Chinese cheerleaders and Tibetan protesters greeted the Olympic flame yesterday amid a massive security clampdown for the latest leg of the international torch relay in India, home to the world’s largest Tibetan exile community.
Much of New Delhi’s leafy British colonial-era center — the administrative heart of India, home to the presidential palace, parliament and myriad government ministries — was being sealed off to traffic and pedestrians by about 15,000 police ahead of the run.
The hundreds of thousands of people who work in the area were being advised to keep a low profile and to keep off the roofs and stay away from the windows of their office buildings.
Authorities desperate to avoid the chaos that has plagued the torch runs in London, Paris and other Western cities had reason to be worried — even the flame’s late-night arrival at New Delhi’s airport was marred by small protests.
Some two dozen Tibetan exiles chanted anti-China slogans and protested along a busy highway as the torch made its way into the city after being greeted at the airport by flag-waving traditional Indian dancers and Chinese cheerleaders. Several of the protesters were detained by police.
In Mumbai, India’s financial capital, police detained about 25 Tibetans who attempted to breach the barricades around the Chinese Consulate. Protesters shouted “Free Tibet” as they were dragged into police vehicles.
Tibetan exiles, who number more than 100,000 in India, have staged near-daily protests in New Delhi since demonstrations first broke out in Tibet last month and were put down by Chinese authorities.
In recent weeks, they have stormed the Chinese embassy, which is now surrounded by barricades and barbed wire, gone on hunger strikes and shaved their heads to protest China’s crackdown on the Tibet protests.
The exiles say the torch run through the city is a perfect opportunity to make their point, despite the fact that the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader, says he supports China’s hosting of the Olympics.
“By speaking out when the Chinese government brings the Olympic torch to India, you will send a strong message to Tibetans, to the Chinese government and to the world, that Indians support the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people’s nonviolent struggle for freedom and justice,” said Students for a Free Tibet, a strident exile group.
Protests were expected to continue all day before the 4pm start of the relay.
Thousands of Tibetans were also taking part in their own torch run to highlight the Tibetan struggle against China.
The alternate run began yesterday morning with a Buddhist, Hindu and Sikh prayer session at the site where Indian pacifist Mohandas Gandhi was cremated. The torch was then lighted and Tibetans put on a show of traditional dancing.
Several dozen prominent Indians, including former defense minster George Fernandez, joined the Tibetans, who planned to march around the city with their alternate torch.
Some exiles said they planned to make a more dramatic statement later in the day, possibly trying to douse or steal the Olympic flame, although activists were sketchy about their plans.
Tenzin Tsundue, a Tibetan activist with a reputation for publicity stunts, said he did not want to talk about specific plans in a telephone interview on Wednesday because he fears his phone is tapped.
“But be at India Gate,” he said, referring to a monument in New Delhi that the torch was to pass.
Activists disrupted torch relays in Paris, London and San Francisco. However, stops in Kazakhstan, Russia, Argentina, Tanzania, Oman and Pakistan were trouble-free.
But in India, public sympathy lies with the Tibetans, who have sought refuge in the country since the Dalai Lama fled Tibet after a failed uprising in 1959.
Also See: India's glaring silence on Tibet
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not