Olympic Torch Leaves China After Tightly Controlled Ceremony
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Beijing Olympic Torch Will Attempt To Reach
Mt. Everest's Summit Sometime In May |
After a "tightly scripted celebration" in Tiananmen Square yesterday to launch the Olympic torch relay, Beijing Olympics PR adviser Jeff Ruffalo said that the Olympic flame is being "split into two torches," one of which will be flown today to Almaty, Kazakhstan, and one which will be flown to Lhasa and transferred to a base camp below Mount Everest, according to Jim Yardley of the N.Y. TIMES. Security and secrecy for yesterday's launch "were high," and foreign journalists originally were "told the ceremony would begin at noon only to learn that the time had been moved up." For days, "few details were provided" about the flame's arrival in Beijing from Athens or its route to Tiananmen. Police officers at the launch ceremony were "posted throughout the square," and nearby subway stations were closed and traffic was blocked. The audience was "limited to 5,000 invited guests, performers and journalists," and none of the speakers "mentioned the Tibetan situation" (N.Y. TIMES, 4/1). In DC, Maureen Fan reports authorities at the event were "determined to head off protests," and as a result the ceremony was "at once celebratory and tightly controlled." The torch, after its arrival in China, immediately was "placed inside a special van, which traveled in a six-car convoy and along a top-secret route to Tiananmen Square." While in '01 "throngs of ecstatic Chinese filled" the square to celebrate Beijing's winning bid, yesterday "vast expanses of the square were empty, closed to the public for security reasons." Many of the 5,000 invited guests, including 220 foreign journalists, arrived two hours early "for security checks" (WASHINGTON POST, 4/1). The AP's Stephen Wade reported the ceremony, broadcast on China state television, was "filled with political jargon, multicolored balloons and confetti." The launch was "meant to display a confident China ready to use the Olympics to show off its growing economic and political clout." Hundreds of seats were "vacant, save for dozens of plainclothes security agents in black jackets." BOCOG President Liu Qi in his speech "repeated that the games will be 'green Olympics, high-tech Olympics and the people's Olympics.'" Wade noted IOC President Jacques Rogge did not attend the ceremony, and IOC Coordination Commission Chair Hein Verbruggen delivered Rogge's speech, making "no mention of potential problems" (AP, 3/31). The WALL STREET JOURNAL's Mei Fong reports supporters in and out of China over the past week have been "posting blog entries supporting the Olympics" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 4/1).
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Tibet Protestors Likely To Target Torch
Stops In London, Paris And S.F. |
PROTESTS TO CONTINUE: The AP's Wade reports "demonstrations are expected as the torch goes to London, Paris and San Francisco." Stops in Kazakhstan and Turkey this week "could be flash points," as they are home to large Muslim populations "who may identify with China's Muslim Uighur minority." Large protests are "expected at the next three stops -- London, Paris and San Francisco -- with Tibetan and rights groups promising demonstrations" (AP, 3/31).
CALL FOR BOYCOTT: U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), appeared on ABC’s “GMA” today and expressed her belief that President Bush should consider boycotting the Opening Ceremony. Pelosi: “I don’t think China should have received the Olympic Games to begin with, but they did get them with the promise that they would open up more and have better respect for human rights and freedom of expression. They have not honored that promise" (“GMA,” ABC, 4/1). The White House has said that Bush "would not boycott the Beijing Olympics ... because of the crackdown, arguing that the games are an event that are supposed to be about the athletes, not politics" (AP, 3/31).
EVICTIONS: Meanwhile, ABC's Stephanie Sy reports as China "undergoes an unprecedented transformation to prepare for the Olympic Games," a Geneva-based housing rights group said winning the Olympic bid "has more than doubled the pace of evictions, which are sometimes enforced with intimidation." It is "estimated that 13,000 people are being evicted in Beijing each month to make way for Olympic development, 1.5 million by the time the Games begin in August. Beijing claims only 6,000 households have been moved to make room for Olympic venues" ("World News," ABC, 4/1).
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