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Headlines : InternationalFrance ponders boycott of Beijing Olympics over Tibet conflict
Tibet’s governor has said 13 people have been killed by mob violence in the main city of Lhasa. Tibetan exiles, however, pegged the death toll at 80 protesters, and blamed violence and a government crackdown.
Speaking to reporters at a news conference Tuesday, Wen accused the Dalai Lama and his followers of lies and hypocrisy, alleging the Chinese government has evidence that the recent violence in Tibet was premeditated by the “Dalai clique.”
“By staging that incident they want to undermine the Beijing Olympics Games, and they also try to serve their hidden agenda by inciting such incidents,” said Wen.Wen’s comments marked the first time a senior political leader talked about the rioting in Lhasa, and follow similar remarks made by Tibet’s governor Champa Phuntsok on Monday.
Christensen said the U.S. has seen no evidence the Dalai Lama co-ordinated the violence in Tibet, and that China should work to resolve Tibet’s “long-standing grievances” and hold direct talks with the Nobel Peace laureate.
For his part, the Dalai Lama suggested Tuesday that the violence in Tibet could have been incited by China to discredit his authority there.
“It’s possible some Chinese agents are involved there,” he said. “Sometimes totalitarian regimes are very clever, so it is important to investigate.”
[Posted By gaanjah_mama]Republished from CBC news
The European Union should consider boycotting the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, unless violence is soon quelled in riotous Tibet, France’s foreign minister said Tuesday.
Bernard Kouchner said calls for such a boycott by the head of the European parliament and the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders were “interesting,” and should be taken up at a meeting of the EU’s foreign ministers later this month.
Meanwhile, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state said that while the country is not making an immediate call to boycott the beginning of the Summer Games this August, the world is watching to see how China deals with protesters in Tibet.
“The Olympics is an opportunity for China to put its best face forward and show progress to the world” on human rights and other matters, Thomas Christensen said during a congressional advisory panel hearing Tuesday.
“To be successful, they’re going to have to address some of these issues while the world is watching China. And the world will be watching China.”
Premier Wen Jiabo insists Chinese security forces have showed restraint during violence that has killed at least 13 people, and that China won’t allow anyone to use the Olympics to advance separatist or other causes.
Posted by gaanjah_mama
"The global village is deteriorating at a rapid pace, and in the children of the world the result is rage." -Romeo Dallaire ____________________________________________________________ Harold: "You're good with people." ...
Dalai Lama’s hidden agenda? what? Free Tibet?
Dalai Lama says China incites at this time? Doubt that too… I think the Dalai Lama is in fact holy and different than most people… however, whatever spiritual insights he and other high spiritual folks may have, they sure have little political insight
Free China
Free Tibet
what political role did the dalai lama have in tibet before the occupation? How democratic was Tibet before it was taken over by China?
Bernard, Bernard, Bernard . . .
Free Turkistani
OPEN QUOTE
In a rare direct appeal from inside Guantanamo Bay, a Chinese Muslim has said he is continuing to be held in harsh conditions at the US detention centre, despite being told years ago that he was innocent and would be released.
Abdulghappar Turkistani, 35, is among 17 ethnic Uighurs from China’s western Xinjiang region being held at the US base on the eastern end of Cuba.
In a letter released by his New York-based lawyers and obtained by the Associated Press, Turkistani says that despite being told as early as 2004 that they would all be freed, the 17 remain held in cramped, windowless cells for up to 22 hours every day.
“We fail to know why we are still in jail here,” Turkistani says in the letter, which was written in December but only now made public after it was cleared by US authorities.
“We are still in hope that the US government will free us soon and send us to a safe place.”
The men all say they fled China to escape persecution in Xinjiang, a vast region which borders Central Asia.
Human rights groups accuse the Chinese government of waging a campaign of repression against the region’s Muslim population.
Xinjiang has been the scene of sporadic and generally low-level separatist activity for decades and China says it is waging its own “war on terror” against what it calls Uighur terrorists.
The 17 Uighur men are among about 275 detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay.
US authorities have so far said they plan to prosecute about 80 of those for terrorism and other war crimes, but none of the Uighur detainees have faced any charges.
American officials have acknowledged that while they will not be pressing charges against the 17 Uighurs, they cannot be sent back to China because they are likely to face persecution.
In 2006, five Uighurs from Guantanamo were given refuge in Albania in 2006 despite protests from the Chinese government.
However, diplomatic efforts to place the remaining Uighur detainees have stalled.
In his letter Turkistani says he has developed rheumatism since he was transferred to Camp 6, a wing of Guantanamo that opened in December 2006.
Prisoners held in Camp 6 are confined in steel cells for all but two hours of every day with no window to the outside.
“Being away from family, away from our homeland… being forbidden from the natural sunlight, natural air, being surrounded with a metal box all around is not suitable for a human being,” Turkistani wrote.
He said one of the Uighur detainees had joined a long-running hunger strike at Guantanamo to protest conditions and was being strapped down and force-fed twice a day.
Sami Al-Hajj, an Al Jazeera cameraman held at Guantanamo since 2001 but never charged, is also on hunger strike and his lawyers say he faces similar handling.
“Such treatment is not humane,” Turkistani said in his letter.
Navy Commander Rick Haupt, a spokesman for the Guantanamo detention centre, defended conditions at the camp, telling the Associated Press Camp that Camp 6, calling was “a state-of-the-MARKET detention facility modelled after stateside facilities
In short, the Chinese have bought the “war on terror”, just as have the Pakistani Ruling elite . . . in both cases so they can sell their people down the river to what amounts to life in a labor camp — all of which is kind enough to reduce the cost of labor all over the planet.
They couldn’t find ANYTHING with which to prosecute these so-called “separatists” from WTF out in the Chinese Boonies.
An inCREDibly ridiculous story which simply highlights how inCREDibly ridiculous all these flim flam “war on terror” stories are.
The Olympic Boycott is just decoration. Something else is being “negotiated”.
I think “separatists” is a good naming convention. I’ve been trying to think of what to call Kosovo’s Albanian Mafia and their little band of worshipers and that’s it. The Ethnic Albanians of Kosovo are “separatists”.
The world isn’t watching the United States, why would it be watching China?
That’s the question.
Bernard must be addicted to thin ice. I can’t imagine that he doesn’t know how thin his is getting.
The Neofeudalists are using Bernard because people like Cheney are making wild assed pronouncements reminding everyone that the invasion of Iraq was and still is “justified” by the insanely discredited 9/11 publicity stunt.
OPEN QUOTE
This month, an exhaustive Pentagon-sponsored review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents captured during the 2003 U.S. invasion found no evidence that Saddam’s regime had any operational links with the al Qaida terrorist network.
But Cheney, who spent the night at a sprawling U.S. base in the northern town of Balad, told soldiers they were defending future generations of Americans from a global terror threat.
“This long-term struggle became urgent on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 . That day we clearly saw that dangers can gather far from our own shores and find us right there at home,” said Cheney, who was accompanied by his wife, Lynne, and their daughter, Elizabeth.
“So the United States made a decision: to hunt down the evil of terrorism and kill it where it grows, to hold the supporters of terror to account and to confront regimes that harbor terrorists and threaten the peace,” Cheney said. “Understanding all the dangers of this new era, we have no intention of abandoning our friends or allowing this country of 170,000 square miles to become a staging area for further attacks against Americans.”
END OF QUOTE
Let’s talk about the “Olympics” you’re sponsoring, BERNARD.
Too bad France didn’t have these type of balls back in ’36.
Maybe Carla forced Nico to grow some, or at least pretend he had some, but I could be wrong. Personally I think his are hidden away in a White House safe somewhere
The more countries that accept the “one China” policy, the more countries are complicit in the destruction and killing of the Xinjiang, Mongolian and Tibetan people in “China”.
The “one China” policy is a slogan for the violent racist actions of the CCP.
He said half-intelligent mystical garble and was cute and stuff.
A belief in a reincarnated leader lends itself poorly to most models of Democracy…
Tibet not being “democratic” before China invaded has pretty much nothing to do with them wanting freedom now.
And the other 52 or so minorities in China are all threatened as well. THe only difference is they lack significant numbers and thusly are viewed as a quaint little distraction on CCTV when they dance and sing their traditional songs in Mandarin for the idiot masses.
Didn’t say i thought it did… I’m with you on this one, Memn, just like the other 99% of the time. China is in the wrong here, totally.
On Edit: Although i really do wish France would reconsider it’s own flavor of unilateralism and the state of it’s own run down colonies and what realistic claims it has to them before they expect to be taken seriously in matters such as these… But this is Tibet we’re talking about, it’s not like it’s a Green Peace boat that deserves to be blown up…
Consolidation appears to be completely natural historically speaking. Integrate Bear Stearns, Diebold, Yahoo, great Chase, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the great Indian tribes of the Americas, Kazhak territories, Alsace Lorraine, the Malvinas. Sure, go break up Yugoslavia. China’s integrating of Tibet is normal and there are several ways of Tibet people to adjust to being part of the United States of China. Anything else means war.
whats your favorite method of torturing tibetans lot?