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State of play: Beijing Olympics 2008

Activists raise human rights awareness during opening ceremonies

August 6th, 2008 issue

Patrick Sisson 

For the Post

ISIFA
Chinese policemen stand guard during the Gunghan leg of the Olympic torch relay Aug. 4, one of many security measures being taken to control worldwide protests of the games.
KURT VINION/THE PRAGUE POST
The Burma Center led a candlelight vigil to raise awareness of Burma's struggle during the Saffron Revolution in September 2007.

In the week leading up to the Aug. 8 opening ceremonies in Beijing, demonstrators worldwide prepared to protest the games. As more officials announced their attendance (most recently, Interior Minister Ivan Langer), local activist groups finalized plans to protest human rights violations in China — and one organization in particular is speaking for Burma.

Two decades ago, at a time when Czechoslovakia and Eastern Europe were about to emerge from decades of communism, Burma was plunging into its own dark period of authoritarian rule. Pro-democracy protests against the Southeast Asian nation’s military rulers, which began Aug. 8, 1988, galvanized the small country but tragically ended with violence, another military coup and the rise of the repressive dictatorship that still rules today.

In an effort to remember the Burmese struggle for democracy, the Prague-based Burma Center is commemorating the Aug. 8 protests, known as 8888 Uprising, by holding a symbolic adoption of Burmese political prisoners. The group’s activities will culminate in a public candle-lighting ceremony at the Memorial of the Velvet Revolution on Národní třida Aug. 8, coinciding with worldwide events staged by groups such as Human Rights Watch, Burma Watch and the U.S. Campaign for Burma.
“There was a crisis in Tibet, then the world forgot about Burma,” said Christoph Amthor, who founded the Prague Burma Center in 2006 with his Burmese wife. “And now everyone has forgotten about Tibet. Headlines have a short lifespan. We’re not expecting massive change because of our event. We just want to keep Burma on the agenda.”
Amthor said the anniversary’s occurrence on the opening day of the Beijing Olympics is fitting because of the links between the Burmese leadership and the Chinese government, which he said blocks UN action supporting Burmese human rights. According to Amthor, this issue, along with others such as Tibetan independence and government censorship, are human rights concerns that shouldn’t be brushed aside during the games.
“Politics, in a broader sense, is always involved,” Amthor said. “Even if you just examine the situation inside China, look at all the people forced to leave Beijing just to make the city look nice. The Olympics is about money and politics and presenting power.”
Many other citizens and politicians are raising concerns about Chinese human rights violations. Writer and former President Václav Havel, Green Party Chairman Martin Bursík and Member of European Parliament Jana Hybášková, among others, have signed a statement from Olympic Watch, a committee protesting Chinese human rights violations, which says the host nation should lift a communications ban imposed on foreign journalists covering the games.
“It is necessary for all Olympians to be able to learn about the real situation in China and to point out human rights violations freely whenever and wherever,” the statement said. “We are concerned that the Beijing Olympics might simply become a giant spectacle to distract the attention of the international public from the violations of human and civil rights in China.”
The Czech Republic will not be represented at this year’s opening ceremony — President Václav Klaus is recovering from a June hip surgery and won’t be traveling to China — but Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek is among a handful of officials who will visit the games later. Some world leaders, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy, toyed with the idea of boycotting the opening, while some athletes have shown their support for political prisoners. Nine members of the German team recently posed for a photo in the Süddeutsche Zeitung magazine, holding up pictures of Chinese dissidents.
8/8/88
The 1988 pro-democracy protests in Burma were a reaction to the military rule of General Ne Win, whose eccentric policies plunged the country into poverty. During that failed uprising, many nonviolent activist groups formed, such as the National League for Democracy, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. The new military government, now known as the State Peace and Development Council, renamed the country Myanmar, a switch recognized by the United Nations but opposed by many pro-democracy activists.
Two recent events shook the country’s stability: the 2007 anti-government uprising known as the Saffron Revolution — so named because of participation by Buddhist monks wearing saffron-colored robes — and the government’s botched reaction to the devastation of Cyclone Nargis in May 2008.
Many, including Amthor, who speaks Burmese and is working toward a Ph.D. in media studies, believed the one-two punch of those events would lead to real change, but progress proved elusive.
According to Jim Roberts, an Amnesty International specialist on Burma, the government remains too powerful, and its Road to Democracy, a series of steps meant to ease the transition to democracy, has been an “imperfect process,” executed far too slowly.
“When all is said and done, after the demonstrations of last year and the cyclone of this year, the army still has all the guns, bottom line,” he said.
Roberts said the relationship between China and Burma is far from clear, since much of their dealings go on in private and below the surface. But he agrees that Chinese reluctance to support Security Council action against the Burmese regime is an example of the nation’s longtime foreign policy position against interference with the internal affairs of other countries.
Patrick Sisson can be reached at news@praguepost.com


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