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Jakarta holds torch relay under guard

Police detain a pro-Tibet activist during an anti-China demonstration near the venue of the Indonesian leg of the 2008 Beijing Olympic torch relay in Jakarta yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

The Olympic torch was paraded through a heavily guarded stadium in Jakarta yesterday after police stopped about 100 anti-China protesters from disrupting the latest leg of the torch’s fraught journey around the world.

Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo launched the Jakarta leg of the torch’s world relay before a carefully selected crowd of a few thousand cheering onlookers, who reportedly included 1,000 Chinese students.

Indonesian badminton star and Olympic gold medalist Taufik Hidayat lit a cauldron in front of the crowd as about 2,500 policemen and 1,000 military personnel guarded the stadium complex.

“I’m very proud to be part of this. I hope I can win a gold medal like four years ago” said Hidayat after lighting the cauldron.

The flame, meant to symbolize the spirit of the Games, went out and had to be re-lit.

Eighty people from all walks of life took turns carrying the torch along a 7km route inside the complex. Torch bearers included Tourism Minister Jero Wacik, Chinese Ambassador Lan Linjun, Sports and Youth Minister Adhyaksa Dault.

Officials had wanted to parade the flame, making its first ever visit to Indonesia, through Jakarta’s traffic-clogged streets and Chinatown but the plans were changed radically after “coordination” with Beijing.

The event was not televised live, apparently because no station was prepared to pay for the rights.

The relay had attracted little interest in the Indonesian media or the public, perhaps because the Olympics themselves are not very popular. Indonesia was the only country in the world not to air TV broadcasts of the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

Earlier in the day, there was a 30-minute stand-off between police and about protesters outside the main gate of Bung Karno Stadium.

The protesters, grouped under the Indonesian Society for a Free Tibet, shouted “Free Tibet!” and held up banners reading “Olympics and crimes against humanity cannot coexist.”

Police arrested a Dutch citizen taking part in the protest after he failed to show his passport, deputy police chief Herri Wibowo said.

“They said they had a permit to hold a rally but they could not prove it,” he told reporters.

Seven other protesters were briefly detained but released after the crowd agree to disperse, said protest leader Muhammad Gatot.

Rights activists said Indonesia had buckled under Chinese pressure to quash protesters angry at Beijing’s rule over Tibet.

“We are very saddened by the way the Olympics are being handled at this time,” said Gatot, of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation. “The move to restrict the torch relay is against the Olympic spirit of openness, togetherness and respect for others.”

The relay ceremony closed with the head of the Indonesian sports committee handing the flame, kept in a small lantern, to a team of Chinese athletes who accompanied it from Kuala Lumpur.

The torch is due to fly to Australia today for the next leg of the relay tomorrow.

However, Australian torch bearer Lin Hatfield-Dodds said yesterday that she would not take part. The social justice advocate said that while she still supports the Olympics and its athletes, the symbolism of the relay had changed after China’s Tibet crackdown.

Meanwhile, two South Koreans slated to run in the torch relay in Seoul on Sunday said yesterday that they would boycott the event to protest the Tibet crackdown.

“The decision was unavoidable and it has been determined that the Tibetan crisis counters the spirit of the Olympics,” said Choi Seung-kook, secretary-general of the environmental group Green Korea.
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