FAPA Statement regarding Beijing Olympics

April 9 2008, Washington DC

We are pleased to join our friends from Tibet, the Uihgurs of East Turkestan, Burma, and our Chinese human rights friends on this
momentous occasion. So we have the three “T” s: Tibet, Turkestan and Taiwan.

China says it wants to be a “responsible stakeholder”; China wants the glory of having the Olympics in Beijing

But China is brutally repressing the people of Tibet; China is brutally repressing the Uighur people in East Turkestan;

China is brutally repressing its own people; China is propping up failed regimes in Burma, Sudan and Zimbabwe

Will the world turn its head and look the other way? Will the world pretend that the Olympics should not be “politicized”? Will the world let the Olympic torch be besmirched by the blood of the victims of Chinese repression?

Our answer is NO.

The Olympic torch should be halted as long as the Chinese regime’s  police holds Tibetan monks prisoner -- and we certainly hope that our friends in San Francisco will stop the torch today.

World leaders, including President Bush, President Sarkozy of France, and Prime Minister Gordon Brown should make it crystal clear that they will not attend the Olympics as long as China perpetuates its reign of terror in Tibet and East Turkestan, and continue to threaten Taiwan with 1000+ missiles. That signals should be given NOW!!

And if these signals don’t have immediate results, the International community – and in particular the democratic nations of the West – should remember the lesson of the 1936 Olympics which propped up a repressive Nazi regime in Germany with tragic results a few years later.

After World War II the cry was “Nie Wieder” (“never again” in German) – we will never let this happen again!! Will we let it happen again, this time in Asia? We hope and pray that the answer is a clear NO.