Mia Farrow ties Darfur cause to Olympics

Actress Mia Farrow has been on the front lines of the struggle to end the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan. She has visited the region eight times and is advisory board chair of Dream for Darfur, an organization committed to “Bring the Olympic Dream to Darfur.”

Farrow has emphasized China’s power to influence the Sudanese government, which uses proceeds from the oil it sells the Chinese to purchase arms used by militias against Darfur. A year ago, she and her son, Ronan, linked the 2008 Olympics and Darfur by writing a piece in the Wall Street Journal that called the upcoming Summer Games in Beijing the “Genocide Olympics” and criticized director Steven Spielberg for acting as artistic consultant to the opening ceremony. Two months ago Spielberg resigned, saying, “My conscience will not allow me to continue with business as usual.”

Dream for Darfur announced Wednesday its report card on the International Olympic Committee, giving the IOC an “F” because it has “abrogated the Olympic Charter and has been ‘selectively apolitical’ in its refusal to address the Darfur genocide.”

Farrow was in Chicago as the three-day U.S. Olympic Committee media summit began Monday.

Question: How do you grade the IOC?

Answer: They flunk. They chose Beijing to be their host. How can China host the Olympic Games at home while underwriting genocide in Sudan?

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Q: What is your organization’s relationship with Team Darfur, the group of international athletes also committed to ending the crisis?

A: We are brother-sister or brother-brother or sister-sister, however you want to put it.

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Q: Softball player Jessica Mendoza is a member of Team Darfur. Like many athletes, she would like to speak out more but feels constrained by not wanting to put the baggage of her opinions on her teammates. Do you understand her position?

A: The agony of the athletes is clear. The choice of the IOC is not clear. How much money exchanged hands? What larger Monopoly game is going on that Beijing was chosen? What conditions were made upon Beijing and to what extent have they lived up to those conditions?

The conditions were not released to us or the press, but my understanding is it had to do with an improvement in their appalling human rights record.

So the athletes have been placed in an agonizing position. And I say, shame on the IOC. And now, from their little bubble, their isolation in Lausanne [Switzerland], they declare they are not a political body, blah, blah, blah.

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Q: Did Dream for Darfur intend to do any sort of protest in relation to the Media Summit here?

A: No. We are doing this, a conversation of reason, that’s all.

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Q: Given where we are now, so close to the Olympic Games, which almost certainly will not be moved or canceled, pragmatically what would you like to see happen?

A: One would wish for Beijing to pluck the low-hanging fruit. Beijing needs a huge public relations success right now. And Darfur would be easy. Pragmatically, for Beijing to persuade Khartoum (the Sudanese government) to cease the aerial bombardments and ground attacks upon civilians, to persuade Khartoum to admit the 26,000 peacekeepers agreed to in U.N. resolution 1769, which China sponsored. That is pragmatic.

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Q: As you saw the torch relay protests largely focused on China’s relations with Tibet, do you think Dream for Darfur benefited by that or was it pushed into the background?

A: I think we all agonize for the Tibetans in their long struggle for what is rightly theirs. The fact they jumped into this window of opportunity we envisioned when my son and I wrote the piece, “Genocide Olympics,” is welcome. That no one from Darfur could attend or show up in numbers [to protest] is precisely the point. Darfur’s people could not be there. They are stranded in camps, living amidst deplorable conditions.

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Q: Jessica Mendoza also said she envisioned her role not as telling China what to do but rather to raise awareness so that others, like governments, could hold China accountable. Your reaction?

A: She is, of course, correct. We have met with the IOC and the primary sponsors of the Olympic Games and yet none of them are willing to do anything, and that is the chilling reality. At this point, our President is willing to attend the opening ceremonies.

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Q: You don’t favor a boycott by athletes, but you do favor a boycott of the ceremonies?

A: Yes. Responsible world leaders should not attend the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games. Those ceremonies are clearly propaganda ceremonies. It is a time where they (world leaders) have an opportunity to represent the values of all nations that are democratic and free (by not attending).

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Q: Are you aware that (IOC president) Jacques Rogge finally spoke out last week, saying China must live up to the “moral engagement” it made when it was awarded the Olympics?

A: He has been extraordinarily weak, given the predicament he has put the athletes in and put the world in by the choice of Beijing or China as host. He wants his cake and to eat it too. Choose China, and step aside, when it comes to the tumult their decision has wrought.

Philip Hersh covers the Olympics for The Times and the Chicago Tribune.