Actress Mia Farrow slams Olympics sponsors
HONG KONG (AFP) — US actress and activist Mia Farrow Friday accused sponsors of the Beijing Olympics of bowing to "greed and fear" in failing to pressure China on its role in the conflict in Darfur.
Of 19 major corporate Games sponsors, only three had responded to her call to use their influence to persuade the Chinese government to help bring an end to violence and suffering in the Darfur region of Sudan.
The remaining 16 -- who she said included Coca-Cola, Visa, General Electric, Volkswagen and Samsung -- had "flunked" a report card issued by the pressure group she leads called Dream for Darfur.
"History will note their silence," she said. "I'm disgusted."
"It's about fear and greed of the sponsors," she said, adding only three companies came in for praise -- McDonald's, Adidas and Kodak -- for writing to the UN, urging it to enforce Resolution 1769 authorising a 26,000-strong peacekeeping force for the region.
However, McDonald's later denied it had contacted the UN on the subject.
The resolution has yet to be implemented.
Farrow, star of Woody Allen's "Hannah and her Sisters" and another 12 movies made with her former partner, was speaking at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Hong Kong as part of an international tour to highlight what she calls "genocide" in Darfur.
The UN estimates 300,000 people have died in five years of war, famine and disease.
Following the Hong Kong government's decision to bar a number of people who had planned to use Friday's Olympic torch rally through the city to call for Tibetan independence, she said she had wondered if she would be permitted to enter.
The visit, her first to any part of China, was the final leg of a "torch lighting" tour of regions whose people had suffered genocide, including Rwanda, Cambodia and Israel.
Outside central government offices, Farrow lit a torch she said represented the Olympic flame -- a symbolic event aimed at highlighting China's role in the Darfur bloodshed, she said.
She accused the Chinese government of underwriting the violence through oil purchases from Sudan, which she put at an annual four billion dollars, 70 percent of which was then used to purchase Chinese arms deployed in attacks on Darfur.
"I said they should take their business elsewhere," she said of the "flunked" corporations.
"They all said it's something for the UN to do, not us. We said OK, why not then get together and write a letter to the UN?
"They couldn't even do that. Cowards," she said. "It's about fear and greed of the sponsors."
Describing Darfur as "low-hanging fruit for China compared to other issues," Farrow said her organisation wanted Beijing to pressure the Sudanese authorities to "stop attacking civilians" and accept the peacekeeping force mandated by the UN resolution.
"It's a do-able thing for the People's Republic of China, a powerful nation," she said.
Her efforts to highlight China's role in Darfur had "opened a window" that other groups had taken advantage of to press their own causes, she said.
"So it was not surprising to see the Tibetan people push their own frustrations forward," she said, referring to last month's anti-Chinese demonstrations in the Himalayan region that turned violent and led to a tight security crackdown.
"I empathise with the people of Tibet," Farrow said.
She said she supported a boycott of the Olympics opening ceremony, an idea that has gained some traction in the wake of the Chinese actions in Tibet, which the Tibetan government-in-exile has said led to more than 200 people being killed.
On Wednesday, Chinese media said police had shot dead one alleged Tibetan independence "insurgent," the first official admission that authorities killed anyone during recent unrest.
She supported "a boycott of the opening ceremony because that would not hurt the athletes," she said.
"For our leaders to refuse to attend the opening ceremony would send a clear message to Beijing that their policies on certain issues are simply not acceptable," she said.
