Tibet torch reaches top of Jade Mountain

Participants in the Taiwan leg of the Tibetan Freedom Torch Relay display banners outside the National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall. (CNA)

Publication Date：07/11/2008
By line：June Tsai

Taiwanese and Tibetan activists carried a "freedom torch" to the peak of Taiwan's tallest mountain July 6 as a way of reminding the international community of the need for action to bring an end to mainland China's occupation of Tibet.

The 21-member team's effort to scale the 3,952-meter Jade Mountain and unfurl a Tibetan flag was part of the Tibetan Freedom Torch Relay, which began March 10 in Olympia, Greece under the watchful eye of Greek police and 20 Chinese mainland government officials. The torch has traveled through 30 major cities in Europe, North America and Asia.

Initiated by the U.K.-based International Tibet Support Network, the relay is part of a campaign to promote human rights in the mainland-Chinese controlled region following the largest demonstrations in nearly two decades against Beijing's 57-year rule. The Tibetan government-in-exile claims that more than 200 Tibetans were killed, over 1,000 injured and thousands more arrested in the March civil disturbances.

The Taiwan leg of the relay began July 4 in Taipei and involved participants from event co-organizers, the Taiwan Friends of Tibet, the Taiwan Tibet Exchange Foundation, the Taiwan Tibetan Welfare Association, the Taiwan Association for Human Rights and the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy.

Both the date and venue of the event were highly symbolic for Tibetan participants, as Jade Mountain is located at a similar latitude to Tibet's Mount Everest, and July 6 is the Dalai Lama's birthday. Lighting the torch at the summit of Southeast Asia's tallest massif also symbolized the exiled Tibetans' wish of returning to their homeland, Own Su-jei, TTEF deputy secretary-general said.

Own drew parallels between the people of Taiwan's efforts to attain freedom and democracy, and the Tibetan struggle to free their land from the rule of mainland China. "The Tibetan struggle is in keeping with the Olympic spirit," he said.

"The torch relay expressed the hopes of the Tibetan people for freedom, justice and dignity," TTWA chairman Rinzin Tsering said. The event, he added, should also remind us of what was happening in Tibet every day--protests, imprisonments, abuses and executions.

Dhundup Gyalpo, a Tibetan student studying at Taiwan's Tamkang University, said the Tibetan Freedom Torch Relay is also an objection to mainland China politicizing the Summer Olympics. He was referring to remarks made by Tibet's Chinese Communist Party boss Zhang Qingli June 21 at the closing ceremony of the Lhasa leg of the Beijing Olympics torch relay. Zhang said "we can definitely smash the separatist plot of the Dalai Lama clique completely," which later earned mainland China a rebuke from the International Olympic Committee.

The Tibetan Freedom Torch will continue on to Uruguay in South America and more than 20 destinations, organizers said, before finally reaching Tibet on the eve of the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games Aug. 8.

Write to June Tsai at june@mail.gio.gov.tw