Visiting actress Mia Farrow says she's 'bewildered' by Cambodian ban on Darfur ceremony

American actress Mia Farrow takes pictures of human skulls during her visit at Choeung Ek killing field in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Saturday, Jan. 19, 2008. Farrow visited a former Khmer Rouge prison Saturday where she plans to hold a ceremony spotlighting the crisis in Sudan, despite a ban imposed by the Cambodian government.(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

By KER MUNTHIT,
Associated Press Writer
Sat Jan 19,

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — American actress Mia Farrow said she was bewildered by the Cambodian government's attempt to block a ceremony at a former Khmer Rouge prison intended to highlight the humanitarian crisis in Sudan.

"It's pretty harsh to be against a ceremony that honors the victims of Darfur and genocide survivors everywhere," Farrow said in an interview Saturday. "Frankly, I'm a little bewildered."

Farrow said she and other activists were determined to press ahead with the Sunday ceremony at the Khmer Rouge's infamous Tuol Sleng torture facility, and would hold it outside the former prison's gates if police block them from entering.

Farrow, who is working with the U.S.-based advocacy group Dream for Darfur, traveled to Cambodia to stage a mock Olympic torch-lighting ceremony at the former prison. The ceremony aims to send a message to China — host of the 2008 Olympics and one of Sudan's major trading partners — to press Khartoum to end abuses in Darfur.

China has strong economic ties with both Sudan and Cambodia.

The Cambodian government said days ago it would prevent the 62-year-old actress from going through with the ceremony because the group had "a political agenda against China" and was holding the event for political rather than humanitarian reasons.

Farrow denied that her intentions were political.

"It's so not a protest but is rather a ceremony" to "honor the victims of Darfur and all genocide survivors and victims," Farrow said.

The Khmer Rouge's communist regime in the 1970s led to the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians.

Thousands of prisoners of the Khmer Rouge were tortured at Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh before being executed outside the capital at a site known as "the killing fields."

Farrow visited both sites Saturday, trailed by several plainclothes police who took pictures of her during a two-hour visit to the prison, which is now a genocide museum.

Wearing sunglasses, jeans and a black T-shirt, Farrow took pictures of the gruesome photographs of torture that fill the former prison's walls. A Cambodian member of her entourage explained the exhibits.

Dream for Darfur has taken its torch-lighting campaign to other places that have suffered mass killings — the Darfur-Chad border, Rwanda, Armenia, Germany and Bosnia-Herzegovina — to honor genocide victims and call attention to the violence in Darfur. The group plans to head to China following its Cambodia visit.

Farrow said she has been to the Darfur region eight times and that "it is impossible to go there and witness what I have witnessed without emerging with a deep commitment to end the suffering there."

Dream for Darfur claims China has sold weapons to the Sudanese government and that Chinese oil operations in Sudan have helped fund genocide there.

China, the Khmer Rouge's biggest backer in the 1970s, is a major donor to Cambodia and has been described by current Prime Minister Hun Sen as Cambodia's "most trustworthy friend."