By Tenzin Sangmo
New Delhi, April 21 – Around 100 pro-Tibet supporters showed up as the Olympic torch was carried from Bangkok’s Chinatown where it embarked upon a 10 kilometer long relay guarded by over 2,000 Thai police cautioning potential protestors of arrest and possible deportation on Saturday. The Tibetan rights activists were engaged in a verbal bout with a group of some 200 pro-China supporters. Tempers flared as the torch passed but the police managed to keep the two groups at bay.
Pokpong Lawansiri from Thailand’s Free Tibet Network while speaking to AP said, “We want to show the Chinese Government that the crackdown in Tibet did not spark outrage only in the Western world”.
Kati Muntrabhorn, a Buddhist student told Sunday Xpress that the government should do its homework before backing Beijing, “Monks are being killed. If they can kill monks, what next?”.
A total number of 79 personalities, including Thailand’s gold medal winning athletes, environmentalists and actors alike took their turns during the 10.5 kilometer course of the relay.
“They are killing many Tibetans, like animals,” said one protester, who had “Free Tibet” scrawled across his bare chest.
Human Rights campaigners comprising of college students and various NGO members led peaceful protests in front of the United Nation’s Asian Headquarters which was along the relay route in Bangkok. Banners calling for a ‘Free Tibet’ and ‘Stop Killing in Tibet’ were unfurled outside the building.
Narisa Chakrabongse, an environmental activist who withdrew his name from the list of torchbearers told AP the protest sent the message to China, “that their crackdown on the Tibetans was not acceptable.”
The relay was watched over by Olympic marshals and escorted by police patrols and motorcycles. In addition there was also a police helicopter for an aerial view of any disruption that could be manned by demonstrators. The torch passed through many historical sites, including the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, the ceremonial Grand Palace and Chitralada Palace, the residence of King Bhumibol Adulyadej before completing its 10.5 kilometer run.
Apart from a few dissenters the Bangkok leg of the Olympic torch run was said to be largely ‘peaceful’ by the authorities.
On the previous leg of the torch’s swing through Asia, India had to deploy 16,000 police to keep protestors from the world’s largest community of exiled Tibetans at bay.
Malaysia welcomed the flame amid an elite police squad early Sunday. Over 300 Chinese students studying in Kuala Lumpur greeted the torch at the airport that was flown from Bangkok in a special chartered plane. A group of Buddhist monks held special prayers at a temple in the Capital for a trouble-free run of the torch and peaceful Olympics.
The torch began its Malaysian leg at the Independence Square with over a 1,000 police officials and commandos guarding the prevalence of any untoward incident during the run. With roads blocked for the event, the torch was taken along a 16 kilometer route to the Petronas Twin Towers in downtown Kuala Lumpur earlier today.
The authorities had issued strict notice to any individual/group disrupting the four hr journey covering 16.5 kilometer through the city’s key areas. Kuala Lumpur is one of the 21 cities outside China that is hosting the Olympic torch relay themed ‘Journey of Harmony’, spanning 130 days and covering 137,000 km.
Even before the flame touched down in the Malaysian Capital, anti-Chinese sentiments were already brewing. Around 30 Falun Gong practitioners took to the streets to protest against the human rights abuses in China April 18. China had banned the Falun Gong spiritual movement as a dangerous cult.
A Japanese family carrying a pro-Tibet banner and a monk were detained by the authorities as a preventive measure even before the relay started. The Japanese family of three had unfurled a pro-Tibet banner an hour before Imran Jaafar, the President of the Olympic Council of Malaysia, bore the ceremonial torch. They were booed by Chinese bystanders during the conflict which occurred at Independence Square. An eye witness said the Japanese were taken into custody after they waved the Tibetan National Flag. The monk whose identity and nationality was not known was detained along the relay route as a preventive measure, the authorities stated.
Protests have dogged the torch relay during its stops in Paris, London, San Francisco and India with demonstrations over China’s crackdown in Tibet where it suppressed peaceful protestors using force and killing hundreds.
The flame continues its international journey through Indonesia, Australia, South Korea, Japan and Vietnam before heading home in time for the Beijing Summer Olympics 2008.
