| Show President Bush needs to stand up for Tibet not attend Olympics in China Ani Ant Arakelian Opinion Editor President Bush will still be attending the Olympics in China this coming summer A number of people including House Speaker Nancy and 15 members of Congress have asked the President to reconsider because human right issues in Tibet On March 14 of this year a deadly riot broke out in the Tibetan chapel Lhasa The Theriot Theriot Theriot riot began with a protest by Buddhist monks for a self-run self Tibet Chinese Chinese authorities are saying 22 people were killed inthe inthe in inthe the riot but others are putting the number up to dead and ensures s subsequent crackdown on protesters Tibet was invaded by China in 1951 and has been under their rule since The Chinese government has accused the Dalai Lama the exiled religious and government leader of Tibet of advocating the violent riot The Dalai Lama has said that he had nothing to do with the riot What does this have to do the Olympics Well quite a bit Throughout the history of the Olympics politics have been involved There have been many boycotts including 1980 when the United States and many other countries did not attend the games in the Soviet Union because of their invasion of Afghanistan and other human rights issues Yet President Bush will not boycott these Olympics He has not called for China to free tree Tibet All he has done is make a call to the president of China to ask him to engage in talk with the Dalai Lama This is not a lot for a president who has been speaking about bringing freedom and democracy to people who need it The war in Iraq is named Operation Iraqi Freedom and he spoke in Croatia just last week saying It is only a matter of time before freedom takes root across that troubled region But what about the trouble in the Tibetan region He has not done much J It might have something to with American trade with i China This is not the first time President Bush has been asked to boycott China Many wanted him to boycott China because of Chinas China's support of the Sudanese government in Darfur But human rights are more important then trade with China President Bush needs to show China that America wont won't stand for the treatment they have given to Tibet J President Bush has said it f would be unfair to the athletes i iwho who are going to be participating in the games for him to boycott 3 Yet no one is asking for the I athletes not to participate in the 1 s games they are asking our leader the representative of our country to show what we believe in t j y 1 |
