Actress Mia Farrow Seeks To Cast Pall Over Olympics

BEIJING — In one of the most jarring acts of counterprogramming ever directed at the Olympic Games, a prominent American actress, Mia Farrow, is seeking to cast a pall over the early pageantry and celebration here by releasing a series of Web videos from African refugee camps that are home to thousands who have fled the genocide in Darfur.

"The voices that should be heard at this time are the voices of the people who have suffered most, the people of Darfur," Ms. Farrow told The New York Sun from the Chad-Darfur border this week in an interview conducted via satellite telephone. "There are 27,000 people in this camp. All of them have fled villages that were attacked and bombed. Women suffered terrible atrocities. ... Many, many men have disappeared."

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Ms. Farrow said Beijing is morally culpable for the violence because China has "largely failed" to take action even though the country has extensive financial ties to the Sudanese regime blamed for the killings. She also defended her provocative labeling of the Games as the "Genocide Olympics."

"I think it's appropriate since Beijing has chosen to underwrite genocide in Darfur," she said. "History will long remember the Genocide Olympics as such. For many, many months now, Beijing has made excuses for their close business partner in Khartoum and failed to persuade them to stop their attacks on civilians."

Chinese officials have said they have done more to resolve the crisis than other nations, including America. However, China has repeatedly come to Khartoum's defense at the United Nations. The ascendant superpower also said it viewed the indictment last month of President Bashir of Sudan on war crimes charges as unhelpful to achieving peace.

Refugees in the camps are well aware of the Olympics and some see a connection between the Games and the continuing violence, Ms. Farrow said. "People listen to BBC radio," she said. "One refugee said to me, 'Those attending the Opening Ceremonies are not hearing our cries.'"

The actress-activist also had withering words for President Bush, who will attend the opening that is set for tomorrow. "This was a deplorable decision. He wasted an opportunity to stand strong with the most oppressed people in the world and to hold sacred the values of our own country," Ms. Farrow said. "At little cost, he could have just skipped the Opening Ceremonies."

Ms. Farrow said that when she began the effort to pressure Beijing in connection with the Olympics, she was genuinely hopeful that China would decide to play a constructive role in the conflict. "Really, for Beijing, Darfur was a low-hanging fruit. Burma is a difficult issue. Tibet is complicated. Their own internal human rights issues are tricky. But, for Darfur, there was hope they would act," she said. "They've chosen not to do that and to defend the perpetrators of this violence."

Activists working with Ms. Farrow said they planned to release daily refugee-camp videos from her trip at darfurolympics.org. However, the video to be posted during the Opening Ceremonies is a tad more upbeat, featuring musical performances intended to highlight the refugees' plight.

Whether Ms. Farrow's videos will be seen in China is unclear. The country has blocked the general public's Internet access to many sites about the Darfur conflict. Several sites used by Darfur-related groups are also among those blocked at official Olympic press centers in China.

Ms. Farrow, 63, who has appeared in more than 40 films and drew attention for her relationships with famous men such as Frank Sinatra and Woody Allen, was drawn into the Darfur issue through her work as an ambassador for Unicef. Her latest trip to Africa was born, to some degree, out of necessity after she was denied a visa to travel to Beijing.

Ms. Farrow has already had more of an impact on this year's Olympic ceremonies than any other critic. In March 2007, she published an unflinching op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal accusing one of Hollywood's leading producers and directors, Steven Spielberg, of helping to "sanitize Beijing's image" by serving as adviser to China on the staging of the opening and closing ceremonies. "Does Mr. Spielberg really want to go down in history as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games?" Ms. Farrow asked in the article, co-authored by one of her sons, Ronan Farrow.

After the essay came out, Mr. Spielberg said he wrote to Chinese officials, including President Hu, seeking assurances that China was making every possible effort to use its influence to end the violence in Sudan. In February of this year, the esteemed director announced his conscience had led to him to withdraw from any Olympic role. "My time and energy must be spent not on Olympic ceremonies, but on doing all I can to help bring an end to the unspeakable crimes against humanity that continue to be committed in Darfur," Mr. Spielberg said.

Ms. Farrow is urging potential Olympic television viewers to tune out the commercials and the "opening propaganda ceremony," but she is not discouraging them from watching the Games themselves. "I, too, celebrate athletes and can't wait to see them do their thing," she said. "My family's going to TiVo it for me back home."