Ireland may boycott Olympic ceremony

THE Irish Government will not boycott the Olympic Games in China in protest against events in Tibet but may, like many other EU countries, stay away from the opening ceremony, Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern said yesterday.

Ireland supports China’s one-country policy that sees Tibet and Taiwan as part of the People’s Republic of China, Mr Ahern said.

“Ireland is one of the strong supporters of the one China policy and we do so on the basis that China deals with situations in a democratic and fair way on their own territory,” he said.

He believed that politics should be kept out of sport, saying history and experience had shown that this was vital.

“The athletes would not thank us to mix politics and sport,” he said.

Mr Ahern, who was attending an EU Foreign Ministers meeting in Slovenia, said the government had yet to discuss the issue.

“But I could not countenance a boycott of the Olympic Games and we will keep under review whether we turn up at the opening ceremony,” he said.

However, the events in Tibet where the Chinese authorities cracked down on Tibetan demonstrations in support of independence were worrying, and he welcomed the Chinese allowing some diplomats into Tibet to see the situation for themselves yesterday.

The Government had also raised its concerns with the Chinese authorities in Dublin and would be part of any EU statement of concern about the situation, Mr Ahern said.

A number of countries, including Germany, while insisting they will not boycott the games, are saying they may not attend the opening ceremony in August. However, an attempt to get the 27 member states to take a unified stance on the Games looks likely to fail when the issue will be discussed by Foreign Ministers today.

Diplomats from 15 embassies, including those of the United States, Britain, France and Japan, arrived in the Tibetan capital Lhasa yesterday for a hastily arranged tour.

“They will carry out on-the-spot investigation of the real facts of the... serious and violent criminal incident,” the Chinese foreign ministry said.

The United States welcomed the move but President George W Bush later urged China to hold talks on the situation with representatives of the exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

President Bush said, after meeting Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Washington, that he had told China’s President Hu Jintao it was in his country’s interest “that he sit down again with representatives of the Dalai Lama”.

The protests began in Lhasa on March 10 to mark the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet, an event that saw the Dalai Lama flee to India where he has since lived in exile.