Madam, - Tom Humphries (Locker Room, April 16th) deserves commendation for his timely and eloquent discussion of the human cost of next year's Beijing Olympic Games. Silence has steadily enveloped discussions of human rights, press freedom and working conditions in the Peoples' Republic, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the publicity generated by the 2008 Olympics.
Beyond these internal concerns, however, there are more troubling questions about the human cost of the forthcoming Games; for the economic miracle that has brought the Olympics to the east has also entailed Chinese complicity in state-sponsored genocide in Darfur.
China's boom has been driven by massive oil and energy imports, 14 per cent of which comes from Sudan. China, through its state oil companies CNPC and PetroChina, has cultivated intimate relations with the Bashir regime, becoming the largest foreign investor in the Sudanese oil industry, and, in the words of one industry newspaper, "dominating" the oilfields in Sudan.
In exchange for oil, Beijing has furnished Sudan with weapons and diplomatic support, with horrendous consequences for the people of Darfur. As reported by the Washington Times, "China has supplied tanks with tanks, artillery, helicopters and fighter aircraft" and has "flooded Darfur with antipersonnel mines".
Furthermore, at the UN, China has consistently stifled any serious attempt to enforce sanctions against Khartoum in punishment for the horror it has wrought in its western provinces. As the Sudan Tribune has noted, China is "one of the biggest obstacles to achieving peace in Darfur".
In light of these facts, Sudan expert Eric Reeves has called for a boycott of the 2008 Games unless China acts to bring an end to the slaughter, and French presidential candidate Segolene Royal, in an interview on TV5, has mentioned an Olympic boycott as one possible way of shaming China into changing its Sudan policy. Any such boycott would bring massive pressure to bear on Beijing and Khartoum, and could greatly help to end the violence that has marred the lives of millions. As a matter of Government policy and simple humanity, a boycott must be seriously considered.
The initiative, however, must come from sportspeople, sportswriters and fans, as well as from the Government Departments concerned. - Yours, etc,
SEAN COLEMAN, Ireland Campaign Manager, Sudan Divestment Taskforce, Lindisfarne Lawns, Dublin 22.