http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/11/asia/11china.php
Olympic president makes rare criticism of China
By Andrew Jacobs
Published: April 11, 2008
BEIJING: China faced rare criticism of its human rights record from
the head of the International Olympics Committee on Thursday, even as
calls for a boycott of the opening ceremony of the games grew louder
in Europe and the United States.
The president of the Olympic committee, Jacques Rogge, called on the
authorities in Beijing to respect their "moral engagement" to improve
human rights in the months leading up to the games and to provide the
news media with greater access to the country. He also described the
protests that have dogged the international Olympics torch relay as a
"crisis" for the organization.
Though Rogge predicted the Games would still be a success, his
comments were a sharp departure from previous statements in which he
avoided any mention of politics. Beijing quickly rejected his remarks
and said they amounted to meddling in its internal affairs.
Meanwhile, pressure increased on world leaders to signal their
opposition to China's policies in Tibet and its close relations with
the government of Sudan by skipping the opening ceremony of the games.
The European Parliament urged leaders of its 27 member nations to
consider a boycott of the ceremony unless China opens a dialogue with
the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet.
In New York, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations
informed China that he would not attend the ceremony, a spokeswoman
said. An official in Ban's office said that he had travel commitments
in Europe and Latin America and that he was already scheduled to be in
China in July, shortly before the games.
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China's human rights policies and the Olympics have become a
contentious issue in the race for president in the United States,
where the three remaining candidates from both parties have called on
President George W. Bush, who has plans to attend the Olympics, to
skip the opening event.
Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, said he would
not attend the opening ceremony if he were president, echoing a
similar statement by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton earlier this week.
Senator Barack Obama suggested that Bush should wait to make a final
decision, but leave a boycott "firmly on the table."
Preparation for the games were rocked last month when Tibetans staged
violent protests against Chinese rule and security forces cracked down
on monks and other sup****ters of the exiled Dalai Lama in parts of
Western China. The clashes set off sympathy protests and calls around
the world for the boycott. Demonstrators turned the 21-city torch
relay into a public relations fiasco for Beijing and the Olympic
committee.
The Dalai Lama, in Japan on Thursday, told re****ters no one should try
to silence the demonstrators protesting Chinese rule in Tibet, and he
said, "We are not anti-Chinese." He added, "Right from the beginning,
we sup****ted the Olympic Games."
Top officials in China have claimed that the Tibetan protests and the
international protests are part of a plot to disrupt the Olympics
orchestrated by the Dalai Lama, who lives in India. They have called
him a splittist and a terrorist whose goal is to separate Tibet from
China.
On Thursday, officials also said that they had uncovered a plot by
Islamic terrorists in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region to disrupt
the games by kidnapping foreign journalists, athletes and spectators.
The police said they arrested 35 people and confiscated explosives and
detonators belonging to a Uighur jihadist group based in Urumqi, the
capital of Xinjiang. In the past, officials have announced the
discovery of such plots without providing much evidence. Last month,
they claimed to have foiled a plan to hijack an airplane and blow up a
bus.
While China has faced violent attacks from Muslim groups, unflinching
social controls have prevented the emergence of a sustained terrorist
threat in the country. Some analysts have suggested that widely
publicized discoveries of weapons caches and terrorist plots are part
of a larger effort to present domestic unrest as a form of
international terrorism that the world should help China suppress.
Speaking before a two-day meeting of the Olympic committee's executive
board in Beijing, Rogge condemned protesters who have hounded torch
bearers in several countries. He said that skirmishes during torch
processions in Athens, London, Paris and San Francisco amounted to a
crisis, but insisted that they would not derail the six-continent
pageant leading up to the games.
"There is no scenario of interrupting or bringing the torch back to
Beijing," he said.
Even so, he also called on China to honor its pledges to improve human
rights and to give foreign journalists unfettered access to all parts
of the country.
"We will do our best to have this be realized," he said of a recent
Chinese regulation that guarantees re****ters the right to travel to
all parts of the country, including Tibet.
Rogge said he met with Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China for an hour
on Wednesday, but he would not reveal details of their conversation.
Rogge has long avoided criticizing China, saying that pressing the
government on Tibet and other issues was likely to backfire.
"China will close itself off from the rest of the world, which, don't
forget, it has done for some 2,000 years," he said, somewhat
exaggerating history, in an interview broadcast Wednesday in his
native Belgium.
The Chinese government reacted sharply to Rogge's criticism. "I
believe IOC officials sup****t the Beijing Olympics and adherence to
the Olympic charter of not bringing in any irrelevant political
factors," said Jiang Yu, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman.
Olympic committee members have been taken aback by the scope and
ferocity of the protests, which are marring what has traditionally
been a festive event involving 20,000 torch bearers. Although the
protests in San Francisco were not as disruptive as in London and
Paris, the torch's sole North American visit was a disappointment to
thousands of spectators after the relay route was changed at the last
minute.
The committee members who gathered at a hotel in central Beijing
offered harsh words for demonstrators who used the relay to publicize
issues ranging from Tibetan religious freedom to environmental
concerns. Gunilla Lindberg, a vice president of the committee, likened
some of the more aggressive protesters to terrorists and said they had
emboldened committee members to keep the relay going.
"We will never give into violence," Lindberg said. "These are not the
friendly demonstrators for a free Tibet, but professional
demonstrators, the ones who show up at G-8 conferences to be seen and
fight."
Denis Oswald, a committee member from Switzerland, said those who
thought that interrupting the torch relay or the Games would push
China to improve its human rights record were wrongheaded and na=EFve.
He noted that it took Europe several centuries to become truly
democratic and said that it was unwise to expect China to do the same
in a few years.
"We have to give them time, and as long as they're moving in the right
direction we should be patient," he said. He added that those who
disrupt the relay "do not respect the freedom of people who want to
enjoy it."
In announcing the disruption of what they described as a pair of
terrorist plots, Chinese officials from the Ministry of Public
Security said they had arrested leaders of the East Turkestan Islamic
Movement.
The authorities said they had seized 19 explosive devices, four
kilograms of explosive material, seven detonators, and "nine kinds of
raw materials to be used for waging a holy war." They said the group's
leader had urged his fellow plotters to use "poisonous meat,"
"poisonous gas" and remote-controlled explosives.
Giselle Davies, a spokeswoman for the International Olympic Committee,
said that the group was unaware of the plot and that it had learned
about the arrests only from Chinese television. Still, she said the
committee had full confidence that the police would guarantee security
at the games. "We trust very much the authorities will handle that
with the right approach," she said.
Despite the chaos along the torch relay route, Rogge said he expected
the Olympics to proceed without a hitch. He cited the murder of 11
Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972 and boycotts in 1976, 1980 and 1984
as far more disruptive and said he hoped the public would soon focus
on the essence of the Olympics: athletic competition and world unity.
"It is a crisis, there is no doubt about that, but the IOC has
weathered many bigger storms," he said.
Asked if he had any regrets about awarding the games to Beijing, Rogge
remarked that the country's bid was not only the best among competing
nations, but that he thought it was especially compelling to hold the
games in a country with a fifth of the world's population. "It is very
easy with hindsight to criticize the decision," he said. "It's easy to
say now that this was not a wise and sound decision."
Warren Hoge and Sarah Wheaton contributed re****ting from New York.
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