http://www.sftorch2008.org/
    |
Posted on 04/08/2008 8:20:28 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Who are the men in blue? Chinese paramilitary team protects Olympic flame
AP[Wednesday, April 09, 2008 03:01]
By Anita Chang
BEIJING, April 6 - They wear bright blue tracksuits and Beijing Olympic organizers call them "flame attendants." But a military bearing hints at their true pedigree: paramilitary police sent by Beijing to guard the Olympic flame during its journey around the world.
Torchbearers have criticized the security detail for aggressive behaviour, and a top London Olympics official simply called them "thugs."
"They were barking orders at me, like 'Run! Stop! This! That!' and I was like, 'Oh my gosh, who are these people?"' former television host Konnie Huq told British Broadcasting Corp. radio about her encounter with the men in blue during London's leg of the relay Sunday.
So far, the "29th Olympic Games Torch Relay Flame Protection Unit" - as the squad is officially known - has kept the flame from being seized during chaotic, protest-filled runs through Paris and London.
Its mettle is likely to be further tested Wednesday in San Francisco, where activists protesting China's crackdown in Tibet and its human rights record have promised widespread demonstrations.
Officially, Beijing has said only that the unit's mission was to guard the flame, in keeping with practices of past Olympic games.
Members were picked from special police units of the People's Armed Police, China's internal security force. The requirements for the job: to be "tall, handsome, mighty, in exceptional physical condition similar to that of professional athletes," the state-run China News Service said.
Special police units are the top tier of the paramilitary corps, chosen for skills in martial arts, marksmanship and hand-to-hand combat, according to sinodefense.com, a British-based website specializing in Chinese military affairs.
The training for the Olympic flame detail included daily mountain runs of at least 10 kilometres and lessons in protocol. They also learned basic commands such as "go," "step back," "speed up" and "slow down" in English, French, German, Spanish and Japanese, the China News Service said.
But as the torch made a stormy procession through London and Paris, the military training rather than the protocol seemed to come to the fore.
At least one torchbearer said she clashed with the squad, and others have criticized their heavy-handed tactics.
Yolaine De La Bigne, a French environmental journalist who was a torchbearer in Paris, told The Associated Press she tried to wear a headband with a Tibetan flag, but the Chinese agents ripped it away from her.
"It was seen and then, after four seconds, all the Chinese security pounced on me. There were at least five or six (of them). They started to get angry" and shouted "No! No! No!" in English, she said.
De La Bigne tried to push several agents away as they grabbed her arm. She said two French athletes who are martial arts experts tried to help her and clashed briefly with the security detail.
The chairman of the London 2012 Games, Sebastian Coe, was even more blunt.
"They tried to push me out of the way three times. They are horrible. They did not speak English. They were thugs," Coe, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was quoted as saying in British media. A spokeswoman for the London 2012 Olympics committee confirmed that Coe was quoted accurately, but added that he thought he was making private comments.
The Olympic flame wasn't part of the ancient games, and the torch relay didn't become a fixture in the modern Olympics until the 1936 Berlin Games, when it was part of the Nazi pageantry that promoted Hitler's beliefs of Aryan supremacy in the world of sports.
That first 12-day relay from Ancient Olympia to Berlin traversed Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and other countries that would later be invaded by the Nazis. And the torch was borne into the Reichstaddion by a blond, blue-eyed runner chosen for his Aryan features.
In years since, security details have been sent out by Olympic hosts to accompany the torch, but until now, they never faced such protests.
For the Sydney games in 2000, at least one uniformed guard followed the torch, and more security was added after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. Security officials escorted the flame throughout the 2004 relay for the Athens games, though in small numbers and amid a festive atmosphere.
For Beijing's relay, protesters disrupted the ceremony at Ancient Olympia when the Olympic flame was lit two weeks ago. In London, protesters nearly grabbed the torch, and in Paris, the men in blue extinguished its flame and hustled it to the safety of nearby buses, amid rowdy protests that prompted officials to call off the last third of the relay.
In China, paramilitary police are responsible for a wide range of security tasks from fighting forest fires to quelling civil unrest. After deadly riots and protests broke out in Tibet last month, detachments mobilized to reassert government control.
The Olympics squad is composed of two groups: 30 members covering the torch route outside China, and 40 handling the relay inside China, according to China News Service.
The guards work around-the-clock shifts to ensure the Olympic flame never goes out. News photos showed them on an Air China charter jet staring at two lanterns containing the flame.
In London, the guards stopped a protester from wrenching the torch from the hands of Huq, the former TV host, but she was unsure who they were and what their role was.
"The men in blue perplexed everyone," she said. "Nobody actually seemed to know who they were officially or what their title was. They were kind of very robotic, very full on."
Officials with the Beijing Olympic organizing committee and the government had only praise for the flame attendants.
"I think our protection team members have been following regulations and properly carrying out their flame protection work," said an official in the Olympic torch relay centre in Beijing, who gave only his surname, Liu, because he is not an official spokesman.
Zhao Shangsen, a spokesman at the Chinese Embassy in London, said it is "routine practice" for flame attendants to accompany the torch as it travels around the world.
"Their job is to protect the torch," he said.
|
|
I can’t believe it, the chicoms are just making their image even worse with these bully-boys.
By the time the torch makes it to Beijing their whole image-burnishing project will be in tatters.
That said, I do not think Dubya should act on Hillary’s suggestion and blow off the ceremonies. That’s just more of the well-known phenomenon of democrats giving pubbies friendly advice on how to cut their own throats.
It kind of works for the London leg of the relay though.
In a Clockwork Orange kind of way. ;^)
Great graphic. May the legacy of China’s bloody ways haunt the torch all the way to Beijing and beyond.
I hate to think we are letting ChiCom storm troopers into our country to beat up our protesters.
“By the time the torch makes it to Beijing their whole image-burnishing project will be in tatters.”
Not if the IOC decides to stop the international torch relay and just send the torch to China.
I would rather we kick thier sorry butts in the games, than boycott anything. China is a current reality, no amount of boycotting will change that. We’ve made our choice. It’s either war, or openess, in contrast to thier system. We chose openess, through both of our major parties. If opneness (glastnost) doesn’t change them, then I suppose it will be war.
Meanwhile, we are competitors.
Sigh.... I miss the 60's. Hippies used to get the "baton of love" upside their head on a regular basis. Those were the days!
I think Coe was the first to break the 4 minute mile. He is “a Great” of running. Can't believe the Chi-Coms treated him like an “errand boy”.
Maybe there will be an athelete who will just put the torch on the ground and walk away.
It seems like host countries have demanded no protocols from the vile Communists.
ChiCom thuggery.
In a way I give the ChiComs credit for foreseeing such flame hijacking and deploying a flying wedge of thugs to stiff arm protesters
China or any other countries like them always want to convince others that there is nothing they can do, and they should give up. It is exactly what emboldens them and go up to the next level, trying to control your behaviors. After all, there is nothing you can do about it, short of all-out war, right?
You have a good point, and your analogy is well taken.
Pass the popcorn and a large helping of Schardenfreude.
Chinese methods are at once crude, evil, yet effective:
Propaganda, Deception, and the ‘Riots’ in Lhasa, China
When the Dalai Lama visited the temple across Cerrillos Road in view of our porch the Foresters with Free Tibet stickers stretched to both horizons--yet these yuppos no doubt would remain loyal supporters of Frau Mao.
So much angst over Four Dead in Oh-High-Oh at Kent State but little note of thousands at Tiananmen and 130 other sites June 3-4, 1989.
Who can believe Tibetans, Falun Gong and student democracy advocates "attack" the vaunted Peoples Liberation Army or the chivalrous police squads who baton Falun Gong old ladies into purple tuna.
Suspension of disbelief?
That is buying into the Potemkin Olympic kabuki.
Remember that PLAN closed weather stations of China's sailing competitors U.S., UK, Australia.
Fair trade?
We will send squads of videocam-toting cheerleaders to beat these Beijing blue boys until magenta spots replace their faces.
They block youtube and are retargetting bloggers.
Matrix Four: The Torch is Passed.
Maybe we can hire them to protect our border.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.