Paris plunges into chaos during Olympic torch event
　

A FLAME OF SHAME: Pro-Tibet activists confronted the torch procession on a road along the Seine river, forcing organizers to put the torch out and bring it on board a bus

AP AND AFP, PARIS AND BEIJING
Tuesday, Apr 08, 2008, Page 1

Chaotic protests against China’s human rights policies forced security officials to extinguish the Olympic torch twice during a relay yesterday through Paris that became a tortured procession of stops and starts.

Despite huge police security, with 3,000 officers deployed, at least two activists got within little more than an arm’s length of the flame before they were grabbed by police. Officers tackled numerous protesters to the ground and carried some away. They also squirted tear gas to disperse protesters who blocked the route.

Also taken away was a protester who threw water at the torch but failed to extinguish it.

The first time the procession was interrupted, a crowd of activists waving Tibetan flags confronted the torch on a road along the Seine River. The torch was put out and brought on board a bus to continue partway along the route.

Less than an hour later, the flame was being carried out of a Paris traffic tunnel by an athlete in a wheelchair when the procession was halted by activists who booed and chanted “Tibet.” Once again, the torch was temporarily extinguished and put on a bus.

Activists angry about China’s human-rights record and repression of Tibet managed to circumvent officers on motorcycles, in jogging gear and on inline skates. Demonstrators scaled the Eiffel Tower and hung a banner depicting the Olympic rings as handcuffs.

Police said they did not immediately have a count of the number of arrests. Mireille Ferri, a Green Party official, said she was held by police for two hours because she approached the Eiffel Tower area with a fire extinguisher. In various locations throughout the city, protesters carried Tibetan flags and waved signs reading “the flame of shame.” Riot police squirted tear gas to break up a sit-in protest by about 300 pro-Tibet demonstrators who blocked the torch route.

Meanwhile, Beijing yesterday sought to discredit Tibetan exiles’ claims that security forces had killed protesters in recent unrest, saying a list of 40 people supposedly dead was “totally fake.”

State-controlled media referred to a list of 40 victims it said the Tibetan government-in-exile distributed two weeks ago, saying at least one person had been found alive and the identities of 35 others were impossible to confirm.

“The list is totally fake and meant to conceal the violence masterminded by the Dalai clique,” Xinhua news agency quoted Lhasa police as saying of the list.

The report said one of those allegedly killed was found alive while there were no records of four other people listed, it said.

Beijing puts hold on multiple-entry visas

AFP, HONG KONG
Tuesday, Apr 08, 2008, Page 1

China has stopped issuing multiple-entry visas until after the Olympic Games, travel agents said yesterday, raising concerns about the impact that the move would have on firms with business interests on the mainland.

“At the beginning of last week, we were no longer able to get any multiple entry visas for anyone,” said Daryl Bending, from Concorde Travel in Hong Kong.

“The main reason is to do with the Olympics, and we expect that after the Olympics things will return to normality,” he said.

Sunrise International Travel Company, also based in Hong Kong, said on its Web site that it would be unable to get hold of multi-entry visas — that are valid for between six months and three years — until October.

The ban applies to both tourist and business visas, two other Hong Kong-based agents said.

Activists call for release of Chinese dissident Hu Jia

STAFF WRITER, WITH CNA
Tuesday, Apr 08, 2008, Page 2

Human-rights activists yesterday urged Chinese authorities to release jailed dissident Hu Jia (胡佳) and called for condemnation of China’s deteriorating human rights record and a boycott of the Beijing Olympics.

“This Olympics absolutely does not reflect justice or human rights,” said Sun Yu-lien (孫友聯), an executive member of Taiwan International Human Rights Solidarity Center. “We strongly urge leaders of the Chinese government to fulfill the promises that China made in order to win the right to host the Olympic Games — to improve its human rights record.”

Several human-rights activists, including a lawyer, a journalist and a university professor, held a press conference in Taipei to call for China to release the prominent Chinese human rights dissident on bail for medical treatment, based on humanitarian concerns.

Hu, who suffers from cirrhosis of the liver, was last Wednesday sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison and banned from political activism for one year for “inciting subversion of state power” by posting articles on the Internet and giving interviews to foreign journalists.

The 34-year-old activist, one of the most vocal in China, rose to prominence as a campaigner for the rights of AIDS patients.

Amid growing criticism worldwide of China’s crackdown in Tibet, Hu’s case has drawn much international attention, with critics saying that his detention and conviction were part of a campaign to silence dissents ahead of the Beijing Olympics.

Hu’s wife, Zeng Jinyan (曾金燕), who has a newborn baby, has been under house arrest since her husband was arrested last December.

Yang Chunlin (楊春林), another human rights activist, was given a maximum sentence of five years in jail last month on subversion charges after he organized a campaign to collect 40,000 signatures for a petition that stated: “We want human rights, not the Olympics.”

Huang Mou (黃默), director of the Chang Fo-Chuan Center for the Study of Human Rights at Soochow University, said that it is incomprehensible why the Chinese government would expend so much effort on two completely harmless people whose only concerns are the truth and human rights.

“What China did has violated every moral standard,” Huang said. “China cannot expect to be seen as a great civilized country when it is showing disregard for the universal values of freedom of speech and human rights.”

Chow Fu-mei (周富美), an executive member of the Association of Taiwan Journalists, said that Hu Jia’s case is “a trial of the conscience of the 1.3 billion Chinese people.”

“Taiwan will never shrink from any effort to rescue Hu Jia because we believe that justice will be restored if we try hard enough,” she said.

Hsieh vows to fight for democracy
　

PERSEVERING: The DPP chairman said he blamed himself for losing the presidential election and that he felt sad but would keep promoting a Taiwan-centered consciousness
　

By Ko Shu-ling
STAFF REPORTER
Tuesday, Apr 08, 2008, Page 3

“We will continue to protect the democratic values our ancestors fought for with their lives. ”－Frank Hsieh, DPP chairman
　

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) yesterday vowed to continue protecting the values fought for by the nation’s democratic trailblazers, despite the party’s defeat in the presidential election last month.

Attending a ceremony to mark the 19th anniversary of the death of Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕) in Taipei County yesterday morning, Hsieh said Deng carried the message that there was something more important than life itself.

“We will continue to protect the democratic values our ancestors fought for with their lives,” Hsieh said.

Deng set himself on fire on April 7, 1989 as armed police attempted to break into his office following 71 days of self-imposed isolation. Deng had been charged with sedition over the anti-government stance of his magazine after it published a draft “Taiwan Republic Constitution” in 1988.

Hsieh said that Deng did not promote his ideas eloquently, nor was he ostentatious about his love for his country. But he was willing to sacrifice his life for Taiwan.

Hsieh said that Deng sacrificed his life for a value that he firmly believed in and was being trampled on by the ruling authoritarian regime.

Commenting on the party’s election defeat, Hsieh said that he came to yesterday’s memorial event full of shame and regret. He said he blamed himself for losing the contest.

Since the election defeat, Hsieh said many people had shed tears and one man even followed in the footsteps of Deng and killed himself because he was worried about the country’s democratic future.

He said he felt powerless and sad, but he and his party would continue to promote a Taiwan-centered consciousness and democratic values.

“We wish the winner good luck, but we will never forget the promises we made to the people,” he said.

“We will continue to supervise the ruling party and protect the hard-earned democratic values fought for by our ancestors,” Hsieh said.

Meanwhile, Hsieh wished vice president-elect Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) good luck as Siew prepares to attend this year’s Boao Forum in China.

Hsieh yesterday said that he hoped Siew would not let the Taiwanese people down or do anything that would hurt the country’s sovereignty or the Taiwanese people, especially those who did not vote for the KMT.

Others attending yesterday’s event included Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) and Deng’s wife, former Presidential Office secretary-general Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭).

Washington sends mixed signals

Tuesday, Apr 08, 2008, Page 8

Maybe there’s a reason why Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow’s Essence of Decision, a book that looks at the multiple — and often conflicting — levels involved in government decision-making, remains a classic of political science writing.

Again last week, Washington demonstrated that the manner in which governments formulate policy is anything but rational, and seldom the result of a decision by a single actor. On the Gordian knot that is the Taiwan Strait, Washington has long been of two voices — the Pentagon’s and the State Department’s. While the former emphasizes arming Taiwan in a balance-of-power struggle with China, the latter strives for better relations with Beijing, often to the detriment of Taipei, democracy and human rights in general.

What happens when two such lines of direction clash is mixed signals, which is what we were served last week in a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report on the impact of last month’s election.

In the past 30 years or so, regardless of which voice was loudest, the US was seen as seeking to achieve or facilitate a peaceful resolution in the Strait, and both sides — the Pentagon and the State Department — generally stuck to that premise. So committed were they to peace, in fact, that on numerous occasions since the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) came to power in 2000, the White House and the State Department would berate it, or its “troublemaking” president, for endangering the peace or “straining” relations with Beijing.

From their perspective, it seemed that President Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) “antics” were the main reason why we couldn’t start untying the knot. Everything Chen did, from the UN referendums to the WHO bids and his trips abroad, was painted as causing trouble, and the White House and the State Department would often act in a manner that undermined his efforts and was favorable to Beijing.

Underlining all this was the premise, from the Pentagon’s perspective, that the US, busy as it is fighting its “war” on terror, could ill afford to see the situation in the Strait deteriorate to such a degree that its forces might be called upon to intervene.

One should not be surprised, then, if in the past year or so, this resulted in a sometimes overt, sometimes underhanded, support for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) president-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who was seen as key to diminishing tensions in the Strait. While it would be unfair, given the wide margin of victory, to blame the State Department for the DPP’s loss in the election, it remains that eight years of heavy criticism cannot have helped its candidate’s cause. When Ma won, we could almost hear the sigh of relief blowing across the Pacific. At last, friendlier ties in the Strait, a chance for peace.

The festive mood lasted a week or so, whereupon other voices in Washington began to resonate. It now seemed that Taiwan may perhaps be growing too close to China, which, as the CRS report stated, could threaten US interests in the region and have a negative impact on weapons sales to Taiwan. All of a sudden, peace no longer seemed to be such a good thing.

What this all means is that rather than speaking in a single voice, governments (at least democratic ones) have at their core conflicts of interest and Washington’s wavering over the past eight years was an expression of that reality. It may very well be that in the next weeks and months, the voices clamoring for not-so-friendly ties in the Taiwan Strait will be in the ascendance.

Should this be the case, Ma may have more in common with Chen than he’d care to admit.

One Party, No Freedom

Tuesday, Apr 08, 2008, Page 8

The official Olympic slogan may be “one world, one dream,” but China is showing each day that it and the world have vastly different views of just what that means — like the “one China” policy.

What has emerged since the unrest in Tibet overflowed is that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), despite it relentless efforts to portray itself as mature and magnanimous, has instead revealed itself to be the same tyrannical cult that has for 60 years or more oppressed, repressed, suppressed, murdered, re-educated, imprisoned, disestablished, prohibited, filtered, propagandized and the list goes on.

With ever-more strident rhetoric as the Games approach, Beijing has proved once again that in China, under the CCP, no dissent is permitted, not any, none, not even a bit. If the people are not permitted to dissent, or even to discuss dissent, or even to discuss thinking about whether to dissent, the “freedom” Beijing is constantly heralding evaporates, it is nothing more than a canard.

Which brings us to the topic of the “Genocide Olympics,” as they have been aptly called (for Tibet as much as for Darfur), much to Beijing’s chagrin.

Beating the drum loudly on the issue of sport versus politics, Beijing has repeatedly protested that the Olympics are only about sports and should not be politicized. Yet the entire production of the Olympics has been a public relations effort by Beijing to promote itself as the new world power on the block. The games are designed to show the amazing China, the wonderful China, the harmonious China.

But in truth, the CCP, which is only 5 percent of the population and has a ruthless iron grip on the military and government, has for 60 years oppressed the people of China with tyranny, dictatorship, repression and suppression. In some cases, genocide and eugenics have been employed as a means of land acquisition and suppression of dissent.

This is the true face of Beijing and no matter how many protests and how much typical CCP rhetoric about its “stern disapproval” of such unfounded criticism we hear, nothing will change that. In Beijing, oppression is freedom, war is peace and ignorance is strength. In Beijing, one plus one equals three.

Only when Chinese President Hu Jin-tao (胡錦濤), or his successor, or his successor’s successor, look in the mirror and face and address the vital and irreversible fact that China is a communist dictatorship using tyranny and blackmail as its primary tools of government and trade, will the rest of the world be willing to recognize it as a mature member of the international community of nations.

“One world, one dream” coming from Beijing has an ominous sound to it.

“One harmonious world under the heel of the Chinese Communist Party,” no doubt, is the true dream of Beijing.

No thanks.

To China, I say, run the Olympic torch all over the world, but hear the voices of dissent raised against you. Hear the truth. If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.

Lee Long-hwa
New York
　

Ma, before and after

Tuesday, Apr 08, 2008, Page 8

Before the March 22 election, president-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) cherished “Taiwan” like a passport to enter the Presidential Office. With his broken Taiwanese, he succeeded in convincing many Taiwanese to vote for him.

After Ma won the election, unfortunately, he has begun to “expose his horse feet.”

Rightfully, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers have criticized Ma and say he is now treating Taiwan like toilet paper (“Ma is treating ‘Taiwan’ like toilet paper, DPP says,” April 4, page 2).

Before the election, Ma kept saying Taiwan this, Taiwan that and whatever he said was all for “Taiwan.” His campaign slogan was “Taiwan marches forward.” Wisely, he never mentioned a single word of the “Republic of China” or “China” in his campaign speeches.

Ma’s attitude toward Taiwan has reversed. He has practically abandoned the Taiwanese in his speeches. He has begun to talk about the so-called “1991 consensus and one China with respective descriptions,” “acceptance of one nation,” and possible name changes of “Taiwan Postal Service” to “Chinese Postal Service” and “Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall” to “Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall.”

Democracy, rather than dictatorship or individual worship, is the value of Taiwan. The new president should never move backward or “dismantle the bridge after he has crossed the river.”

“When the law meets Ma, it makes a turn” is a popular saying in Taiwan now. In the peoples minds, even if Ma does or says something wrong, he is not guilty before pan-blue judges and acceptable to the pan-blue news media. No one is above the law. This is a golden rule for any administration.

The DPP should be saluted for their sportsmanship after losing both the legislative elections and the presidential election. They have not staged any protests or demonstrations.

Charles Hong
Columbus, Ohio

Tibet: China’s make-believe world
　

Sushil Seth
Tuesday, Apr 08, 2008, Page 8

The amazing thing about the developments in Tibet is that Beijing feels wronged. It feels that the world is ignoring its side of the story.

Beijing claims that the uprising in Tibet is the work of a Dalai Lama “clique” through some kind of “remote control” process.

Indeed, China senses a conspiracy of sorts to derail the Beijing Olympics.

Beijing’s make-believe world is made up of multiple contradictions. They can be simultaneously arrogant, suffer from victimization and have a highly charged sense of moral outrage. All these are in evidence in the Tibetan situation.

The arrogance is seen in the summary dismissal of the Dalai Lama’s plea for dialogue, even when he has repeatedly insisted that he seeks only genuine autonomy for Tibet and not independence.

Beijing keeps on demonizing him. They have almost called him a terrorist. He has been described in the Chinese media as “a wolf in a monk’s robe, a monster with a human face but with the heart of a beast.”

They have ignored his call for an international investigation of his presumed role in the Tibetan unrest.

Indeed, he has earned the ire of his youthful Tibetan followers for advocating autonomy and not independence, counseling non-violence and threatening to resign if things were to get out of control.

Above all, he supports the Beijing Olympics, even in the midst of strong calls for its boycott in some quarters.

At the same time, as Tibet’s leader he has highlighted the cultural genocide being committed in Tibet over the years and the unmitigated disaster caused by Han Chinese migration into his homeland.

Following the process, the Tibetans are now a marginalized people.

China had hoped to solve the Tibetan problem by hiving off parts of the old country and merging them into the neighboring Han provinces, reducing Tibetans to a hopeless minority.

And, in what is now called Tibet, they are in the process of being overwhelmed by the Han Chinese migration.

But it has not worked satisfactorily, considering that even in the neighboring western provinces with residual Tibetan populations, Tibetans have staged strong protests.

The problem is that the Tibetans feel a strong sense of loss and a consequent frustration and anger at the way Beijing has stripped them of their cultural heritage.

The Han Chinese surround them on all sides, flaunting their new money and power. In this new order, the Tibetans increasingly feature as a people of yesterday and their monasteries and temples are the subject of curiosity by visiting Chinese tourists. The Tibetans, therefore, feel homeless in their own country.

In this situation of intense alienation, the Dalai Lama has come to represent everything that they are denied — their country, their culture and traditions, their one reference point for all the loss they feel. Tibetans feel an intense desire to be one with him.

But Beijing’s arrogance not to acknowledge his important role and to demonize him tends to only aggravate the Tibetan problem.

Beijing is simply waiting for him to die, as he is already into his 70s. After him, they will appoint their own Dalai Lama and, presto, the Tibet problem will be solved.

What China fails to realize is that Tibet is a problem because its occupation has no legitimacy among Tibetan people. And, if they have not been able to win over the local population over the last 50 or so years, the legitimacy issue remains. In fact, it is getting worse.

They really need the Dalai Lama if they want to solve the Tibet issue. With his espousal of autonomy for Tibet, Beijing can create a new compact with its sovereignty intact. This would leave Tibetans to manage their own internal and cultural affairs, while China could deal with its foreign relations.

But this would be too much of a compromise for China’s communist leaders who are used to having their own way at whatever cost.

Just look at the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, when the army was let loose on students who demanded democratic rights. Naively, China thought it could do the same thing in Tibet.

In the midst of such monumental arrogance, China’s ruling oligarchy also suffers from a deep-rooted sense of victimization. If they are criticized for their human rights violations in Tibet or on any other issue, they immediately cry foul and believe that there is a conspiracy abroad to deny China its rightful place under the sun.

And this is, they would argue, because Western countries have not got over their superior imperialist disdain of China.

All this contributes to a moral outrage that China, which gave so much to the world, should be regarded morally deficient. “How dare they lecture us,” goes the refrain?

Beijing’s view is that China has pulled Tibet out of the dark ages. The Tibetan people and the world should, therefore, be grateful to China rather than lambaste it because of the riots engineered by the Dalai Lama clique.

The Dalai Lama is accused of plotting “terror” in Tibet, in collusion with Uighur separatists in Xinjiang.

If China’s communist rulers can believe this, they apparently live in a world of make-believe.

And this is the problem the world is faced with when dealing with China, whether it is in regard to Tibet, Taiwan or whatever.