POLITICS: Tibet Critics Focus on Olympics Opening Ceremony

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Arlene Chang

NEW YORK, Apr 2 2008 (IPS) - China's hopes of conducting a non-controversial Olympic Games in August received two more blows on Tuesday.

In an interview with ABC-TV's "Good Morning America", U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested that President George W. Bush should consider boycotting the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics on Aug. 8 following China's crackdown on protesters in Tibet. Close on the heels of Pelosi's interview, Amnesty International, a London-based human rights group, released a damning report on China's human rights situation.

The report stated: "Recent measures taken by the authorities to detain, prosecute and imprison those who raise human rights concerns suggest that, to date, the Olympic Games has failed to act as a catalyst for reform."

Referring to the Chinese government's "clean-up" act, the report states that peaceful human rights activists and others who have publicly criticised official government policy were being targeted in an apparent attempt to portray a "stable" or "harmonious" image to the world.

"It is increasingly clear that much of the current wave of repression is occurring not in spite of the Olympics, but actually because of the Olympics," the report said.

Earlier in the day, Pelosi, a California Democrat, told the morning show, "I think boycotting the opening ceremony, which really gives respect to the Chinese government, is something that should be kept on the table. I think the president might want to rethink this later, depending on what other heads of state do."

Pelosi, who met with the Dalai Lama during a recent trip to Dharmasala, India, the exile home of the Tibetan leader, has been outspoken about her support of Tibet. She follows a string of other world leaders who have expressed concern about China's human rights record, and a recent crackdown on pro-independence demonstrators that left an unknown number dead.

Among those who say they plan to boycott the opening ceremony in Beijing are Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk, President of the Czech Republic Václav Klaus and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, China's biggest European trading partner.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner also says that the European Union should consider punishing China's crackdown in Tibet by skipping the opening ceremony. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said that his attendance would depend on China's conduct.

The Amnesty report encouraged the international community, "including those with a stake in the Olympics, such as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and world leaders who will attend the Games," to take a stronger stance with the Chinese authorities.

"The crackdown on human rights activists has intensified since the publication of the last Olympics Countdown update in August 2007," report said. "Those seeking to draw connections between ongoing human rights violations and China's hosting of the Olympics have been among the most harshly treated, yet many continue to publicise their concerns despite the risks."

The organisation's China expert in New York, Suzanne Wright, said, "We are very concerned. Rather than providing an opportunity to improve human rights, the Olympics is serving as an excuse to take activists off the street."

"In our experience, private dialogue hasn't worked in China," Wright said. "And we are encouraging the IOC and national leaders to use their influence with Chinese authorities to help improve the human rights situation there."

Amnesty International is particularly concerned about the treatment of hundreds of persons detained in response to the Chinese police and military crackdown on Tibetan protesters. The organisation has previously documented a pattern of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees in Tibet by China's security forces, especially against those accused by the Chinese authorities of "separatist" activities.

"The IOC says that they can only make comments on issues that are directly associated with the games. It is our belief that what China is doing has something to do with the Games, it is against the spirit of the Games," Wright said.

China has a longstanding reputation of human rights violations. In June last year, Robert Ménard, secretary-general of Reporters Without Borders, a press freedom group, wrote to the IOC stating that "despite its explicit promises, China refuses to make improvements in basic rights and freedom. China continues to be by far the world's biggest prison for journalists, press freedom activists, cyber-dissidents and Internet users."

In 2001, Beijing Olympic organising chief Liu Qi, while pitching for the Games, had said that the event would "benefit the further development of our human rights cause".

Another respected organisation, Human Rights Watch, also recently lashed out at the IOC for "operating in a moral void, undermining human rights in China and flouting the spirit and letter of the Olympic Charter".

If the boycott materialises, it would not be the first time that the opening ceremony of the Olympics is shunned. Several Irish athletes withdrew from the 1908 London Games, as they refused to march behind the Union Jack flag. The U.S. also boycotted the 1980 Moscow Games to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.