Beijing Wide Open

Tonight we decided to pay a surprise visit to IOC President Jacques Rogge. We arrived at his hotel, but missed him by seconds as he breezed in with his bodyguards and walked straight into the elevator. I tried to get him on the phone — with no luck of course. I did manage to speak to Paul Foster (IOC “Head of Protocol Events and Hospitality”) who insisted that I go through Robert Roxborough, the Communications Coordinator I had originally spoken with from Tiananmen Square, to get an appointment with Rogge. I told him I’d been waiting for Robert to call me back, and said that I would wait in the hotel lobby for a while.

Soon after talking to the hotel’s General Manager — whom I approached after we found him peering nervously at us from across the lobby — Robert showed up in the lobby. He’s a polite young Scottish guy who came to deliver the message that Jacque’s schedule is too tight to fit in a meeting with me. I told him that this was an opportunity for the IOC to address the issue of human rights one year before the Games, especially as many people are upset with comments made in Guatemala by IOC Coordination Commissioner Hein Verbruggen. Robert listened politely as I described the situation in Tibet and expressed our outrage at the fact that China is using the Games to legitimize its rule in Tibet. Finally, I asked him to take a message back to Rogge asking him to reconsider my request for a meeting. I said I would come to the hotel in the morning and wait for an answer. Robert didn’t seem too keen on that, but he said he’d let me know tomorrow. So that’s where we stand now.

All in all it was another bizarre but productive day in China’s pollution-choked capital. It felt good to stand in Tiananmen Square and speak confidently in front of Mao’s portrait. In the evening, it was surprising to find so little security at Rogge’s hotel. At the end of the long day, it was strangely comforting to return to our hotel and find no less than five plain-clothed security agents waiting for us in the lobby.

Let’s see what tomorrow brings…

We just got back from Tiananmen Square where there is a massive stage being built for the one-year countdown on the 8th. Senior IOC officials have invited over 200 National Olympic Committees to Beijing to attend this event which will start at 7pm and be attended by 10,000 people.

While in the Square I called Robert Roxborough, the IOC Communications Coordinator, to ask for a meeting with IOC President Jacques Rogge. Roxborough had just arrived in Beijing and said that he hadn’t had a chance to figure out the schedule yet. I explained that I had written an open letter to IOC President Jacque Rogge and wanted to meet with Rogge to discuss how China is using the Olympics to legitimize their rule in Tibet.

Roxborough took my name and numbers and said that he’d call me back.
So now I am waiting. And if you read this Robert - I trust that you will call me back soon.

Mr. Jacques Rogge
President, International Olympic Committee

Dear Mr. Rogge,

My name is Lhadon Tethong. I am the Executive Director of Students for a Free Tibet, a worldwide organization of Tibetans and their supporters. I am here in Beijing and would like to meet with you to discuss the ways that the Chinese government is attempting to use the glow of the Olympics to blind the world to its violent oppression and occupation of my homeland.

On July 13, 2001, the day that Beijing was awarded the honor of hosting the 2008 Olympic Games, the then International Olympic Committee Executive Director Francois Carrard said, “Bet on the fact…that the situation will be improved. We are taking the bet that seven years from now we will see many changes.”

You stated yourself in a 2002 BBC interview that the IOC was “convinced that the Olympic Games will improve human rights in China.” But according to a report released by Human Rights Watch last week, “the Chinese government shows no substantive progress in addressing long-standing human rights concerns.”

Not only has the IOC failed to secure improvements in human rights in China but it has abetted suppression of dissent by Chinese authorities. At an IOC meeting in Guatemala last month, Hein Verbruggen, the IOC’s chairman of the 2008 Olympics co-ordination committee, said, “The way in which the Games are being used as a platform for groups with political and social agendas is regrettable.” Such statements only embolden a
notoriously repressive Chinese regime, further endangering those inside China and Tibet who advocate for freedom and human rights at tremendous risk already.

With the Games just a year away, the Chinese government has not only shown no commitment to ceasing its systemic violations of fundamental human rights, it has used the Olympics to promote a false image of progress on a number of fronts where it has in fact regressed. Just last week in eastern Tibet, hundreds of Tibetans were rounded up after a peaceful protest calling for the return of the Dalai Lama. Crackdowns like this are commonplace.

Most disturbing to Tibetans and their supporters worldwide is the way that the Chinese government has made Tibet a central theme in its Olympics-related public relations blitz, in an attempt to legitimize its brutal occupation of Tibet once and for all. Having traveled around Beijing and seen the Olympics propagada firsthand, it is obvious that China is politicizing these Games and yet the IOC has remained silent, enabling the Chinese authorities to continue its oppression of my homeland while wrapping themselves in Olympic colors.

We demand that the Chinese government not pass the Olympic torch over Tibetan soil, and that the opening and closing ceremonies contain no references to Tibet: its land, its culture or its people. We are calling on the IOC to publicly oppose these propaganda efforts, and use its influence to affect substantive progress on human rights in China and a meaningful resolution to the occupation of Tibet.

Mr. Rogge, you must do something. Without public censure from the IOC in the coming months, the Chinese government will continue to abuse human rights in Tibet and China, and will only be emboldened to brutally silence peaceful opposition during the Games themselves.

It is in your own interest to take measures now and use your influence while you have it. Otherwise, the IOC will only have itself to blame when the Beijing Games become synonymous with human rights abuses and crackdown on dissent as we are already seeing in the lead up to the one-year countdown.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,
Lhadon Tethong

Cc: Hein Verbruggen, Chairman, IOC’s 2008 Olympics Coordination Committee
Liu Qi, President, Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games

My previous post covered my visit to the Lama Temple. I’ve now got a video posted, so you can experience this “museum” more fully yourself.

You can see this in the middle of this video, but here’s a transcript of what I overheard the tour guide say about the Dalai Lama, and my question to him.

Tour Guide (to group of foreign tourists):
“They are all Buddhas, so they will never die. When their body dies, we will be left another young boy who will be the next Dalai lama. After this Dalia Lama dies, we will have another Dalai Lama. The present Dalai Lama, he is living in India Because in 1950 when this Dalai Lama was young, 30, he wanted to separate Tibet out of China and this kind of behavior makes the official government quite angry. Then he escaped out of Tibet.

Now Dalai Lama is getting old. So of course he is thinking about his next life, the next Dalai Lama. He wants to select his next one. Of course he cannot select where he will live. He knows when he passes, maybe without the permission of central government of China, maybe he cannot get re-life… so this is his problem so he is getting much closer relationship now with Central Government”

Me (Lhadon): so is it that the Dalai Lama needs permission from the central government to be reborn?

Tour Guide: Yes, yes.

Me (Lhadon): But isn’t the Communist party atheist. There is no religion right?

Tour Guide: Its not a problem with religion. Dalai Lama still has lots of followers that want separate for Tibet. But Dalai Lama himself and Tibetan people want Dalai Lama to be back because he is from Tibet.

Paul and I visited the “Lama Temple” today, a Tibetan Buddhist temple and monastery right in the heart of Beijing. Strange, right? Well it has a long history going back to the Qing dynasty, when some Manchu emperors became spiritual students of the Dalai Lamas. It was shuttered for many years after the Communists came to power (reopened in 1980), and supposedly saved from destruction during the Cultural Revolution only by the intervention of Zhou Enlai himself.

It’s hard to go to the Lama Temple without thinking of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. We witnessed this firsthand today when we entered one of the first buildings in the temple complex and stumbled upon a group of foreign tourists asking their Chinese guide about the situation concerning the Dalai Lama. The guide hesitated for a second and said, “Oh, there are two great teachers in the Gelugpa tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. One is the Dalai Lama and the other is the Panchen Lama.” But this answer didn’t satisfy the group.

One man clarified the question, “No, what is the problem between the Dalai Lama and China that we hear about?” So the guide, feeling very uncomfortable, went on to say that the Dalai Lama “wanted to separate Tibet out of China and this kind of behavior makes the official government quite angry” and how he now lives in exile in India, adding that “now Dalai Lama is getting old, so of course he is thinking about his next life” but that “without the permission of central government of China, maybe he cannot get re-life.” Uh… okay.

Is there anything more ridiculous than the officially atheist Chinese Communist Party leadership, infamous for denouncing religion as poison, playing a role in choosing the reincarnations of Buddhist teachers?

In 1995 the Chinese authorities intervened in the selection of the 11th Panchen Lama and replaced the 6 year old boy approved by the Dalai Lama with their own candidate. They trot this boy out on national television on certain occasions, while the real Panchen Lama, now 18 years old, remains under house arrest.

And then, a couple of days ago the Chinese government announced new rules that will require official approval for the selection of any reincarnated lama. There was an article in the August 4th Telegraph newspaper (UK): China demands veto on Tibet’s ‘living buddhas’.

Richard Spencer writes: “In a striking display of Beijing’s determination to tighten control over Tibet, a 14-chapter notice published by the state religious affairs bureau set out “approval procedures” for new living buddhas and said monasteries that did not follow them would be punished.”

So this is the improved human rights situation that the 2008 Olympics is helping to bring to China and Tibet? Just one year before the Games begin, the Chinese leadership is cracking down in Tibet, all the while proclaiming that China shares “One World One Dream” with the rest of us.

From inside the belly of the beast we demand a free and independent Tibet. For Ronggay A’drak, the Tibetan nomad from Lithang, who was arrested for leading a protest during the recent Lithang Horse Festival in eastern Tibet. For Tenzin Delek Rinpoche who is serving a life sentence for being nothing but a champion of Tibetan rights. For the Panchen Lama who has lived most of his life under house arrest. For the 14 Tibetans on hunger strike in New Delhi. For all Tibetans living under occupation or in exile, separated from their loved ones and condemned to wander as strangers in foreign lands. And finally, for future generations of Tibetan children who must know what it is like to live in freedom in their own nation.

Bhoe Rangzen.

“Maybe the sun will shine today
and the clouds will blow away”

We’re sitting here listening to this song from the new Wilco album, “Sky Blue Sky” and guessing that we probably won’t see the blue sky today. We didn’t see it yesterday either. Maybe tomorrow?

Yesterday I wrote about my experience visiting the racist theme park outside of Beijing. Today, I’ve posted a slideshow of photos taken during our visit.

I hope these images will help communicate the source of the deep, disturbed feelings I was trying to share with you through my written words. Remember, this is all a fake recreation of a culture that China has been trying to destroy for the last fifty years.

Click the “read more” link to view the photos… » Read the rest of this entry «

Here’s a short video I shot at the Bird’s Nest which I’ve just been able to upload now. Not sure if it will translate, but the scale of the construction is immense.

Please read my earlier post on my visit to this future site of the 2008 Olympics.

A little while ago, I wrote about the rage I felt at visiting the “Ethnic Minorities” Park right across from the Olympic Village. What I saw there is really at the core of why I’m here in Beijing right now.

Seeing the singing, dancing Tibetans at the park reminded me of the Tibetans highlighted at the closing ceremonies of the Athens Games in 2004, when China briefly had the stage to showcase the next Summer Games. I was in New York with some fellow SFT activists and friends and I watched in horror – I can’t call it disbelief because it was so predictable – and tried to imagine what we would see in 2008. What sort of Tibetan song-and-dance routine would be at the center of the Beijing opening ceremonies? And then, oh God, when Steven Spielberg signed on as an “artistic advisor” to the Games (and was rumored to be “directing” the opening ceremonies), I knew it was bound to be spectacular.

Well, it was first reported about a week and a half ago that Steven Spielberg was considering quitting his post as artistic advisor to the Beijing Olympics, unless China takes a harder line against Sudan. A lot of articles credited his change of heart to an op-ed by actress and activist Mia Farrow in The Wall Street Journal.

It was hard not to wince when I read her question: “Does Mr. Spielberg really want to go down in history as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games?” Ouch. That’s a harsh challenge to a man who has devoted so much time, energy, and money to remembrance of the Holocaust in order to assure such a tragedy will never occur again.

Only days after Mia Farrow’s editorial, Spielberg wrote an open letter to Hu Jintao. “I am writing this letter to you, not as one of the overseas artistic advisors to the Olympic Ceremonies, but as a private citizen who has made a personal commitment to do all I can to oppose genocide. … Accordingly, I add my voice to those who ask that China change its policy toward Sudan and pressure the Sudanese government to accept the entrance of United Nations peacekeepers to protect the victims of genocide in Darfur,” Spielberg wrote.

It’s encouraging to see Mr. Spielberg responding to the horrific situation in Darfur. I wish he would show the same concern for the cultural genocide in Tibet, which is being perpetrated not by militias in Sudan but by his direct Olympic partners in Beijing.

If Mr. Spielberg continues to serve as an artistic advisor to the Games, he will not only be associated with the genocide in Darfur but will be remembered for helping the Chinese regime whitewash its global image and strengthen its bogus claims over Tibet. China’s occupation of Tibet has led to the deaths of an estimated 1.2 million Tibetans, and millions more continue to suffer today under China’s rule. Mr. Spielberg owes it to the people of Tibet, as well as the people of Darfur, to show the moral integrity to quit his role in China’s offensive propaganda efforts around the Beijing Games.

He’s being given every chance to stand on the right side of history. I hope he chooses well.

Beijing’s “National Ethnic Minorities Park” is a sickening place. Located directly across from the Olympic Village site, it’s a patronizing and offensive display of Chinese cultural imperialism and only a fool could be taken in by it. It’s too bad the mistranslated signs (right) that once pointed the way to “Racist Park” have been replaced by its more politically correct version.

Seeing this twisted place firsthand has only stoked my rage and passion to fight until Tibet is free from China’s occupation.

The park showcases what China calls its “56 ethnic minority nationalities” like animals at the zoo. There are different sections dedicated to different “minorities.” Brief descriptions of each species are accompanied by photographs describing their strange habits and unique customs. If the visitor is lucky, he or she will arrive when the animals are dancing and singing and get a close-up look at these weird and wonderful creatures.

Horrified yet?

Thankfully, there were few other visitors there with us today under the thick and smoggy skies (fittingly - the worst we’ve seen yet). Most decent guide books do not recommend this trip. Even if one doesn’t care so much about the peoples on display, the shabby condition of the buildings and the inauthenticity that oozes from every corner and every structure is enough to scare anyone away.

I could not bring myself to go close to the young Tibetan dance troupe that performed there today. I didn’t want to watch or take pictures or look them in the eyes. Although I don’t know their individual stories, I can imagine the roads that brought them to this terrible place.

Paul was really shaken up after his visit into a stone house where he found a young Tibetan girl in a small room with a photo of Mao on the wall. She was answering questions from several Chinese tourists. Paul took out his camera to record the scene. When the tourists left, Paul asked the girl if he could take her photo. He took several and then she started to sing and dance. Suddenly he felt mortified and wanted her to stop, but he didn’t because he felt it was more important to get the footage. So he filmed as long as he could stand it. (footage coming soon)

It is no coincidence that the Tibetan section of the park is located right by the entrance and is visible from the main street. China has placed the battle for Tibet at the center of its Olympics-related public relations campaign. This battle has been ongoing for years now but was intensified in 2000 after a high level government-sponsored meeting put Tibet-related propaganda at the top of the official agenda.

This is an excerpt from the leaked document: “Tibet-related external propaganda and Tibetology work in the new era” June 12, 2000: “External publicity on Tibet is an important element of our country’s external propaganda. It is also a very important element of our struggle against the Dalai clique and hostile western forces. We need to carry out result-oriented and pin-pointed research on Tibet issue. We also need to carry out diligent external propaganda on Tibet. These efforts are related not only to national and nationalities unity, but also to the open-door reform, progress and stability of our country. Therefore, this is the common responsibility of our propaganda department and cultural institutes.”

The Chinese authorities believe that if they show enough happy, singing and dancing Tibetans, then the world will accept their rule over Tibetans as legitimate. And the Olympics provide them the perfect opportunity to showcase this fraud.

The one highlight of the visit was seeing the bridge right by the “Tibetan” section of the park where my good friends Han (from SFT) and Liam (from Australia Tibet Council) staged their banner-hang action in August 2004, on the morning after the Beijing Mayor received the Olympic flag at the close of the Athens Games.

There’s more where that came from!