|
You are here: UUSC > Drumbeat for Darfur |
||
|
||
 As part of our Darfur advocacy message for the 2008 Summer Olympics
in Beijing, UUSC urged the International Olympic Committee and
President Hu Jintao of China on Wednesday, August 8, to use their
leverage to help end the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.UUSC, which is leading a Drumbeat for Darfur campaign to end the genocide, delivered copies of more than 600 letters from Unitarian Universalists addressed to Zhou Wenzhong, China’s ambassador to the U.S., at the Chinese Embassy in Washington. They were personally handed to Liao Dong, counselor of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the United States, by Shelley Moskowitz, UUSC’s Washington, D.C., representative. The original letters were sent by express mail delivery to the IOC headquarters in Switzerland. On August 8, 2008, the Summer Olympics will open in Beijing, China. The delivery of the letters coincided with the launch today of a symbolic International Torch Relay organized by Dream for Darfur, an international nonprofit of which UUSC is an allied organization. The Torch Relay begins in the Chad refugee camps where hundreds of thousands of Darfurian refugees have fled. The torch will travel through countries that have been the scenes of 20th century genocides, and will attempt to enter China on International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2007. For more information, visit here. UUSC’s letters urge the IOC officials to use their influence to put pressure on China, one of the leading trade partners with Sudan, to persuade the Khartoum government to end its support for the genocide and accept international demands to work for peace in the region. The Olympic Games will be tarnished if China is seen as providing economic and political support for the genocidal regime in Sudan, the letters state. “We deliver these letters with the hope that as the people of China and the rest of the world celebrate the lighting of the Olympic cauldron on August 8, 2008, the people of Darfur will be well on the road to peace and reconciliation,” said UUSC President Charlie Clements in a cover letter accompanying the 600 letters from members and supporters. The IOC recipients were Jacques Rogge of Belgium, president of the IOC Executive Board, and Hein Verbruggen of the Netherlands, chairman of the Coordination Commission for the Beijing Games. The letters were signed by Unitarian Universalists attending the recent annual General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association in Portland, Oregon. “These letters express their deeply held conviction that the world can not stand idly by while the four-year-old genocide continues unabated,” said Clements “We hope you will seriously consider the message and the spirit of the enclosed letters. We strongly urge you, as one of the leading public representatives of the 2008 Summer Olympics, to do everything in your power to help make the Olympic dream of world peace a reality for millions of Darfurians.” UUSC has confronted political, cultural, and economic oppression worldwide since 1939, when it was organized to help rescue children, political dissidents, and others from the Nazi terror in Europe. Today, the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee advances human rights and social justice around the world, partnering with those who confront unjust power structures and mobilizing to challenge oppressive policies. Visit http://www.uusc.org/ga/06/IOCletter.pdf to read the letter signed by the convention participants. For more information about UUSC.’s Drumbeat for Darfur campaign, visit http://www.uusc.org/drumbeatfordarfur. |
||
