Olympic athletes struggle with protest on Darfur

Whether speaking to a group of young softball players or plying her teammates with literature, Jessica Mendoza, a 27-year-old outfielder on the United States Olympic softball team, does not hesitate to speak her mind about the killings in Darfur.

But Mendoza stops short of publicly condemning China, which has close ties to the government of Sudan, because she says it is impolite to criticize her Olympic hosts and because one of her sponsors, Nike, has a major marketing presence in China.

With growing protests in Tibet and pressure mounting on Olympic sponsors to denounce China for its policy on Darfur, socially conscious athletes said they were struggling to figure out how to honor their beliefs while also respecting the purpose of the Olympic Games — the celebration of athletic excellence.

"I feel like there's no one out there who would think that it's a controversial issue to talk about 400,000 people being killed in Darfur right now," said Mendoza, who helped the American team win a gold medal in Athens in 2004. "But I'm not about to go into China and tell their government what to do."

This week, Mendoza said she would let her Nike representatives know about her participation in Team Darfur, a coalition of more than 200 athletes seeking to raise awareness about what Congress and President George W. Bush consider genocide in Darfur. "I want them to know what my role is," she said. When she is not in uniform competing, Mendoza plans to wear her Team Darfur wristbands around Beijing, and she hopes to visit the Darfur region after the Olympics. (*)


source: iht.com