Faster, Higher, Louder

[June 18th, 2008]

When America’s elite track-and-field athletes converge June 27 in Eugene to compete for spots on the team going to the Beijing Olympics, scores of local protesters will also be in town.

Their goal: to use replica Darfur refugee tents plus marches, vigils, music and talks to remind the 128,000 spectators attending the trials through July 6 at Hayward Field, the millions of viewers on NBC and the 1,200 on-site media members that they blame China directly or partially for human-rights abuses in Darfur and Tibet.

“Many people coming to the Olympic Trials have never heard of Darfur, do not know of the genocide there,” says Roz Slovic (no relation to WW reporter Beth Slovic), co-founder of the Lane County Darfur Coalition, one of several groups using the trials to highlight their cause. “The event is a good opportunity to capture lots of interest and advocacy for these people who have suffered for so many years. We can put a halt to this, and China is key in stopping this killing.”

Human-rights activists hold the Sudanese government responsible for killing at least 400,000 people during the ongoing civil war in the Darfur region that’s also driven an estimated 2 million people from their homes, many into harsh refugee camps. China’s critics say the host Olympic nation supports genocide in Darfur because it buys much of Sudan’s annual oil output and sells arms to Sudan.

But Slovic says her group isn’t calling for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics in August. Instead, she says protests to spotlight China and its role in Darfur can motivate Americans to take other steps such as urging their federal representatives to work for divestment from Sudan.

Another local group set to protest in Eugene about China’s human-rights record is the Regional Tibetan Youth Congress of Portland/Vancouver.

Many Tibetans consider the Chinese illegal occupiers of their homeland. Some call for independence. The Dalai Lama and others only press for greater autonomy. Beijing sent troops to Tibet in March when the worst violence in 20 years broke out there. In its aftermath, Tibetans worldwide protested against the Chinese and called for an Olympic boycott.

Jamphel Dorji, president of the Regional Tibetan Youth Congress, says Tibetans plan to hold morning peace marches and evening candlelight vigils during the first Saturday and Sunday of the trials.

The Tibetans will be alongside the Darfur Coalition in a designated campus free-speech zone at the Erb Memorial Union amphitheater and its east lawn. Both sites are a short walk from Hayward Field but on the other side of buildings fronting the Olympic Trials stadium on East 15th Avenue.

University officials won’t speculate how public-safety officers will respond to demonstrations outside designated areas beyond saying officers will take public safety and the level of disruption into account. Signs, flags and banners are not permitted within Hayward Field.

Local Tibetan groups also are rejecting calls for an Olympic boycott. That position is a change from March when many local Tibetans wanted a boycott (see “Tibet: The Other Protest,” WW, March 26, 2008).

“It’s a gray area now,” says Tsering Choephel, president of the Northwest Tibetan Cultural Association. “Calling for a boycott won’t do any good anyway. We’re not in the mood for this any more.”