Olympic torchlight run through Tibet will raise anger

The offer of the Chinese Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, for talks with the Dalai Lama is in the opinion of the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) "a farce”. "Wen Jiabao is feigning preparedness to talk only in order to reduce the rising pressure from the international community”, said the GfbV Asia expert, Ulrich Delius on Thursday in Göttingen. In fact however the offer of a dialogue is not genuine. For the preconditions which Peking has laid before the Dalai Lama have not just remained the same for 20 years. They have been fulfilled for the past two decades. In his Strassburg Appeal of 1988 the Dalai Lama gave up his demand for the independence of Tibet and called for the rejection of violence. These aims have been maintained up to the present day. However China’s leaders refuse doggedly to acknowledge this.

The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, said yesterday afternoon that Wen Jiabao emphasised in a telephone call his preparedness for talks with the Dalai Lama. Reports on the media did not however make it clear that Wen Jiabao has again demanded that the Dalai Lama must first give up all demands for the independence of Tibet as a sovereign state and speak out against the use of violence. "In addition China’s leaders have demonised their dialogue partner in the second breath as "a wolf in the garb of a monk”. This shows clearly that there is no serious interest in a dialogue with the Tibetans”, said Delius.Fackellauf

The Organisation Committee for the Olympic Games in Peking was accused by the GfbV of provoking further disturbances by their planned torchlight run through Tibet. "Anyone carrying the Olympic flame demonstratively through Tibet after the bloody crushing of the protests of the past few days will not only cause further damage to the image of the Games, but also deliberately incite the anger of the Tibetans”, criticised Delius. The decision lacks any feeling of sensitivity and contradicts the spirit of the Olympic movement. "Peking’s Olympia-makers are once again instrumentalising the Olympic movement to emphasise the claim to absolute power of the Chinese leaders in Tibet.” The Olympic Committee emphasised again yesterday that the fire to be lit on Easter Monday at the Greek Olympia will be carried in May to Mount Everest and in July 2008 through Tibet.