NEW YORK—As the Beijing Olympics grow closer, calls for human rights grow louder. On Friday, activists gathered with signs and megaphones to protest Coca-Cola, one of the sponsors of the Beijing Olympics, for failing to address China's ties with the genocide in Sudan, Darfur.
The protest was held outside the Coca-Cola headquarters on Fifth Ave. in Manhattan. According to organizers, similar protests took place across the nation against such Olympics sponsors as Swatch, Volkswagen, and General Electric.
The protest focused on the fact that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) not only provides weapons to the Sudanese government, but is also Sudan's main financial advisor, and advocates for them in the United Nations Security Council. China has leverage over the government of Sudan, which it can use to possibly end the genocide in Darfur, protesters argue.
The protest of Coca-Cola took place to ask the Olympic sponsor to call on China to help end the genocide in Darfur, which the U.N. has estimated has cost over 300,000 lives. The CCP "has the most influence, the most sway over Omar Hassan Al Bashir, the dictator from Sudan," said Jeremy Taylor, 43, a filmmaker who joined the day's protest. "Sudan also exports 80 percent of their oil to China."
"Coca-Cola sponsored the 1936 Berlin Nazi Olympics," added Taylor. "Coca-Cola is sponsoring the 2008 Chinese Communist Party Olympics. That's what we're doing here."
Ellen Freudenheim, the director of corporate outreach for Dream for Darfur talked about why she feels the Olympics sponsors have done so little in approaching China about the genocide in Darfur.
"They don't want to do it because they're afraid of risking the ire of the Chinese government, because they want those 1.3 billion Chinese to buy their products. Something stinks about that, something is wrong about that," said Freudenheim.
"We want them to use their leverage and their connections in China to make it known to the Chinese government that the world is watching, that genocide is not business as usual, and that it isn't acceptable in the 21st Century," said Freudenheim.
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