Before the official torch of the Olympic Games is even lit, several other torch relays will have been completed in the name of those romantic notions that the Games purport to embody. Olympic Dream for Darfur, an activist group protesting China's complicity in the genocide that plagues the western region of Sudan, has organized the International Genocide Relay to focus on the survivor communities of modern genocides as a way to show the world what happens when the international community looks away. As a gesture of solidarity, other Darfur advocacy groups also focused on the Beijing-Khartoum connection have organized similar relays the world over.
Dream for Darfur's goal is to have verifiable and effective security on the ground to protect civilians and humanitarian workers in the region, where security continues to deteriorate at an alarming rate. Humanitarian organizations are dangerously close to withdrawing due to security concerns at a time when 4.2 million people -- two-thirds of Darfur's pre-war population -- are in desperate need of aid. Dream for Darfur says that China, with its unrivaled influence in Sudan, is the key to getting Khartoum to agree to a genuinely robust United Nations peacekeeping force. The remaining eight months running up to the Beijing Olympics present a unique opportunity to apply pressure.
Among the relays that have spun off from Dream for Darfur's original run is an American relay that ended Monday -- International Human Rights Day -- at the doorstep of the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., after traversing more than 60 cities. Standing in the shadow of the embassy and bearing a torch was Niemat Ahmadi, a soft-spoken 37-year-old Darfuri who has escaped the rampant violence in her homeland. A little over two years ago, Ahmadi was forced to leave Sudan for organizing efforts to help victims of violence and rape acquire medical treatment, counseling, and legal help. But, she said, "This is not my choice. I would choose to stay in Darfur to provide assistance to those who need it." At the current rate, humanitarian organizations like the World Food Program and the World Health Organization may soon find themselves uttering these very words.
One of the most seductive ideas of the Olympics is the notion that they float above the political, social, and racial morass in some ethereal realm defined by common humanity and progress. This ideal, though, is one that often comes up against brute, ugly facts and for too long has provided a convenient excuse for nations trying to dodge a litany of problematic issues both at home and abroad. With the Olympic tenet of non-politicization as its shield, China cries foul at every turn when it comes to Darfur, pleading that it is neither appropriate nor fair to introduce politics into sport by linking the Games with the violence in Sudan. It is, however, China's own fault that it finds itself on the eve of its geopolitical prom detangling politics from its precious Games.
The Olympics have always been a political exercise. The very act of declaring them apolitical is itself politically motivated, and why else would nations spend millions jostling over who gets to play host? The modern tradition of the Olympic torch relay goes back to the 1936 Games in Nazi Berlin; the relay was the Third Reich's attempt to deflect attention away from things it suspected the rest of the world would find deplorable. John Carlos' and Tommie Smith's Black Power salutes at the 1968 Mexico City Games were silent objections to racial injustices at home, and the U.S. and Soviet Union boycotts of the Cold War-era Games brought the relationship between sport and politics to the forefront. Most curiously, the International Olympic Committee banned South Africa from the Tokyo Games in 1964 for its apartheid policies, but the IOC has yet to make public statements regarding China's complicity in the violence in Darfur.
The Beijing-Khartoum alliance revolves around Sudan's plentiful oil supply that fuels China's economy, the transformation of which will be the true star of the summer Games. Having spent approximately $13 billion on commercial and capital projects in Sudan, China is deeply invested in oil production, discovery, and exploration in the south of Sudan. It is a dominant partner in the area's large oil-producing groups: China holds a 40 percent stake in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company and 43 percent in the Petrodar consortium. Chinese oil companies constitute part of a complex presence in Sudan that, while not necessarily diplomatic, is nevertheless under the Chinese flag. Khartoum sells 70 percent -- two billion dollars' worth -- of its oil to China annually, and the revenues in turn help underwrite the genocidal regime.
Over the past decade China has also been Sudan's largest weapons supplier, flooding it with tanks, heavy artillery, and ammunition, and Khartoum continues to introduce these weapons into Darfur in violation of the arms embargo. Khartoum has largely become self-sufficient in small- and medium-sized weapons by using Chinese designs and engineering. Eric Reeves, a Smith College professor who works full-time as a Sudan researcher, recalled that an aid worker once told him that three-fourths of the shell casings found in southern Sudan bore Chinese markings.
The most ominous development in recent years has been Khartoum's determination to empty the camps of internally displaced persons who already severely lack food, water, and shelter. Just two months ago, hundreds of women and children were forced to leave the Otash camp in southern Darfur. If displacement continues, the consequences could be catastrophic -- but preventable with the expedited deployment of the civilian police force authorized by U.N. Resolution 1769 passed in July.
It makes sense for Darfur advocates to target the Olympics, despite other advocates' initial skepticism and claims that the Chinese government does not respond to this kind of pressure. Dream for Darfur understands that China wants nothing more than to maintain a sparkly image as it hosts its first Olympics, so it's an ideal time to pressure Beijing to take meaningful action on this issue. Beijing may be uniquely positioned to get Khartoum to agree to a robust and mobile U.N. peacekeeping force, but so far most of China's efforts on this front have been minimal -- and unsuccessful. The appointed Chinese special envoy for Darfur, Liu Guijin, airbrushed the situation in Darfur after his trip there in May. He said in the same breath that the situation was "basically stable" and that his trip indicated China's commitment to ending the bloodshed. Around the same time China also announced its plans to send 315 military engineers to the region; the engineers are only now beginning to arrive. Allyn Brooks-LaSure, spokesman for the Save Darfur Coalition, said, "I don't know that any other country has ever been able to successfully derive the p.r. value that China has from the deployment of 315 engineers in the history of warfare."
China touts as one of its more recent victories the July resolution authorizing the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) of 26,000 troops and civilian police, which Beijing claims it got Sudan to accept (although China repeatedly argues it has no power over Sudan when conversation turns to the Olympics). Sudan did indeed accept the resolution, but only after China substantially weakened the final text, thereby sanitizing the carnage in Darfur and emboldening Sudan's defiance of the international community. China's abstention from last year's Resolution 1706 likewise signaled to Khartoum that the regime could carry on with its deadly business as usual. Thanks to its inflated confidence, Khartoum has almost entirely stalled the UNAMID operation by insisting on an exclusively African force while Resolution 1769 merely promised it would be predominantly African; August 31 was the deadline for a settled upon roster of troop-contributing nations, yet more than three months later, we have yet to even get that far. Khartoum also refuses to grant landing rights to heavy transport aircraft and unfettered night flights, which are crucial since many countries will not deploy if their forces cannot be flown out by Medevac, day or night.
Meanwhile in Beijing, the Chinese government has set about scrubbing the country clean for the Olympics -- limiting traffic in an effort to dissipate the city's notorious smog, revising signs that bear mistranslated English, and launching campaigns against spitting, swearing, and cutting in line. But marginally more breathable air, sedate signs, and spit-free sidewalks won't make anyone forget Darfur. This reality will become only increasingly clearer to China as the relays continue to run their course, and China will finally see that there is a price to pay for subscribing to a modus operandi in which access to oil trumps humanitarian intervention.
