Panda payments 'to fund Tibet violence'
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23666131-23109,00.html
TOKYO'S zoo has been flooded with calls to refuse a pair of pandas
offered by Chinese President Hu Jintao, fearing that the money from
the lease would fund Beijing's clampdown in Tibet, officials have
said.
Mr Hu, paying a rare fence-mending visit to Japan, offered to lease a
male and a female panda to replace one of the best-loved animals at
Tokyo's Ueno Zoo, Ling Ling, who died last week.
Although the fee is undecided, the going rate is $US1 million ($1.06
million) a year for a Japanese zoo to rent a panda, Tokyo metropolitan
official Kazuomi Ni****kiori said.
Chinese and Japanese officials will hold talks next week about the
proposed deal for Ueno Zoo, which is run by Tokyo's local government,
he said.
Tokyo's Governor ****ntaro I****hara, an outspoken critic of China, has
called on the zoo to study carefully whether bringing pandas would
make financial sense by drawing more visitors.
"They are not divine. I don't care if they're there (at the zoo) or
not," Mr I****hara said before Mr Hu's visit.
Ueno Zoo and the Tokyo government have received scores of calls about
the panda deal, which were overwhelmingly against it, officials said.
Opponents also put up posters on walls at the zoo.
"We have received many calls from ordinary citizens who sometimes
hysterically condemn" the proposal, said Hidemasa Hori, an Ueno Zoo
official.
"There are others who call and say that Japan doesn't need to bow its
head and pay money just to rent the pandas," he said.
Many callers cited China's crackdown on protests in Tibet, saying that
the issue "is not really the rental fee per se, but more that Japan is
supplying Beijing with money".
However, Mr Hori said that the money to rent pandas would go to a fund
that helps preserve the natural habitat of the popular but endangered
animals in southern China.
He also expected that the growing controversy at the zoo will
"inevitably increase the flow of visitors, who will be driven by
curiosity".
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) earlier this week
appealed to Japan not to accept the pandas, saying they would be
miserable in confinement.
"Pandas are an endangered species, not a commodity to be traded for
human amusement," the US-based group said in a letter.
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