The scene was a familiar, traditional kick-off to the Olympics ceremony: the lighting of the Olympic torch in Greece. But the March 24 ceremony was disrupted by members of the Paris media watchdog group “Reporters Without Borders”, who ran onto the field carrying a banner protesting China’s human rights violations in Tibet. The March 24 ceremony was supposed to begin the Olympic torch on its 130 day, 85,000 mile journey around the globe, with tens of thousands of people participating by carrying the torch in a relay, but it has dissolved into a publicity nightmare.

The protests within Tibet began on March 10, as Tibetan monks and others took to the streets in the Tibetan capital city of Lhasa. They were commemorating the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against the Chinese Communist government that has controlled Tibet since 1950. The Chinese government in Beijing blames the violence and deaths that have resulted directly on the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet; he denies any involvement. But other countries have began taking serious notice of the events. Protests about the Tibet issue and other Chinese human rights violations have spread to other countries, and on March 24 began affecting the pre-publicity for the Summer Olympic games, which are scheduled to commence in Beijing on August 8.

The torch is being guarded along its route by an elite Beijing police force named the “Twenty-Ninth Olympic Games Torch Relay Flame Protection Unit” who are, according to the China News Service, expected to be “tall, handsome, mighty, in exceptional physical condition similar to that of professional athletes”, and to train by running up hills for six miles a day. Yet even these specially trained guards have been unable to stop the publicity nightmares that have occurred in three cities so far on the route.

After relatively peaceful relays through Almaty, Kazakstan on April 2, and Istanbul, Turkey on April 3; the Olympic Torch hit London on April 6 and has been creating a flood of controversy ever since. London demonstrators threw themselves into the path of the relay, leading to 37 arrests. The frenzy continued through Paris on April 7 when the relay was cut short because thousands of protesters had turned the event into chaos, including two instances when the flame was extinguished altogether. Apparently the last straw was when the relay paused for a moment outside the French National Assembly and members of the Parliament were on the steps protesting as well.

Wednesday April 9 the torch will arrive in San Francisco, and already the protest has begun, as two San Franciscans scaled the Golden Gate Bridge and put up flags with phrases like “Tibet 08”. As San Francisco ranks as one of the most liberal cities in the United States, with many protests every week, it is unlikely that the torch will fare any better there than it has in London or Paris.

Twenty-five major cities are on the agenda, but the problematic international reception has some members of the Olympic Committee worried. On Friday April 11 Jacque Rogge, International Olympic Committee President will meet with advisors to discuss cancelling the international leg of the torch relay.  

The Summer Olympics were supposed to be China’s moment of glory this year, but it seems as if the problems have just begun.

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