Refugee Rights News
Volume 4, Issue 6
October 2008

SPOTLIGHT

Athletes and Activists Strive for Medals and Send a Message of Peace for Darfur

Since 14 July, the day that charges of genocide were filed against President al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Sudanese commentators have focussed on the implications of these charges. But on the closing day of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, local media focused on Sudan’s first-ever Olympic medal, and it seemed that for one day there was agreement that Ismail Ahmed Ismail’s second place in the men’s 800 meter race was “an unprecedented achievement.”

Ismail won the silver medal, the first in Sudan's 50 years of competition, beating the reigning Kenyan world champion Alfred Yego. Ismail, Darfurian by decent, was hailed as a national hero and pictured, wrapped in a Sudanese flag, on the front pages of the country’s newspapers. Former football player and businessman from Darfur, Mahmoud Medani, told the Associated Press that Ismail’s win “is a source of pride for us, not for us alone but for all Sudanese people, and that this region has another face and has things to celebrate.”

Ismail was quoted as saying “I can’t find words to express my joy. This is an achievement for my country first and then for me. I was able to achieve this honour because of a lot of hard training.” Ismail’s parents migrated from western Darfur to Khartoum before Ismail was born. He and his five brothers and sisters grew up in a poor neighbourhood, and before the games he hadn’t been able to organise the naming ceremony, traditionally held after one week, for his 1.5-month old son due to financial hardship.

Ismail was not the only Sudanese in the spotlight in Beijing. 1,500 meter track runner Lopez Lomong carried the US flag at the games. Lopez was abducted at the age of six by a militia faction and spent time as a child soldier before escaping to Kenya. There, he spent the next 10 years in a refugee camp, until he became one of 3,500 refugees resettled to the United States. At Northern Arizona University, he pursued his dream of becoming an Olympic runner.
 
Lopez, now 23, is determined to raise awareness of the crisis in Darfur and is already speaking out. He was one of the 70+ athletes competing in Beijing who signed on to Team Darfur’s mission to support the men, women and children of Darfur by raising awareness about and pushing for an end to the crisis. Team Darfur was co-founded by Olympic gold medal speed skater Joey Cheek and UCLA water polo player Brad Greiner. After the 2006 Winter Olympic Games, Cheek donated his medal bonuses to the Right to Play, an international aid organisation that works to improve the lives of some of the world's most marginalised children through sport and game, and he has since encouraged other athletes to use their time in the spotlight to raise awareness of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. In the run up to the games, Team Darfur called for an Olympic Truce for Darfur, referring to the traditional ceasefire during the Ancient Greek games. More recently the Truce has been used as a diplomatic tool, in Bosnia, for example, to promote a U.N.-sponsored one-day ceasefire allowing the vaccination of 10,000 children.

In calling for an Olympic Truce for Darfur, the organisation called for “increased deployment of the UNAMID peacekeeping force and a rejuvenated peace process that has the full support of the permanent members of the UN Security Council.” The international community was also encouraged to provide humanitarian assistance to Darfurians in need during the truce period. In Darfur the Truce, unfortunately, was not respected. The violence has continued and additional peacekeepers were not deployed on the ground in Darfur. In fact, on 25 August Sudanese police and soldiers raided South Darfur’s Kalma camp, housing 90,000 internally displaced persons claiming they were searching for weapons, suspected rebels and bandits. UNAMID issued a harsh statement condemning the attack, which left 30 people dead and more than 100 wounded, as “excessive and disproportionate.”

Not only was the Truce not successful, but the Chinese went to great lengths to suppress even discussion of the issue during the Olympics, revoking the visas of Team Darfur founder Joey Cheek and another member of Team Darfur, decathlete Chris Boyles.

Blocked from Beijing, another activist U.S. actress-activist and UNICEF good-will ambassador Mia Farrow, staged an alternative Olympics by airing a series of “Darfur Olympics” web casts* from refugee camps along the Chad-Darfur border. Farrow has worked to use the Olympics to call attention to Chinese political and practical support of the Sudanese government. The Chinese have continued to pursue arms transfers and to oppose strong action in the Security Council in spite of clear evidence of the atrocities occurring in Darfur. With the Olympics as something of a “coming out” party for China as a major world player, the games served as an opportunity to remind China of the responsibilities that come with that role. Dream for Darfur release eight webcasts featuring Farrow during the Games. The organization appealed to Olympic viewers to change the channel during commercial breaks to view the webcasts.

While Dream for Darfur has focused on using the Olympics to pressure China for more positive policy, others have looked to the games for a different type of inspiration. For instance, in southern Sudan’s Twic County, the annual Twic County Olympics brings together participants from across the county in football, volleyball, tug-of-war and running competitions. Located on the border between north and south Sudan, the previously divided districts of Twic are slowly recovering from two decades of civil war. Founded in 2000 by a local relief agency, Sudan Production Aid (Supraid), the games have facilitated community reintegration, especially for the youth, in the context of large scale returns by including peace and reconciliation education. As one participant put it, “the Twic Olympics challenges everyone who thinks nothing good can happen in Sudan.” It exemplifies the original Olympic spirit of valuing competition over victory.

* The eight “Darfur Olympics” web casts by Mia Farrow are available on DVD from Dream for Darfur. Please contact Kate McNeece at kate@dreamfordarfur.org to request a copy.

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