By Dr. Eusebio L. Koh
Filipino Journal, August 08, 2008
On August 8, the largest and most expensive sporting event of the world will begin. More than 11,000 athletes – 331 representing Canada and 7, the Philippines - will converge in Beijing, China at the 2008 Summer Olympics. They will represent 204 countries and compete in 28 medal events in venues in and around Beijing. Best hopes for medals for Canada are Tyler Christopher of Edmonton in 400 m. and Gary Reed of Kamloops in 800 m. in track events. Team Philippines is made up of five swimmers and two divers. No one is expected to bring home a medal. The last medal won by the Philippines was in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics when boxer Mansueto Velasco got silver in the light flyweight division.
Fireworks shaped in smiley faces and yellow dragons will brighten the opening ceremony of the XXIX Olympiad in China’s capital city. For leaders of the most populous country (1.3 billion) in the world, the Olympics is a chance to showcase the country’s economic growth and modernization. The government is also showcasing the competence of the Communist Party and is presenting itself as a peace-loving country.
Although a fast approaching world power, China has not been included in the G8 (a summit of leaders of the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Canada, Italy and Russia), mainly because of its poor human-rights record. Some foreign dignitaries may boycott the opening ceremonies because of these concerns. But President Dubya Bush is attending.
The games will start exactly at 8:08 p.m. Aug. 8, the eighth day of the eighth month of the year 2008. It may be superstitious or not, but the number 8 means good luck and prosperity to the Chinese.
Nine events have been added to the program since 2004, and eight have been removed. New events are in swimming (men’s and women’s open-water), cycling (men’s and women’s BMX racing), fencing (women’s team sabre, women’s team foil), table tennis (men’s and women’s team competitions) and track and field (women’s steeplechase).
But there is a dark side to this Olympics. One of the problems in Beijing is the air and water pollution. There have been worries that the air in Beijing may be unhealthy for some athletes competing outdoors to breathe. Some foreign athletes may resort to using masks. China has taken drastic anti-pollution steps, such as closing factories surrounding Beijing especially at Hebei and ordering half of 3.3 million cars in Beijing off the roads, to try to clean the sky during the Olympics. But a more serious problem is China’s reputation for abuse of human rights. Besides the repression of dissent and protest in China and Tibet, one little known abuse is the harvest of human organs of protesters. In a report last year by Canadians David Matas and David Kilgour entitled “Bloody Harvest” (google Matas-Kilgour’s “Bloody Harvest”), one reads the following chilling conclusion:
“Based on our further research, we are reinforced in our original conclusion that the allegations are true. We believe that there has been and continues today to be large scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners.
“We have concluded that the government of China and its agencies in numerous parts of the country, in particular hospitals but also detention centres and ‘people’s courts’, since 1999 have put to death a large but unknown number of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience. Their vital organs, including kidneys, livers, corneas and hearts, were seized involuntarily for sale at high prices, sometimes to foreigners, who normally face long waits for voluntary donations of such organs in their home countries.
“How many of the victims were first convicted of any offence, serious or otherwise, in legitimate courts, we are unable to estimate because such information appears to be unavailable both to Chinese nationals and foreigners. It appears to us that many human beings belonging to a peaceful voluntary organization made illegal eight years ago by President Jiang because he thought it might threaten the dominance of the Communist Party of China have been in effect executed by medical practitioners for their organs.
“Our conclusion comes not from any one single item of evidence, but rather the piecing together of all the evidence we have considered. Each portion of the evidence we have considered is, in itself, verifiable and, in most cases, incontestable. Put together, they paint a damning whole picture. It is their combination that has convinced us.”
Matas is a lawyer with private practice in refugee, immigration and human rights law while Kilgour is a former MP and Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific.I’ll be watching the Olympic games on TV and maybe marvel at the ingenuity of Chinese organization and management. But I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the Beijing Olympiad does not emulate the 1936 Berlin Olympiad, which glorified a fascist dictator and his regime leading to the second world war, the Holocaust, and the suffering and death of millions of innocent people.
Dr. Eusebio L. Koh is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at the University of Regina and at a time was Head of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Regina.