Tibet, China and the Olympics

The Chinese Communists (hey, that's what they call themselves, and who am I to argue, but they're more appropriately called totalitarian thugs) have a full plate to deal with right now.

Tibetans are rioting against the jack booted dominion the Chinese government in Beijing has imposed on them for decades. More than 100 people have been killed in the rioting, and it's showing signs of spreading.

The government has released photos of those wanted in connection with the rioting, and human rights groups are right to warn of mass arrests and still more human rights abuses. The government claims that only a handful of people have been killed, but the Tibetans say at least 99 have been killed by the Chinese forces.

After days of official statements that no lethal force had been used to quash the unrest, which has left an unknown number dead, state news agency Xinhua reported yesterday that four people had been shot and wounded.

It said police shot the four in southwestern Sichuan province in "self-defence". Pro-Tibet groups poured scorn on the report.

"At this point any statement the Chinese government puts out has virtually no credibility," said Lhadon Tethong from Students for a Free Tibet, based in Dharamshala, India.

"We are seeing photographs, we have friends who have lost relatives. We categorically reject any of the (official Chinese) information."

China said early today that 18 "innocent" civilians and one police officer were killed in the rioting in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, raising its official death toll from 13. The victims, it said previously, were killed by Tibetan "mobs".

But the Tibetan exile government of the Dalai Lama based in Dharamshala said it had confirmed 99 people were killed in the Chinese crackdown.

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), stopped short of calling for a boycott of China over the ongoing rioting in Tibet and the ongoing suppression of human rights.

She did not call for an Olympic boycott, which the Dalai Lama has also opposed, but appeared to open the door to one if China maintained its crackdown in Tibet. She said the "world is watching" events there, and called for an international investigation into the violence, and access to the region for journalists and international human rights monitors.

Pelosi said it was incumbent on "freedom-loving people throughout the world" to speak out against China's "oppression". If they did not, "we have lost all moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world".

There is no appetite among governments for an Olympic boycott. All have too much to lose by alienating the burgeoning superpower. But the news and images filtering through the razor wire around Tibet are making many western capitals uneasy, particularly those that promised to build foreign policies on human rights.

It's interesting that everyone is willing to look the other way when you've got a big bully who's doing all manner of unspeakable acts depriving everyone under their control of human rights. At what point does such actions become intolerable and demand action, even the limited act of boycotting a sporting event? How many people have to die?

Still, for Pelosi to come out and say what she did is a black eye that the Chinese can ill afford. They're already dealing with the very strong possibility that the air quality in Beijing during the Olympics will be so bad that some top athletes might stay away because of health concerns.

And now comes word that the government might prevent anyone from broadcasting from Tienanmen Square, site of the bloody crackdown by the government against pro Democracy students in 1989, which saw incredible bravery in the face of insurmountable force. The Chinese government doesn't like that footage shown, but to remind you of what I'm talking about, here's the photo:



And here's the video showing this same man holding up an entire column of tanks with his simple act of refusing to back down.