Blood on the IOC’s hands

The Chinese government has shown just how callous it is, announcing that the Olympic torch will go through Tibet despite the bloody crackdown it is carrying out there.  What a perfect example of how Beijing cares more about its image than human life.

Despite violent protests in Tibet, China remains steadfast in its plan to take the Olympic torch to Tibet and Mount Everest, Beijing Olympics organizing committee officials said Wednesday.

The torch … will reach the top of Mount Everest sometime in May…. Afterward, that Olympic flame, one of two that will be in China at that time, will stop in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, the site of deadly riots last week and a continuing Chinese crackdown. [...]

“Those events will never affect the normal operation of the torch relay in China,” Jiang said.

Sending the Olympic torch through Lhasa and up Mt. Everest is intended by Beijing to be an assertion of its territorial claims over Tibet.  To Tibetans, it is a further provocation by a foreign power that has been occupying their country for the past five decades. 

Given all the protests going on in Tibet, how could there not be more protests when the torch is provocatively brought through Tibet?  And of course the Chinese forces will react with brutality (which Comrade Jiang refers to disdainfully as “those events”)? 

With this latest provocation to the long-suffering Tibetans, the inevitable blood will surely be on Beijing’s hands, but just as surely the blood will be on the hands of the amoral IOC, which could stop this travesty but chooses to remain silent.

Bodies of protesters killed by police placed in front of Kirti Monastery following demonstrations that have reported at least 10 dead after police opened fire.



One Responseto “Blood on the IOC’s hands”

1. matapita says:

   March 22, 2008 at 9:49 am

   URGENT CALL TO ALL OLYMPIC COMPETITORS:

   I would request that all Olympic athletes rapidly develop and make use of networks of communication to pass the word: Make a personal choice to not participate in the Beijing Olympics.

   If nobody goes, all the glamor, all the glory for the hideously abusive government in China will evaporate. Attention will be drawn dramatically to the Tibet issue. This personal, grassroots boycott will cost nothing, involve no violence, and leave all the governments and corporations wondering at the power and integrity of the statemant this group of young participants from aroung the world is making! Please consider.