Red flares for freedom: climbers against Everest torch light fires around the world
08:05 pm CDT May 07, 2008
(MountEverest.net) The Olympic torch, in its final steps to the summit of Everest, is covered live on the torch website and by CNN, a stone's throw from a blacked out Lhasa.
After 50 years of occupation, characterized by systematic and gross abuse of human rights, the Chinese propaganda fire is burning hot on top of Tibet's sacred Mother Earth.
What we are watching
The Chinese occupation of Tibet has resulted in the death of over 1.2 million Tibetans (one-sixth of the population) between 1951 and 1979, and exile of some 80,000.
The Tibetan language, flag, culture and religion are since outlawed, and their spiritual leader is forced to live in exile. The country is invaded by Chinese colonialists, while the Tibetan population is still among the poorest in the world.
By 1959, there were a total of 6,259 monasteries and temples with about 592,558 resident monks and nuns in Tibet. By 1976 only eight monasteries and nunneries had escaped Chinese destructions.
China's aim remains for total elimination of Tibetan religion and culture through the implementation of China's "final solution" to the Tibetan problem: absorption of the Tibetans through sheer force of numbers.
The current state
The world journalists covering the final climb, accompanied by "beautiful Tibetan music," are there only in compliance with censorship imposed on their reporting.
On the other side of the mountain, snipers make sure international mountaineers don't climb up the Lhotse wall.
Lhasa is blacked out since desperate protests last month. Only yesterday, an email from an American reader arrived describing the situation there: "I just came back from the Indo-Tibet border. The conditions are horrid in Tibet. Thousands have been slaughtered."
Here are the links to the coverage of the Chinese Olympic torch summiting the crown of Tibet live before the world:
Live torch coverage at Beijing website
Live torch coverage at CNN website
Today Alberto Peruffo, of the global campaign Sad Smoky Mountains, announced Sunday 11th May, at 13 local time as the first simultaneous ignition of red smokes as a protest action against the violation of human rights and Chinese repression in Tibet.
More than 100 summits are now involved: during the last few days the Sad Smoky Mountains project was joined by summits such as North Table Mountain (Colorado, USA), Rittner Horn on Süd Tirol Alps, Corno Grande, Corno Piccolo and Pizzo Cefalone on Gran Sasso (Apeninnes), Nanos on Dinaric Alps (Slovenia), Mount Giovo and Rondiniano (Modena Apeninnes), Puy de Manse (France) and also historically important summits such as Col Moschin and Summano (near Vicenza and Asiago) where a large number of soldiers died during World War I.
Read the press release on the SadSmokyMountains website and join the project.
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