and troops to protect civilians and humanitarians in Darfur. But China was instrumental in badly weakening the resolution, leaving it without a mandate to disarm combatants, even those carrying weapons introduced into Darfur in violation of previous Security Council resolutions. As both Amnesty International and the U.N. Panel of Experts on Darfur have amply demonstrated, Khartoum continues to violate the weapons embargo on a massive scale. Further, China was also the key player in removing any threat of sanctions against Khartoum for obstructing deployment of the U.N.-authorized force.
China also drew praise for appointing a "special envoy" for Darfur. But Liu Guijin's first carefully orchestrated tour of the region in May was the occasion only for airbrushing its genocidal realities in subsequent public statements. "I didn't see a desperate scenario of people dying of hunger," Liu said at a media briefing. Rather, he said, people in Darfur thanked him for the Chinese government's help in building dams and providing water supply equipment. Beijing has yet to condemn Khartoum for its crimes, or call for a halt to the ongoing aerial bombardment of civilian targets, or offer public criticism of any of the regime's actions, including repeated obstruction and harassment of the world's largest humanitarian operation. By refusing to speak truthfully about Darfur, Beijing has convinced these brutal genocidaires that there will be no real international pressure on them to stop.
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