Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff said Tuesday that he plans to use an upcoming trip to China to challenge authorities to stop supporting the Sudanese government “even if it costs me a trip to a Chinese jail.”
Romanoff, a Denver Democrat, aims to link the 2008 Olympic Games and China’s support for the Sudanese government, which is accused of committing genocide against the people of the Darfur region of western Sudan. He said he will be acting as a private citizen, not a state lawmaker.
“I want the Olympics to be a positive experience and a symbol of peace and harmony,” Romanoff said. “That will be difficult to do, though, if China is still supporting Sudan.”
Romanoff said he wants to end Chinese political and economic support of the Sudanese government, but he stopped short of calling for a U.S. boycott of the 2008 Games.
“A boycott would be an admission of failure,” Romanoff said, preferring to use the year before the Games to raise the stakes for China.
Instead, he wants to shame the Chinese government into ending its ties with Sudan.
Romanoff has made Sudan one of his top priorities. During the past legislative session, he sponsored a bill to ban state investments in companies that have ties to the Sudanese government.
He called the genocide in Darfur the “central moral crisis of our time.”
Romanoff would not say what he plans to do to protest Chinese involvement in Sudan. He leaves for China on Saturday.
The trip to China will be paid for by the Aspen Institute’s Rodel Fellowship, an educational program for political leaders. The fellowship emphasizes its political neutrality, and Romanoff said his requests to Chinese leaders would not be as a representative of the Aspen Institute or the fellowship program.
Gia Regan, assistant director of the Rodel Fellowship, said Romanoff is free to ask tough questions of the leaders he meets on the trip.
“We would hope, and he has told us, that he doesn’t speak for anybody else on the trip,” Regan said. “We don’t want to jeopardize the Aspen Institute’s relationship with the country of China. This program has funding for 10 more years. We ask him to be polite in that regard and respect the consequences he could have on future delegations.”
Staff writer Mark P. Couch can be reached at 303-954-1794 or mcouch@denverpost.com.
