BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- Argentina is billing Friday's Olympic
torch run as an easygoing street fiesta launched by a tango orchestra.
But officials are worried enough about anti-China protests to mobilize
thousands of police after protesters warned of a Buenos Aires
"surprise."
The Olympic torch dodged China foes in Europe and played hide-and-seek
with crowds in San Francisco. Now the flame is making its only Latin
American stop on a five-continent tour amid cloak-and-dagger secrecy
after recent turmoil.
Handlers let no one publicly view the arrival of the flame in Buenos
Aires, on its latest leg en route to Beijing. The lantern bearing the
flame departed San Francisco and arrived at its second and final
stopover in the Americas late Thursday on its 84,000-mile journey.
The torch was met by major demonstrations in San Francisco, London and
Paris this week on its relay around the world. Thousands of protesters
angry at China's human rights record, its harsh rule in Tibet and its
friendly ties with Sudan scuffled with police and attempted to block
the torch's passage.
Taken to its hideaway after the long flight from San Francisco, the
flame is to emerge Friday afternoon for a nearly three-hour crossing
of 8 1/2 miles of streets. Among 80 invited torchbearers, soccer great
Diego Maradona remained in doubt, but former tennis star Gabriela
Sabatini confirmed she'll be the last runner.
Asked where the torch was being sheltered overnight, local security
officials said even they did not know.
"That's a state secret," quipped a city s****ts organizer, Francisco
Irarrazabal, one of the few to briefly glimpse the flame on the
air****t runway.
Turning more serious, he said security concerns were so tight after
Paris and San Francisco that the Chinese delegation had requested that
a planned photo op****tunity on the air****t tarmac with news agency
photographers be hastily scrapped.
Meanwhile, Liu Qi, head of the Beijing organizing committee, met
Friday with senior International Olympics Committee officials and
tried to reassure them of further security steps in the wake of the
protest-filled relays in San Francisco, Paris and London.
The organizing committee "today did underline to us that they have
taken steps to make sure any risk, if there is any, is mitigated and
we're very confident and comfortable with that," IOC spokeswoman
Giselle Davies said.
Organizers in Argentina bravely boast of hopes of holding a warm South
American-styled street fiesta. But the weather could bedevil the
flame: forecasts call for plunging temperatures and afternoon rain
storms in the early southern hemisphere autumn. Organizers assured
that the aluminum torch, fired by propane, wouldn't go out in a storm
-- but could be put on a bus in event of heavy rain.
Buenos Aires organizers are anxious to show a brighter face than the
city did during ugly 2002 street riots that marked a chaotic descent
into a huge debt default of a past economic meltdown. Mayor Mauricio
Macri urged protesters to stay away and not make "politics" of a
s****ting relay.
Authorities are deploying 1,300 federal police, 1,500 naval police and
some 3,000 traffic police and volunteers -- enough to ensure security
"without going to the extreme that nobody will be able to see the
torch," Irarrazabal said.
Activists were already preparing protests. One, Jorge Carcavallo,
unfurled a giant banner along the torch route reading "Free Tibet."
Falun Gong member Axel Borgia said the spiritual movement banned by
China would protest as well, but he wouldn't give details. "The
Olympic Games and crimes against humanity cannot coexist in China,"
Borgia said.
Surprisingly, the torch relay has generated little of the attention
garnered on other stops. Flame-snuffing incidents in Paris and
protesters by climbers on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco were
buried deep inside most newspapers.
One capital shopkeeper, Thomas Briega, said he was paying attention to
the relay and hoped the torch would get through Buenos Aires unscathed
after the chaos elsewhere.
"I hope to God nothing bad happens," he said.
Also on Friday, the chairman of Japan's National Public Safety
Commission said Japan will not accept Chinese security guards when the
city of Nagano hosts the torch relay on April 26.
"We should not violate the principle that Japanese police will
maintain security," ****nya Izumi said at a press conference. "I do not
accept the idea that they will run in Japan as they did in other
countries."
The Chinese runners, who wear bright blue tracksuits, ran to protect
the torch in London and Paris, where chaotic torch protests
interrupted the relay. Beijing has said only that the unit's mission
was to guard the flame.
Members of the unit were picked from special police units of the
People's Armed Police, China's internal security force.
In Kenya, Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Maathai said Friday that she
has pulled out of the torch relay's Tanzania leg.
"From the very beginning I thought the torch will be a symbol of
unity, peace and harmony, but as it moved around the world it has
become a symbol of disunity. Then I decided to pull out completely,"
Maathai, an environmentalist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004,
told The Associated Press on Friday.
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