|
BEIJING: Efforts to link China and the Beijing Olympics with the
deadly violence in Darfur are “irresponsible and unfair,”
according to an official statement published in the state-run press
here Thursday.
The statement, issued by the Chinese Embassy in
Washington, came after US filmmaker Steven Spielberg severed his
links with the Games over China’s ties to the government of Sudan,
accused of genocide in its Darfur region.
“As the Darfur issue is not an internal affair
of China, nor was it caused by China, to link the two together is
utterly unreasonable, irresponsible and unfair,” said the
statement published in Thursday’s Global Times, a sister paper of
the ruling Communist Party’s People’s Daily.
The embassy’s statement echoes previous
Chinese government statements when asked about its close ties to
Khartoum.
By Thursday, China’s foreign ministry and the
Beijing Olympic media office had yet to release an official
statement on Spielberg’s move to abandon his role as an artistic
director to the Games’ opening and closing ceremonies.
In announcing his decision on Tuesday, Spielberg
said the international community, and particularly China, “should
be doing more to end the continuing human suffering” in Darfur.
Spielberg’s announcement came as Nobel Prize
winners and Olympic athletes separately urged Chinese President Hu
Jintao in a letter to pressure Sudan to end atrocities in Darfur.
-- AFP
|
