The Chinese Saga of Olympic Shame Deepens -- France raises idea of
boycotting Olympics ceremony over Tibet
-- Micky's HO: This is a superb idea with French creativity. --
International Herald Tribune
http://img.iht.com/images/2008/03/18/18react-oly550.gif
To protest Chinese actions in Tibet, signs were placed Tuesday on
figures in the Terracotta Army exhibit at the British Museum. (Mark
Trepte/The Associated Press)
France raises idea of boycotting Olympics ceremony over Tibet
By Katrin Bennhold
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
PARIS: EU asked to weigh puni****ng Beijing
Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner of France said Tuesday that the
European Union should consider puni****ng China's crackdown in Tibet with
a boycott of the opening ceremony of this summer's Olympic Games in
Beijing.
His comments followed an appeal by the press advocacy group Re****ters
Without Borders to governments across the world to shun the highly
symbolic ceremony during which the Olympic flame is lighted.
European leaders have been conspicuously quiet since protesters and the
Chinese police first clashed in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, a week ago.
China on Tuesday called for an international investigation of the Dalai
Lama, who condemned the violence that has erupted from the Tibetan
demonstrations. He threatened to resign as leader of Tibet's government
in exile "if things become out of control."
How to exert pressure on Beijing touches a broader debate in the
European Union about how the bloc should manage its relation****ps with
im****tant economic partners such as China and Russia, whose governments
are accused of violating democratic standards.
Senior European officials, including Kouchner, have ruled out an
outright boycott of the Olympics, arguing that not even the Dalai Lama
had demanded one. But in the latest sign that the Games remain the most
powerful lever Western powers have, the foreign minister called the idea
of a more symbolic partial boycott "interesting."
Cautioning that the proposal was not yet French government policy, he
indicated that he would bring it up with fellow European foreign
ministers at an informal meeting next week.
"The initiative of Re****ters Without Borders, which does not have the
French government's sup****t, was made this morning," Kouchner said.
Let's consider it."
A day earlier, Mark Malloch Brown, the British minister for Africa, Asia
and the United Nations, who is also opposed to a complete boycott, told
the BBC that the Olympics were "China's coming-out party and they should
take great care that nothing will wreck that."
There was no official reaction to Kouchner's proposal from other major
capitals on Tuesday, but a senior British official said that London was
not considering any kind of boycott to do with the Olympics, even one of
the opening ceremony.
German officials, meanwhile, indicated that they were open to the idea
of discussing a European response to the violence in Tibet at a meeting
of EU foregn ministers in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on March 28 and 29. "If
the French foreign minister would like to discuss an idea next week, we
will consider it," said a German diplomat who declined to be identified
because of the political sensitivity of the current crisis. "But
whatever we do among Europeans, we have to be united if it is to be
effective."
A spokeswoman for the Slovenian government, which currently holds the
European Union's rotating presidency, said that Tibet was not on the
agenda of the foreign ministers' meeting, which had been set before the
clashes had started. But she added that if the violence continued it was
likely that the issue would come up.
So far European reactions to the situation in Tibet have been largely
limited to calls on Beijing to hold direct talks with the Dalai Lama,
the Tibetans' exiled leader, and allow journalists to cover the
protests. In a bid to secure the Olympics, China had agreed to allow
foreign journalists to re****t more freely across most of the country
from the start of 2007, but the exemption will expire when the Games end.
Germany, China's biggest European trading partner, has been the most
outspoken among the Continent's big countries. Chancellor Angela Merkel
risked the wrath of the Chinese leader****p when she received the Dalai
Lama in September at the Chancellery and her foreign minister,
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, spent almost an hour on the phone with his
Chinese counterpart on Sunday, demanding "transparency."
It is still unclear whether Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain will
meet with the Dalai Lama when he comes to London in May.
Kouchner, a former human rights activist and co-founder of Médecins Sans
Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, urged Beijing on Tuesday to give
journalists access to Tibet so that the number of people killed and
wounded in clashes could be determined.
Tibet's government in exile says it believes 99 people have been killed
in the violence, a figure disputed by the Chinese authorities.
European officials defended themselves for their low-key strategy by
arguing that aggressive threats could be counterproductive.
"If the Chinese stop talking to us, it helps neither the Tibetans nor
the cause of human rights," said a German diplomat. "Words do matter -
especially in a year where the Chinese host the Olympics. They know they
are being watched by the world."
But Robert Ménard, head of Re****ters Without Borders, said that words
were no longer enough.
"Words have got us nowhere since the Chinese won the Olympic Games, it's
time to act," he said in an interview by telephone Tuesday. "Bernard
Kouchner has opened the door. It takes a bit of courage, but I hope that
the world's big democracies will find that courage."
Notes:
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