(To be read in continuation of my earlier article, GamePlans)
According to Tibetan sources in Nepal, four US citizens--one of them of Tibetanorigin-- were detained by the Chinese authorities in Tibet on April 26, 2007, for staging a protest against the Olympic Games of 2008, which are to be held in China. They managed to reach the base camp on the Tibetan side of Mount Everest and unfurled threebanners--in English, Tibetan and Chinese--reading "One World, One Dream--Free Tibet 2008". They walked around the area for sometime showing these banners before they weredetained. They also shouted "Free Tibet" and sang what they described as the Tibetan nationalanthem. "One World, One Dream" is the motto of next year's Olympic Games.
The Reuters news agency has quoted Ms.Lhadon Tethong, the Kathmandu-based Executive Director of an organisation called "Students For A Free Tibet", as saying: "The Chinesegovernment hopes to use the 2008 Olympic Games to conceal the brutality of its occupation ofTibet. More than 70 Chinese climbers were in the base camp preparing for a trial climb to see if it is possible to take the Olympic torch to the top of Mount Everest. One of the key points for the Chinese in their Olympic propaganda is to show happy Tibetans. They are very much using the Olympics, so we are also using it to call for an independentTibet. The International Olympic Committee has no business promoting the Chinesegovernment's political agenda by allowing the torch to be run through Tibet."
Mia Farrow, the American actress, has called for the boycott of the Olympics by the Western countries in protest against China's support to thegovernment of Sudan, despite its repressive policies in the Darfur region, in order to get oil from Sudan. She has described the next year's Olympics as "Genocide Olympics". Francois Bayrou, the centrist French Presidential candidate in the first round of the French Presidential elections held on April 22,2007, has also supported the call for a boycott.
Tibetan and Uighur activists and other human rights workers have initiated consultationsamong themselves on how to draw the attention of the world to the violation of the human rights of the ethnic and religious minorities by the Chinese at the time of the Olympics. Two ideas are beingdiscussed-- to start a movement for the boycott of the Games similar to the Western boycott of the Moscow Olympics of 1980 in protest against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan or to organise an alternate Olympics in Tokyo to draw attention away from the Olympics in China.
Others are suggesting that a better way would be to organise protest demonstrations in China itself at the time of the Olympics and to request the thousands of journalists, who would be coming to China to cover the Olympics, to draw the world's attention to the violation of the human rights of the ethnic and religious minorities in China. They point out that the 1988 Olympics in Seoul in South Korea marked the beginning of the end of the repressive regime in South Korea and feel that if the Olympics in China are properly exploited, they could similarly mark the end of political repression in China.
Suggestions have also been made to organise protest movements in Africa to draw attention to the Chinese support to repressivegovernments in Africa in order to get oil, coinciding with the Olympic Games. A number of blogshave come up to exchange ideas on this subject.
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B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies.
