Oscar winning film director Steven Spielberg has pulled out of the 2008 China Summer Olympics in Beijing in protest over the Chinese goverment’s policy with regard to the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan.  He says:

I find that my conscience will not allow me to continue business as usual.”

China is a leading oil customer and supplier of weapons to Sudan and is accused by critics of stonewalling international efforts to send peacekeepers into Darfur. The United Nations estimates 200,000 people have died in Darfur from the combined effects of war, famine and disease since 2003, when a civil conflict erupted pitting government-backed Arab militias against non-Arab ethnic groups. 

 Spielberg’s statement continues to say:

“Sudan’s government bears the bulk of the responsibility for these ongoing crimes but the international community, and particularly China, should be doing more to end the continuing human suffering there.   China’s economic, military and diplomatic ties to the government of Sudan continue to provide it with the opportunity and obligation to press for change.”

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