The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, travels to China

"If China supports genocide in order to secure raw materials, Europe must not be silent, Frau Merkel!" Angela Merkel, must on her journey to China, which begins on Sunday, press the leaders in Peking to take on more international responsibility. This was the demand of the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) in a letter to the Chancellor on Friday. " Europe must not remain silent if China supports genocide in order to secure raw materials for its growing industry" said the GfbV Asia expert, Ulrich Delius. "With its policy of blockade in the Security Council China has for selfish motives lengthened the genocide in Darfur by more than three years. China is misusing its right of veto and carries therefore the responsibility for the violent deaths of up to 400,000 civilians in Darfur. Th People´s Republic is systematically preventing effective sanctions against those responsible for the genocide and also the rapid sending of a UN peace-keeping force in Darfur." With its unconditional support of the government in Khartoum the People´s Republic is in the opinion of the GfbV anxious to secure its oil interests in the Sudan." The Sudan has been exporting mineral oil since 1999. China meets six percent of its oil requirements from Sudanese sources and has become the most important trade partner of the Sudan. About 64 percent of all Sudanese export income in the year 2004 was obtained from business with China. "Without the income from the oil business the Sudan would not have been able to finance alone either the genocide in southern Sudan up to the peace talks in January 2005 or the expulsion of the civilian population from Darfur", criticised Delius. China is involved with state oil concerns and also to a very considerable extent in the mining of oil, the construction of refineries and pipelines in southern Sudan. In spite of the catastrophic human rights situation in the Sudan the People´ s Republic is increasing its cooperation with the African state on all levels. Thus some 30,000 Chinese development aid workers and advisers are supporting the building up of the Sudanese oil industry and the construction of other large projects. After Russia China is the second most important supplier of arms to the Sudan. This week the Communist party of China offered the party of the Sudanese dictator el Bashir increased cooperation. However China´s leaders ignore systematic violations of human rights in other states of Africa in order to secure the provision of their industry with mineral oil. So the government in Peking recently agreed on new deliveries from Angola and various west African states with a dubious history of human rights.