Spielberg urges China to press Sudan on Darfur

Director Steven Spielberg waves at the Women in Film 2007 Crystal and Lucy Awards in Beverly Hills, California June 14, 2007. Spielberg, artistic advisor to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, sent a letter to China's president on Thursday urging Beijing to press ally Sudan to accept peacekeepers in war-torn Darfur.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Film director Steven Spielberg, artistic advisor to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, sent a letter to China's president on Thursday urging Beijing to press ally Sudan to accept peacekeepers in war-torn Darfur.

"I write to you now with a renewed sense of urgency in the hope that China will redouble its efforts to pressure Sudan to join in a fair peace agreement and, at last, bring an end to the genocide," said the letter to President Hu Jintao.

"Please urge Sudan to accept -- and rapidly facilitate -- the United Nations authorized hybrid force," said the letter, released by Spielberg spokesman Andy Spahn.

With time running out for Darfuris as Sudan resists deployment of the U.N. and African Union force, "the world needs China to lead here," wrote the director, who in July had threatened to quit his Beijing games post over Darfur.

China, a major investor in Sudan's oil industry, has been accused of breaching international rules and fanning bloodshed by selling Sudan weapons that have been diverted to Darfur.

Experts estimate 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million uprooted in the Sudanese region's conflict, which started in 2003 and pits mostly non-Arab rebel groups against the Khartoum government and Arab militias.

Ceasefires have been agreed upon only to fall apart, and plans to send 26,000 United Nations peacekeepers have been thrown into doubt because of restrictions imposed by Khartoum and the failure by Western states to provide helicopters.

(Reporting by Paul Eckert, editing by Todd Eastham)