Xia Xia for kowtowing us: Beijing to Phnom Penh

Chinese ambassador thanks to Cambodian government

19 April 2008
By Sary Roat
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

The Chinese ambassador in Cambodia thanked the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) for supporting China regarding the Olympic problems China is currently facing.

At a press conference, Ms. Zhang Jin Feng, the Chinese ambassador to Cambodia, said that King Sihamoni will participate in the opening Olympic ceremony which will be held in August 2008 in Beijing, China.

She said that she also took the opportunity to express her profound pride for the support the RGC provided to China, and its effort to prevent any NGO from using Cambodia as a platform to oppose the holding of the 2008 Olympics in China.

In January, the RGC (under Hun Sen’s express order) prevented US actress Mia Farrow and the Cambodian civil society, which supported the “Dream for Darfur” event, from presenting flowers at the Tuol Sleng genocide museum in Phnom Penh, in order to oppose Beijing’s support to the Sudanese government which is involved in gross human violations in Darfur, Sudan.

Police bar actress from Killing Fields museum

Actress Mia farrow has been stopped from laying flowers at a Killing Fields museum by baton-wielding police. (ITN Video)

Actress Farrow banned from ceremony

The Press Association

Cambodian police have stopped American actress Mia Farrow holding a rally at a former Khmer Rouge prison.

Her group was pushed away from a barricade as they tried to lay flowers to commemorate victims of genocide.

Ms Farrow, who is working with the US-based advocacy group Dream for Darfur, was in Cambodia as part of a seven-nation tour of places that have suffered genocide to call attention to the humanitarian crisis in Sudan.

"My heart - our hearts - are breaking for what happened in Cambodia today, especially for the survivors of genocide," Ms Farrow said after the stand-off with police near Tuol Sleng prison, the Khmer Rouge's main torture centre during its genocidal rule in the 1970s.

Ms Farrow had planned to light an Olympic-style torch at the site to press China to use its influence on the Sudanese government to end abuses in Darfur. China, the next Olympic host, is one of Sudan's major trading partners.

The Cambodian government banned the ceremony several days ago, calling it a political stunt to smear China.

Dozens of police sealed off all roads leading to the former prison, which is now a genocide museum in the capital, Phnom Penh. More than a hundred supporters and onlookers turned out to watch the stand-off and take pictures of the Hollywood star, who had vowed to defy the ban.

When Ms Farrow and seven other activists arrived at one of the barricades, about 170 yards from the museum's gate, they refused to go away and linked their arms in a human chain. Ms Farrow held a bunch of white lotus flowers, a traditional offering for the dead in Cambodia.

Police pushed the group back, shouting, "Go! Go! Go!" and blowing whistles. Miss Farrow and the others eventually backed away and drove off. No-one was hurt or arrested, organisers said.

"Our goal was to deliver these flowers in deepest respect ... to honour those who have perished here in Cambodia and in Darfur and in all genocides everywhere," Ms Farrow said.

Beauty and the Beast staring contest

A policeman (L) stops US Actress Mia Farrow (R) and Theary Seng (C), head of the Centre for Social Development, as they attempt to enter the Tuol Sleng Genocide museum in Phnom Penh, January 20. Actress Mia Farrow arrived in Cambodia and attempted to defy a ban on holding a ceremony at a former Khmer Rouge prison, as part of her campaign on Darfur, activists said. (AFP/Tang Chhin Sothy)

Khieu Kanharith: "Ignorant foreigners" attempt to use Cambodia's genocide as a fundraising vehicle -sic!-

Members of the police and military stand guard at Toul Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh January 20, 2008. Cambodian police barred Hollywood actress Mia Farrow and other activists from laying flowers at a "Killing Fields" museum on Sunday, as part of a campaign to end atrocities in Sudan's Darfur. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea
Police stop tourists as they stand guard at Toul Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh January 20, 2008. Cambodian police barred Hollywood actress Mia Farrow and other activists from laying flowers at a "Killing Fields" museum on Sunday, as part of a campaign to end atrocities in Sudan's Darfur. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea
Tourists look on as police stand guard at Toul Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh January 20, 2008. Cambodian police barred Hollywood actress Mia Farrow and other activists from laying flowers at a "Killing Fields" museum on Sunday, as part of a campaign to end atrocities in Sudan's Darfur. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

Cambodia shutters genocide museum to block US actress Farrow

Sun, 20 Jan 2008
DPA

Phnom Penh - Cambodian police locked down a former Khmer Rouge prison Sunday with barricades in a 300 metre radius after US actress Mia Farrow vowed to continued with a scheduled anti-China rally. More than 200 officers were posted to block the elderly actress and entourage that had intended to light a torch at the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum.

Farrow's global Dream For Darfur rally draws attention to China's economic support of Sudan and the war in Darfur ahead of the August Olympics, but China is one of Cambodia's staunchest allies and authorities banned it and threatened arrests and deportations.

In the end, however, it was an anticlimax, with Farrow and friend Seng Theary, director of her Cambodian partner agency Center for Social Development, forced to stand forlornly on the wrong side of the barrier holding wilting white water lilies in scorching heat for an hour in a 70-strong crowd before giving up.

Farrow said little, letting the outspoken young US-Khmer rights activist Seng do all the talking as they pleaded fruitlessly for entry. But the pair suffered more jostling from journalists, who appeared to outnumber Dreamers, than they did from police.

Some Farrow supporters tried to threatened police with US embassy intervention, but were rebuffed. Phnom Penh security chief Police General Hy Pru turned up to supervise, and the rally ended quietly.

Police said there were no arrests.

Cambodian officials were vehement in denying permission to the organizers. Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith branded them ignorant foreigners attempting to use Cambodia's genocide as a fund-raising vehicle.

Museum director Chey Sopheara was among those who felt the ceremony would hijack the memories of the up to 16,000 people who were tortured or killed in former school.

At a press conference after the rally, Farrow, 62, and Seng expressed disappointment but no regrets. On Saturday, authorities allowed Farrow to tour the museum sans torch and Sunday said the problem was the torch and the agenda, not Farrow herself.

Up to 2 million Cambodians died in the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime.

Cambodian police block Mia Farrow's Darfur rally

Sun Jan 20, 2008
By Ek Madra

"Phnom Penh was putting the interests of Beijing, one of its biggest donors, above the memories of the estimated 1.7 million victims of Pol Pot's 1975-79 reign of terror" - Actress Mia Farrow

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodian police barred Hollywood actress Mia Farrow and other activists from laying flowers at a "Killing Fields" museum on Sunday, as part of a campaign to end atrocities in Sudan's Darfur.

Some 100 baton-wielding police blocked Farrow, who fronts the Dream for Darfur pressure group, and her fellow activists from entering the compound at Tuol Sleng, the Phnom Penh high school that became Pol Pot's main torture centre.

"Darfur has nothing to do with Cambodia. Go protest in Darfur," Phnom Penh police chief Touch Naruth told reporters after the brief stand-off ended without incident.

The group, which had planned to light a symbolic Olympic torch in the compound, has held similar events in Chad, Rwanda, Armenia, Germany and Bosnia as part of a campaign to persuade China to push Khartoum into ending the violence in Darfur.

The group, which included a survivor of the Rwandan genocide, were due to hold a press conference later in the day.

Beijing is hosting the 2008 Olympic Games and human rights groups have targeted China in the hope of using the spotlight thrown on the country to influence Chinese foreign policy.

China, a major investor in Sudan's oil industry, has been accused of breaching international rules and fanning bloodshed by selling Sudan weapons that have been diverted to Darfur.

International experts estimate 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million others have been driven from their homes in years of fighting. The Sudanese authorities put the death toll at 9,000 and say the West has exaggerated the conflict.

Farrow said in an earlier interview that Phnom Penh was putting the interests of Beijing, one of its biggest donors, above the memories of the estimated 1.7 million victims of Pol Pot's 1975-79 reign of terror.

"We came here with the deepest respect," Farrow told Reuters, tears welling up in her eyes. "I am sad because I think it's a good thing to do."

Cambodian government spokesman Khieu Khanarith had said Farrow's group would face "consequences", including possible deportation, if it pushed ahead with its plans.

"What they will be doing at Tuol Sleng is not to commemorate the victims of the Khmer Rouge, but to use Khmer skulls to pressure China. This is an insult to the Cambodian people," he told Reuters.

The U.S. actress called on China to use its influence to push Khartoum to halt the violence in its western Darfur region and admit international peace-keepers.

"Please, China, do everything in your considerable power to persuade Khartoum to admit the peacekeeping force," she said.

"They can effectively provide security for the people of Darfur and the innocent civilian population that is being ripped apart."

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 to ignore Khieu Kanharith's deportation threat

Mia Farrow vows to defy Cambodian Darfur rally ban

Sat 19 Jan 2008
By Ek Madra

PHNOM PENH, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Hollywood actress Mia Farrow says she will ignore a deportation threat and pursue plans to light a symbolic Olympic torch in Cambodia's "Killing Fields", as part of a campaign to end atrocities in Sudan's Darfur.

"We will pass the flame, the flame to honour those have perished, to celebrate the courage of those who survived," Farrow, who fronts the Dream for Darfur pressure group, told Reuters in an interview.

The group has held similar events in Chad, Rwanda, Armenia, Germany and Bosnia as part of a campaign to persuade China to push Khartoum into ending the violence in Darfur.

Beijing is hosting the 2008 Olympic Games and human rights groups have targeted China in the hope of using the spotlight thrown on the country to influence Chinese foreign policy.

China, a major investor in Sudan's oil industry, has been accused of breaching international rules and fanning bloodshed by selling Sudan weapons that have been diverted to Darfur.

International experts estimate 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million others have been driven from their homes in years of fighting. The Sudanese authorities put the death toll at 9,000 and says the West has exaggerated the conflict in Darfur.

Cambodian government spokesman Khieu Khanarith said Farrow's group would face "consequences" if it continued with its plan to light another torch at Tuol Sleng, the Phnom Penh high school that became Pol Pot's main torture centre.

"What they will be doing at Tuol Sleng is not to commemorate the victims of the Khmer Rouge, but to use Khmer skulls to pressure China. This is an insult to the Cambodian people," he told Reuters.

"If they insist on organizing the rally inside the museum's compound, their visas will be cancelled and they will be expelled from Cambodia," he said. "Even if you are American or a movie star, you have to follow the rules of your host country."

Farrow said Phnom Penh was putting the interests of Beijing, one of its biggest donors, above the memories of the estimated 1.7 million victims of Pol Pot's 1975-79 reign of terror.

"We came here with the deepest respect," Farrow said, tears welling up in her eyes. "I am sad because I think it's a good thing to do."

Cambodia's cultural ministry has barred Farrow and her supporters from holding a rally at Tuol Sleng, where they have pledged to lay flowers, she said.

The American actress called on China to use its influence to push Khartoum to halt the violence in its western Darfur region and admit international peace-keepers.

"Please, China, do everything in your considerable power to persuade Khartoum to admit the peacekeeping force," she said.

"They can effectively provide security for the people of Darfur and the innocent civilian population that is being ripped apart."

(Editing by Ed Cropley and Jon Boyle)

US actress headed for showdown in Cambodia

Seng Theary, Center for Social Development Director, is dubbed "Tuol Sleng Theary" for her activism in the Dream for Darfur event organization in Phnom Penh

19.01.08
DPA

US actress Mia Farrow appeared on a collision course with Cambodian authorities Saturday after her supporters vowed she would proceed with an anti-China rally at a former Khmer Rouge jail Sunday despite Cambodian government objections. The 62-year-old's supporters posted fliers advertising the Dream For Darfur event Friday night.

Her local partner Theary Seng, director of the German-funded Centre for Social Development, told local media they would proceed with the symbolic torch burning at Toul Sleng Genocide Museum in the capital despite a government ban.

Phnom Penh police chief Touch Naroth warned the rally would not be tolerated.

" Cambodia is a sovereign nation. We have laws, and if they are not respected we will use them," he said.

Farrow, previously better known for her acting, haircuts and husbands, has become a respected humanitarian through her Dream For Darfur campaign, which aims to highlight China's economic support of Sudan in the lead-up to the August Olympics in Beijing.

China is one of Cambodia's strongest allies.

The government and the museum's director have also voiced concerns that the ceremony fails to respect Buddhist beliefs.

Farrow's supporters reject the claims.

Up to 16,000 people were tortured or killed at Toul Sleng during the Khmer Rouge's 1975-79 regime. Buddhism is the state religion.

The Cambodia Daily, the local English-language newspaper, Saturday quoted government spokesman Khieu Kanharith as saying those who participated in Sunday's protest would be subject to arrest and deportation.

Seng, an American-Cambodian, was quoted as saying she was undaunted and put freedom of expression first.

On Thursday, Kanharith accused the group of being "foreigners" with little insight into Cambodian history who hoped to raise funds using the memory of Khmer Rouge victims as a vehicle.

Many Cambodians still blame the US for the rise of the Khmer Rouge after it backed Marshall Lon Nol's 1970's coup which toppled former King Norodom Sihanouk's government from power. The US later mounted a secret and devastating bombing campaign against Cambodia allegedly aimed at destroying travel routes for Viet Cong.

Some have jokingly dubbed Farrow's ally Seng 'Toul Sleng Theary' in reference to the moniker 'Hanoi Jane' earned by US actress Jane Fonda when she visited the capital of neighbouring Vietnam in 1972.

Up to 2 million Cambodians died during the Khmer Rouge regime. Millions more were displaced during and after the 30-year civil war.

Hun Sen's cops may have to arrest US Ambassador Mussomeli who will be attending the Symbolic Darfur Olympic Torch Relay in Tuol Sleng also

MEDIA ADVISORY

Contact:

• In Cambodia: Saing Soenthrith, +855.12.947.499 and Rany Pen, rany@csdcambodia.org, +855.17.702.763
• International: Jonathan Freedman: jf@groupsjr.com / +1.212.751.3326 (US code)

MIA FARROW LIGHTS SYMBOLIC OLYMPIC TORCH IN CAMBODIA, UNITING GENOCIDE SURVIVORS IN A CALL FOR AN END TO THE DARFUR CRISIS

Special Plea to China, as host of ’08 Olympics: “Bring the Olympic Dream to Darfur”

What: Symbolic Olympic Torch Relay to be passed among Cambodian survivors of genocide and Darfur advocates.

Who:

• Mia Farrow, actor and human rights activist who has travelled to the Darfur region 7 times
• Van Nath, Khmer survivor and artist at the Toul Sleng prison
• Jill Savitt, Director of Dream for Darfur, which runs the Olympic Dream for Darfur campaign
• Theary Seng, Khmer survivor, author, Executive Director of the Center for Social Development
• Omer Ismael, Sudanese from Darfur and human rights advocate
• Freddy Mutanguha, Rwandan survivor and director of the Kigali Memorial Center
• Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli, US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Cambodia

Where: Toul Sleng Genocide Museum, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Press Conference to follow inside the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum.

When: January 20, 2008: Torch lighting ceremony at 9.30am, Press conference to follow at 10am.

Why: The Toul Sleng Genocide Museum is a former high school that was used as a security prison (called S-21) and torture center by the Khmer Rouge. Dream for Darfur is holding a torch lighting ceremony there both to commemorate past victims of genocide and to remind us what happen when the world looks away, as is happening in Darfur currently. In particular, the torch relay will call attention to the constructive role that China could play in the Darfur crisis. The symbolic Olympic Torch Relay is urging the Chinese government as both Olympic host and Sudan's strongest political and economic partner, to use its special influence with the Sudanese government to ensure a robust civilian protection force in Darfur before the Games begin.

Cambodia is the sixth stop on an international symbolic Olympic Torch Relay that began in August near the Darfur border and continued to Rwanda, Armenia, Germany and Bosnia & Herzegovina over the last five months. For video and photos of past torch lightings:
www.dreamfordarfur.org

Background:

Dream for Darfur, is a US based advocacy group that is organizing the Olympic Dream for Darfur torch relay. The Cambodia torch lighting is being co-hosted with the Center for Social Development that has been conducting grassroots dialogues with victims and perpetrators all over the country. In solidarity with the global Olympic Torch Relay, there have been relays organized in several other countries, including a US relay that traveled through over 60 cities. The relays seek to use the Olympic ideals of peace and international cooperation to raise awareness about Darfur and as a step toward growing an international anti-genocide movement. The campaign does not support a boycott of the Olympics and does not advocate withdrawal by any nation from this essential forum.

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.

Cambodia bans Mia Farrow-led Darfur protest [- Khieu Sopheak denied Cambodia's decision had anything to do with pressure from Beijing]

Thu 17 Jan 2008

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodia has barred U.S. actress Mia Farrow and a group campaigning for an end to atrocities in Sudan's Darfur region from lighting a symbolic Olympic torch at a "Killing Fields" memorial site.

Interior spokesman Khieu Sopheak said on Thursday police would "take measures" to prevent Dream for Darfur holding a ceremony this weekend at Tuol Sleng, the Phnom Penh school that became the Khmer Rouge's main torture and interrogation centre.

Dream for Darfur has already held similar events in Chad, Rwanda, Armenia, Germany and Bosnia as part of a campaign to persuade China to push Khartoum into ending the violence in Darfur, where 200,000 people have been killed since unrest broke out in 2003.

Khieu Sopheak denied Cambodia's decision had anything to do with pressure from Beijing -- one of Phnom Penh's biggest donors -- saying the government was more worried about the politicisation of the Olympic symbol.

"According to its charter, the Olympics does not allow people to hold any forums which implicate or involve the Games in politics," he told Reuters. "This is nothing to do with Chinese aid."

An estimated 1.7 million people died under Pol Pot's 1975-79 Beijing-backed regime, which emptied the cities in bid to turn the country into a peasant utopia. Victims were tortured and executed, or died from starvation, disease and overwork.

China is a major supplier of military aid to Sudan and purchaser of its oil, giving Beijing the clout to push Khartoum to halt the violence in Darfur, critics say.

Many anti-Chinese pressure groups are using Beijing's hosting of the 2008 Olympics as an opportunity to bring pressure to bear.

(Reporting by Ek Madra; Editing by Ed Cropley and Sanjeev Miglani)

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.

Cambodia Tells Mia Farrow: No Ceremony [because they have a political agenda against China]

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — The Cambodian government said Wednesday it will not allow Mia Farrow to hold a ceremony at a former Khmer Rouge prison as part of her efforts to draw attention to the crisis in Sudan.

The 62-year-old actress, working with the U.S.-based Dream for Darfur advocacy group, had planned to light an Olympic-style torch Sunday at the Khmer Rouge's infamous Tuol Sleng torture house to urge China to press Sudan to end abuses in Darfur.

The group 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.

"We will not allow them to hold the ceremony because they are not doing this for humanitarian reasons but because they have a political agenda against China," government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said.

China is one of Cambodia's major trading partners and 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.

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

Theary Seng, head of the Cambodian Center for Social Development, which was to host the event, said the group was trying to negotiate with the government in hopes the ceremony could still take place.

The event was intended to "commemorate past victims of genocide and to remind us what happens when the world looks away, as is happening in Darfur currently," Dream for Darfur said in a statement.

The torch has toured countries that 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.

Mia Farrow should also lead a protest against the Hun Sen's regime collusion with China

Actress Mia Farrow protests outside the Chinese embassy in Washington DC

Cambodia accuses actress Mia Farrow of hijacking its tragic past

Wed, 16 Jan 2008
DPA

Phnom Penh - Cambodian officials Wednesday accused a group spearheaded by American movie star Mia Farrow of hijacking the country's tragic past for politics and barred it from taking a symbolic Olympic torch through a genocide museum. The actress was planning to light an Olympic torch at the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum in the capital where up to 16,000 people were tortured or killed by the Khmer Rouge in order to draw attention to the war in Sudan and China's close ties to that government.

China, one of Cambodia's closest allies, is preparing to host the Olympics in August. It has been accused of failing to use its economic clout in Sudan to end violence in the Darfur region, where the United Nations estimates that at least 200,000 people have died so far in a protracted war.

The Olympic torch-style relay Dream for Darfur has so far visited five countries where genocides took place, including Germany.

"Toul Sleng is a place to come quietly with incense to respect our dead, not for torches and politics," Toul Sleng director Chey Sopheara said by telephone.

"Please don't plus our victims to other issues. To do what the foreigners want would disturb our dead. How can they compare Toul Sleng with a sporting event?"

Farrow's organization has partnered with German-funded local non-government organization Center for Social Development. Its American-Khmer director Theary Seng has denied the guesture is political, but Cambodian officials disagree.

"It's naive to say this action avoids politics. We cannot allow it. We would not allow them to make these sorts of displays about any embassy here," government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said.

"If they wanted to make a protest against the American bombing of Cambodia, we would not allow that too," he said in reference to Richard Nixon's secret bombing of Cambodia from 1970 which many people blame for giving the Khmer Rouge the impetus to come to power.

Kanharith described Farrow, 62, and her local counterparts as "a group of foreigners lacking insight who do this for money" and warned against cheapening the memory of Cambodia's victims.

Up to 2 million Cambodians died under the Khmer Rouge regime.

Cambodia bans Mia Farrow from holding Darfur ceremony [-Hun Sen's regime issued this ban most likely to please China]

January 16, 2008
From correspondents in Phnom Penh

ACTOR Mia Farrow has been barred from holding a ceremony at a notorious Khmer Rouge prison as part of a campaign to pressure China to end abuses in Darfur, a Cambodian official said.

The American actor has started an Olympic-style torch relay through countries that have suffered genocides to draw attention to China's close ties with Sudan, as Beijing prepares to host the Games in August.

The campaign aims to push Beijing 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.

Her group, Dream for Darfur, had planned to hold a ceremony on Sunday outside the Khmer Rouge's former prison, Tuol Sleng, which is now a genocide museum.

But interior ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak said the event would not be allowed.

"The Olympic Games are not a political issue. Therefore, we won't allow any rally to light a torch," he said.

"We will not support the activity. We will not allow them to politicise the Olympic Games," he said, warning the group could face prosecution if they try to go ahead.

Farrow's group said the ceremony aimed to call attention to the constructive role that China could play in the Darfur crisis.

"The symbolic Olympic torch relay is urging the Chinese Government, as both Olympic host and Sudan's strongest political and economic partner, to use its special influence with the Sudanese Government," the group said in a statement.

In the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, China - which is by far the largest foreign investor in Sudan and absorbs almost two-thirds of its oil output - has been under mounting pressure to use its clout on Khartoum.

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.