Shame! Shame! Shame on China! Shame on China's political Olympic! --
With Olympic torch (briefly) in Tibet, China assails Dalai Lama / IHT

International Herald Tribune

With Olympic torch (briefly) in Tibet, China assails Dalai Lama

By Jim Yardley
Sunday, June 22, 2008

BEIJING: The visit of the Olympic torch to the Tibetan capital of Lhasa
came and went in about two hours on Saturday. Leaders of the ruling
Communist Party probably exhaled once the flame was trundled onto an
airplane without incident and flown out of a city that only three months
ago had erupted in violent anti-Chinese protests.

But if Chinese leaders were anxious to avoid protests, they did not
avoid using the torch relay as a stage to again lash out at the Dalai
Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.

Zhang Qingli, the Communist Party secretary of Tibet, stood beneath the
Potala Palace, the historic seat of the Dalai Lama, and bade farewell to
the flame with a speech that at times was itself fiery. "Tibet's sky
will never change, and the red flag with five stars will forever flutter
high above it," Zhang said, according to Reuters. "We will certainly be
able to totally smash the splittist schemes of the Dalai Lama clique."

The broadside against the Dalai Lama punctuated an abbreviated torch
relay in Lhasa that was partially broadcast on state television and that
quickly brought criticism from pro-Tibetan groups outside China. For
months, they have demanded in vain that China not take the torch through
Lhasa.

"The torch relay in Lhasa is China's latest episode in a series of
betrayals of everything the Olympics represent," Kate Woznow, campaign
director of Students for a Free Tibet, said in a statement.

"Parading the torch through Lhasa while Tibetans live under virtual
martial law is China's most egregious exploitation of the Games yet."

The Tibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan areas of western China
have been under a security crackdown since March, when violent protests
broke out in Lhasa and spread. China has accused the Dalai Lama of
masterminding the uprising, a charge he denies. Last week, he called on
Tibetans not to protest when the torch passed through Lhasa.

Only a few months ago, the controversy in Tibet appeared likely to cast
a pall over the Summer Olympics in Beijing. China had designed the
global torch relay as the longest and grandest ever. But it had become
the occasion for large protests in London, Paris, San Francisco and
elsewhere, as pro-Tibet advocates clashed with China supporters.

Talk of boycotting the opening ceremony of the Games spread through
European capitals.

But the political climate shifted after the earthquake in Sichuan
Province on May 12 brought an outpouring of international sympathy and
also softened the nationalist anger that had swelled in China over
Tibet. As a political issue, Tibet largely disappeared.

Representatives of the Dalai Lama and Chinese officials met, with little
sign of progress. The controversy over the torch relay quieted when the
flame entered the Chinese mainland, where it was greeted by enthusiastic
crowds and where the authorities could prevent any protests.

Organizers also decided to scale down the relay after the earthquake and
trimmed its route through Tibet from three days to one.

The authorities were clearly worried about security and the possibility
of demonstrations. Before the flame was brought to Lhasa, organizers had
routed it through Xinjiang, the restive Muslim-dominated region in the
country's far northwest. The police told residents in Xinjiang to stay
indoors and watch the torch relay on television.

The authorities also tightened access by the foreign news media to the
relay. Beijing organizers allowed only groups of selected journalists to
attend the relays in Xinjiang and Tibet, despite earlier promises to
permit uninhibited coverage. The New York Times applied to cover the
Tibet portion of the relay but was not invited.

Chris Buckley, a correspondent at the scene for Reuters, said the
journalists taken to Tibet were allowed to watch the start of the relay
at 9 a.m., then were taken to the Potala Palace to await its end. He
said more than 150 torchbearers were set to carry the flame on a route
of about eight kilometers, or five miles.

Paramilitary officers with the People's Armed Police as well as the
local police were stationed every 10 feet on the relay route, Buckley
said. Crowds also appeared to be screened; many people were from
government agencies, universities or schools. Shops on the route were
closed for a procession expected to last three hours.

"It didn't even muster three hours," Buckley said by phone. "It was a
little over two."

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