Actress Mia Farrow visits Khmer Rouge prison, site of banned Darfur ceremony

The Canadian Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - American actress Mia Farrow visited a former Khmer Rouge prison Saturday where she plans to hold a ceremony spotlighting the crisis in Sudan, despite the Cambodian government's ban on the event.

Several plainclothes police trailed Farrow and took pictures of her during a two-hour visit to the Khmer Rouge's infamous Tuol Sleng Prison, which is now a genocide museum in the capital, Phnom Penh.

Farrow, who is working with the U.S.-based advocacy group Dream for Darfur, came to Cambodia to hold a mock Olympic torch-lighting ceremony at the former prison. The ceremony aims to send a message to China - the next Olympic host and one of Sudan's major trading partners - to press Khartoum to end abuses in Darfur.

China, host of the 2008 Olympics, has strong economic ties with both Sudan and Cambodia.

The Cambodian government said days ago it would prevent the 62-year-old actress from holding the ceremony because the group had "a political agenda against China" and was holding the event for political rather than humanitarian reasons.

Farrow herself has not commented on the matter, but a Cambodian rights group that is helping to organize the event has said they plan to proceed with the ceremony.

Dressed in sunglasses, jeans and a black T-shirt, Farrow took a guided tour of the prison, where thousands were tortured during the Khmer Rouge's genocidal rule over Cambodia in the 1970s. An estimated 1.7 million deaths have been blamed on the regime.

Farrow took pictures of the gruesome photographs of torture that fill the former prison's walls as a Cambodian member of her entourage explained the exhibits.

When a reporter asked her about the planned ceremony, Farrow smiled and replied "Hello!" A waiting car whisked her away.

She was accompanied by Theary Seng, director of the advocacy group Center of Social Development, which is helping organize the event planned for Sunday.

"Our resolve is still the same, which is to go forward" Theary Seng said Friday. "It's really difficult how anyone can be against honoring survivors of genocide, particularly as Cambodians."

Dream for Darfur has taken its torch-lighting campaign to other places that have suffered mass killings - the Darfur-Chad border, Rwanda, Armenia, Germany and Bosnia-Herzegovina - to honor genocide victims and call attention to the violence in Darfur. The group plans to head to China following its Cambodia visit.

Dream for Darfur claims China has sold weapons to the Sudanese government and has defended Khartoum's actions in Darfur at the UN Security Council, while Chinese oil operations in Sudan have helped fund genocide there.

China, the biggest backer of the Khmer Rouge's communist regime in the 1970s, is a major donor to Cambodia and has been described by current Prime Minister Hun Sen as Cambodia's "most trustworthy friend."

Visiting actress Mia Farrow says she's 'bewildered' by Cambodian ban on Darfur ceremony

01/19/2008
By KER MUNTHIT
Associated Press Writer

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP)—American actress Mia Farrow said she was bewildered by the Cambodian government's attempt to block a ceremony at a former Khmer Rouge prison intended to highlight the humanitarian crisis in Sudan.

"It's pretty harsh to be against a ceremony that honors the victims of Darfur and genocide survivors everywhere," Farrow said in an interview Saturday. "Frankly, I'm a little bewildered."

Farrow said she and other activists were determined to press ahead with the Sunday ceremony at the Khmer Rouge's infamous Tuol Sleng torture facility, and would hold it outside the former prison's gates if police block them from entering.

Farrow, who is working with the U.S.-based advocacy group Dream for Darfur, traveled to Cambodia to stage a mock Olympic torch-lighting ceremony at the former prison. The ceremony aims to send a message to China—host of the 2008 Olympics and one of Sudan's major trading partners—to press Khartoum to end abuses in Darfur.

China has strong economic ties with both Sudan and Cambodia.

The Cambodian government said days ago it would prevent the 62-year-old actress from going through with the ceremony because the group had "a political agenda against China" and was holding the event for political rather than humanitarian reasons.

Farrow denied that her intentions were political.

"It's so not a protest but is rather a ceremony" to "honor the victims of Darfur and all genocide survivors and victims," Farrow said.

The Khmer Rouge's communist regime in the 1970s led to the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians.

Thousands of prisoners of the Khmer Rouge were tortured at Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh before being executed outside the capital at a site known as "the killing fields."

Farrow visited both sites Saturday, trailed by several plainclothes police who took pictures of her during a two-hour visit to the prison, which is now a genocide museum.

Wearing sunglasses, jeans and a black T-shirt, Farrow took pictures of the gruesome photographs of torture that fill the former prison's walls. A Cambodian member of her entourage explained the exhibits.

Dream for Darfur has taken its torch-lighting campaign to other places that have suffered mass killings—the Darfur-Chad border, Rwanda, Armenia, Germany and Bosnia-Herzegovina—to honor genocide victims and call attention to the violence in Darfur. The group plans to head to China following its Cambodia visit.

Farrow said she has been to the Darfur region eight times and that "it is impossible to go there and witness what I have witnessed without emerging with a deep commitment to end the suffering there."

Dream for Darfur claims China has sold weapons to the Sudanese government and that Chinese oil operations in Sudan have helped fund genocide there.

China, the Khmer Rouge's biggest backer in the 1970s, is a major donor to Cambodia and has been described by current Prime Minister Hun Sen as Cambodia's "most trustworthy friend."

Mia Farrow arrives in Cambodia for banned Darfur protest

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — Actress Mia Farrow has arrived in Cambodia and plans to defy a ban on holding a ceremony at a former Khmer Rouge prison, as part of her campaign on Darfur, activists said Saturday.

She arrived in Cambodia with other members of her group on Friday, said Theary Seng, head of the Centre for Social Development, a Cambodian advocacy agency helping to organise the ceremony.

Farrow and her group, Dream for Darfur, plan to hold the ceremony on Sunday outside the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, which is now a genocide museum, despite the government ban, she said.

"Mia Farrow is now in Cambodia and the rally at Tuol Sleng still stands," said Theary Seng.

"We strongly urge all political parties to join the ceremony," she added.

The campaign aims to push China to pressure Sudan into ending the violence in Darfur, where the United Nations estimates that at least 200,000 people have died in five years of war, famine and disease.

But the government's chief spokesman, Khieu Kanharith, on Friday threatened to expel the activists and condemned the event as "insulting" to victims of the Khmer Rouge regime which devastated Cambodia during the late 1970s.

"We will not allow this. If this foreign group still insists on doing this ceremony, we will cancel their visas and expel them from Cambodia," he said.

Farrow's group has organised an Olympic-style torch relay through countries that have suffered genocide to draw attention to China's close ties with Sudan, as Beijing prepares to host the Games in August.

China was also the closest ally of the communist Khmer Rouge, under whose rule up to two million Cambodians died of starvation, disease or execution.

Cambodia would be the sixth stop for the group's relay, which began in Chad near the Sudanese border and continued to Rwanda, Armenia, Germany and Bosnia.

Mu Sochua: Nation Should Oppose Darfur Genocide

Letter by Mu Sochua,
SRP Deputy Secretary-General
To The Cambodia Daily

In the article "Interior Ministry Won't Allow Darfur Rally," (published by The Cambodia Daily) the ministry's spokesperson calls the rally to be held by the Olympic Dream for Darfur at Toul Sleng, Cambodia's genocide museum, inappropriate. The Cambodian government’s view of the Darfur rally is most ironic as Cambodia lost 25 percent of its population to genocide in a short period of three years.

The government should be reminded that Cambodia's prime minister often asks the question to the world community: “Where were you when genocide was taking place in Cambodia?” Is Cambodia not a part of the world community, today? Is Cambodia not responsible for taking part in stopping genocide in Darfur?

Cambodia's information minister tells us that China is unhappy with the planned rally. He has shed light on the mystery. Why is the genocide in Darfur happening? Unequal distribution of the country's wealth, mainly oil revenues that the Sudanese government keeps among its powerful members while leaving Darfur in desperate poverty. Which country is most actively benefiting from the exploitation of Sudan's oil?

Let us take a stand against Darfur's genocide. Let us not forget that innocent lives can be saved, that children do not deserve to become orphans and that women do not deserve to be raped or treated savagely because of a corrupt regime.

Pressure must be put on every country that deals with the Sudanese government while innocent people must pay with their lives.

Lighting a symbolic torch in Toul Sleng is more than honorable, it is our duty as citizens of the world.

Mu Sochua
Deputy Secretary-General
Sam Rainsy Party
Phnom Penh

Frail Actress versus Powerful Strongman: David versus Goliath redux?

Left: 800-kilos heavyweight Cambodian Strongman Hun Sen
Rigth: Frail-looking US actress Mia Farrow

Stage set for showdown over Darfur ceremony in Cambodia

2008-01-18

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - Activists in Cambodia vowed Friday to defy a government ban and hold a mock Olympic-torch lighting ceremony featuring American actress Mia Farrow to bring attention to the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region.

The Cambodian government earlier this week said it would prevent the 62-year-old actress from holding the ceremony

Sunday at a former Khmer Rouge prison because the group had «a political agenda against China,» which is one of Sudan's key donors.

«Our resolve is still the same, which is to go forward» with the event, said Theary Seng, the director of the advocacy group Center of Social Development which is helping organize it.

«It's really difficult how anyone can be against honoring survivors of genocide, particularly as Cambodians,» Theary Seng said.

Theary Seng insisted Farrow would attend Sunday's event.

Neither Farrow nor the group she is working with, the U.S.-based Dream for Darfur, could be reached for comment.

Chey Sopheara, the director of the Khmer Rouge's infamous Tuol Sleng torture center where thousands of Khmer Rouge prisoners were tortured, said he expected the government to deploy police to prevent ceremony organizers from entering the compound.

The Dream for Darfur group has called on China to use its influence to press Sudan to end abuses in Darfur.

The group has taken the torch to countries which have suffered genocide and has so far been lit at the Darfur-Chad border, Rwanda, Armenia, Germany and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Cambodia was to be the last stop before it heads to China.

Dream for Darfur claims China, host of the 2008 Olympics, has protected Khartoum at the U.N. Security Council and sold weapons to the Sudanese government, while making Sudanese oil purchases that have helped fund genocide there.

China was also the biggest backer of the Khmer Rouge's communist regime in the 1970s, which led to the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians.

It is now a major donor to Cambodia, where the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen has strongly advocated a one-China policy. Hun Sen has frequently described China as Cambodia's «most trustworthy friend.

Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said the event's organizers have a political agenda against China, prompting the ban.

«We do not want to see any trouble or confrontation with them,» said Touch Naroth, the police chief for Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh. «But we simply cannot let this group breach the law either.

He said Tuol Sleng genocide museum is a government property that must be protected from any unlawful activity but declined to elaborate on what measures the government was preparing ahead of Sunday's ceremony.

Mia Farrow: Pls. let the Hun Sen regime arrest you, and let it sink in the International PR morass

US actress Farrow could face arrest in Cambodia

Jan 17, 2008
DPA

Phnom Penh - American movie star Mia Farrow and her supporters could face arrest if they proceed with a banned anti-China protest at a former Khmer Rouge torture centre, local media Thursday reported a senior official as saying.

Khmer-language daily Rasmei Kampuchea quoted Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak as saying that anyone who defied the law 'must face the court,' no matter who they are.

General Sopheak was not available for further comment Thursday.

The plan by Farrow's Dream for Darfur organization to light an Olympic-style torch at the Toul Sleng genocide museum to raise awareness of China's role in Sudan and the war in Darfur ahead of the August Olympics in Beijing has enraged Cambodian officials.

On Wednesday, government spokesman Khieu Kanharith accused Farrow, 62, and her supporters of reducing Toul Sleng, where up to 16,000 people were brutally tortured or perished, to a promotional fundraising vehicle for their own political ends.

Up to 2 million people died under the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime.

Dream for Darfur organizers have disagreed with the official line, calling the ban a 'misunderstanding' on the government's part and have said the rally will go ahead.

Government to Ban Darfur Torch Relay

By Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
16 January 2008

Government officials said Wednesday they would ban a US-based advocacy group from holding a ceremonial torch relay to raise awareness of rights abuses in Sudan’s Darfur region.

The group, Dream for Darfur, has held similar relays in other countries and is urging the Chinese government—host of the 2008 summer Olympics and friend of the Sudanese government—to stop the abuses in Darfur. Cambodia enjoys a close relationship with China.

The relay was to be initiated by US actress and activist Mia Farrow and joined by survivors of the Khmer Rouge genocide and US Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli.

Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak said Wednesday the government would not allow the Olympics to be politicized.

If rights groups want to help Cambodian athletes go to the Olympics, he said, “we wish to very much welcome that.”

Seng Theary, executive director of the Center for Social Development, which was helping organize the relay, declined to comment on the ban.

Vann Nath, a survivor of the Tuol Sleng torture center under the Khmer Rouge, who was supposed to take part in the relay, said he hoped to use the event as a way to raise awareness of the suffering that takes place under genocidal regimes.

The US supports events that memorialize those killed during the Khmer Rouge regime and focuses attention on genocide, US Embassy spokesman Jeff Daigle said.