Put simply, Tom Lantos is my hero. You can't say that about many politicians nowadays. He doesn't even represent my district, but he's about the lone voice making sense along with Dana Rohrabcher (R-CA) and Maxine Waters (D-CA) about China's hosting of the 2008 Olympics. Dana and Maxine have introduced a bill (before the August recess of Congress) calling for a boycott of the Beijing 2008 Olympics. It is a non-binding resolution, but it has garnered a lot of press lately.
Why You Should Care
It's no secret China has been in the news lately---for all the wrong reasons. Everything from products poisoning your kids to pet food killing your companion animals. The USA seems to have been a dumping ground for toxic products being made over there.
But there is another more sinister reason why we need to take the hard line on China:
They don't keep their promises...and a country that doesn't do that does NOT deserve to host the Games.
Back in 2001, before they were awarded the Olympics, Wang Wei who is the head of BOCOG, made a solemn promise to me (in response to my news conference question) and 500 other reporters at the Mezh Hotel in Moscow that if awarded the Games, they will promise press freedoms and there "would be no restrictions" on accredited media coming to China. It was a classic moment, that threw them for a loop. Either they answered the question, and incur wrath back home, or don't answer it and take a chance at the final vote. A friend of mine who was at the auxillary media center across town told me that "everything just stopped" and there was "dead silence" in his work area, and after I had sat down, he heard someone say "she's nailed it."
Little did I know how that day would reverberate around the world. I am passionate about this as I have "got the call" in the middle of the night saying a friend overseas had been severely beaten leaving her radio job, all for what she had reported in the country she was working in. This didn't happen in China, but it could have been, and concerns have been raised about China's broken promises since they were awarded the Games.
I called it "the 60 seconds that changed my life forever", and with good reason. I probably wouldn't be sitting her writing this if it wasn't for that fateful day in Moscow seven years ago. If I hadn't cared enough to "stick my neck out." If I said, "that's someone else's problem." If...if...if...it was a risk I had to take, if only to save ONE person's life and prevent someone else from getting that middle of the night phone call.
Certainly before leaving the States, people were upset. Upset enough to send anonymous emails saying that "(they) have friends who can prevent you getting on that plane to Moscow." Upset enough to call my non-published number and leave a threatening message on my answering machine. Upset enough to have an unmarked white car (with LOTS of antennas) parked in front of my apartment for hours on end. AND...chasing me and my driver on the Moscow outer ring road at speeds over 100MPH after the news conference that day was over (and my driver admonishing me to "keep (my) head down" in case shots were fired.
I never knew that day who ordered the chase on me. But I have a pretty good idea. I walked into the media center the next day to a round of applause and whispers of "that's her!" when I was walking around the hotel.
I recall in Prague how BOCOG cancelled several press conferences. I walked up to the receptionist in the media center and (innocently) asked why this was happening. She shrugged and said she didn't know--but I sure did...and a writer who was in Moscow came up to me and said he was disappointed as he "was looking forward to a rematch with you and Wang Wei." So was I.
The Moscow 1980 boycott ordered by Jimmy Carter happened in a different era and different time. The Cold War was raging, and at the time, people were saying that the athletes were being "used as pawns" in a Soviet game of cat-and-mouse over Afghanistan.
But today, the stakes are MUCH higher. Hein Verbruggen said at the press conference after China won that he "dearly hoped" that the Games would change what is happening in China, but I detected a bit of resigned hopelessness, sort of well, don't expect too much. Same here---when they stormed into Moscow, their attitude was "we're here to pick up our Olympics---and go home."
We NEED to care about what is happening over there...the only thing China understands is the almighty dollar, and I say we need to hit them where it hurts: square in the wallet. I don't want to get another middle of the night phone call saying a friend has got hurt---or worse. But I am afraid that we are going to see large-scale harassment of foreign media, the likes of which haven't happened since the Cold War.
It's a different time and different era from 1980. We need to get behind Tom, Dana and Maxine and tell them they've got it right---because BOCOG sure hasn't, and to either: hold China to their promises, (which they haven't kept, and I doubt at this late stage they will), or the RIGHT thing to do: Boycott Beijing, because that is the ONLY thing they will understand, and losing the biggest prize in sport will be a blow to their national pride, but a lesson learned in responsibility, protection of human rights, and most important, allowing media to do the job they were assigned to do.
Because friends don't let friends come home in pine boxes.
