Spielberg pulls out of Olympic Games participation over Darfur crisis

BEIJING (AP) " Steven Spielberg was supposed to lend a little Hollywood glitz to this year's Beijing Olympics.

Instead, the heavyweight director's rejection of a role in the Summer Games on human rights grounds stands as the event's biggest political challenge yet.

Spielberg, who won an Oscar for his 1993 Holocaust film "Schindler's List," said he was turning down a position as artistic adviser to the opening and closing ceremonies because China was not doing enough to pressure its ally Sudan into ending the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region.

That decision drew praise from a slew of other groups critical of Beijing, boosting a months-long campaign by activists to spotlight the communist regime's human rights record.

Although not entirely unexpected, Spielberg's announcement Tuesday appeared to catch Beijing flat-footed. Neither the organizing committee nor China's Foreign Ministry had responded by late Wednesday.

Spielberg, whose 2005 film "Munich" dealt with the killings of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics, had indicated as early as August that he might not take part in the ceremonies. Spielberg said he had given up hope that China would take a more aggressive approach toward Sudan.

China is believed to have special influence with the Islamic regime because it buys two-thirds of the country's oil exports while selling it weapons and defending Khartoum in the U.N. Security Council.

Fighting between government-backed militia and rebels in Darfur has killed more than 200,000 people and left an estimated 2.5 million displaced since 2003.