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MALAY MAIL
FRIDAY AUGUST 8, 2008
World
Farrow to air 'Darfur Olympics'
IN MEMORY: Ethnic Uighur soldiers gather at an official ceremony yesterday to remember the 16 Chinese police officers killed in an alleged terrorist attack in Xinjiang's famed Silk Road city of Kashgar, a mainly Muslim Xinjiang region — AFPpic
Militants threaten attacks
URUMQI (China): An Islamic group that has threatened to attack the Olympics released a new video warning Muslims to avoid planes, trains and buses used by Chinese, a US group that monitors militant organisations said yesterday. The six-minute video, issued two days before the Beijing Games open, was purportedly made by the Turkistan Islamic Party, which seeks independence for China's western Xinjiang region, the SITE Intelligence Group said. The militants
are believed to be based across the border in Pakistan, where security experts say core members have received training from al-Qaeda. "Choose your side,'' says the speaker, grasping a rifle and dressed in a black turban and camouflage with his face masked. "Do not stay on the same bus, on the same train, on the same plane, in the same buildings, or any place the Chinese are,'' he warns Muslims, according to SITE.
He speaks in the Turkic language of the Uighurs, a Muslim minority with a population of about 8 million in Xinjiang. Last month, the group issued videotaped threats and claimed responsibility for a series of bus bombings in China in recent months. The latest video features graphics similar to ones used earlier: a burning Olympics logo and an explosion imposed over an apparent Olympic venue. The latest video claims the communist regime's alleged
mistreatment of Muslims justifies holy war. It accuses China of forcing Muslims into atheism by capturing and killing Islamic teachers and destroying Islamic schools, according to the SITE. It says China's birth control programme has forced abortions on Muslim women. More than 100,000 soldiers and police were guarding Beijing and other Olympic co-host cities. Terrorism experts say the heavy security presence would likely force attackers to target less-protected areas. — AP
KHARTOUM: As the Summer Games open in Beijing, actress activist Mia Farrow is webcasting her own 'Darfur Olympics' from a refugee camp on the barren SudanChad border, aiming to shame China into using its influence with Khartoum to end the Darfur conflict. Human rights groups have been using the Beijing Olympics to highlight accusations that China's close ties to the Khartoum government are helping fuel the bloodshed in Darfur, where up to 300,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million people driven from their homes since 2003. China buys nearly two-thirds of Sudan's oil and is believed to provide the country with most of its small arms, many of which human rights groups say end up being used in Sudan's western region of Darfur. Beijing, which has veto power at the UN, has resisted tough Security Council action against Sudan over the conflict. At the same time as the opening ceremony in Beijing today, Farrow will post footage on the Internet from one of a dozen camps in eastern Chad where Darfurians fleeing the conflict have taken refuge. The webcast is to include refugee children playing sports and songs contributed by pop singers including REM, Bette Midler and Taleb Kweli. — AP
AWARENESS: Farrow (left) talks to Sudanese refugee children at a camp in eastern Chad on Tuesday — APpic