The IOC's Parallel Universe

As the Spanish say goes, the worst blind person is the one who refuses to see.

In an outrageously self-serving report about the Beijing Olympics, the International Olympic Committee  shows no shame in a futile attempt to rewrite history. Here is a morsel of this whitewash presented last week during a meeting in London, as reported by The New York Times:

“The Games expanded and strengthened the Olympic movement by advancing the universality of sport,” the three-page fact sheet said. “They also brought many tangible and intangible benefits to China, especially in terms of public infrastructure improvements. While some of the positive benefits were immediately apparent, others will emerge with time.”

The document praised the Beijing organizers’ nearly flawless execution of the Games, detailing the successful coordination of a half-million volunteers and the maintenance of a complex transportation and security system. It noted that facilities for the news media were “widely praised as the best ever,” and that the Chinese government had indefinitely reduced restrictions on foreign journalists reporting in the country.

Pro-Tibet protest in front of the IOC's headquarters
last August in Lausanne, Switzerland. (EPA photo)

Obviously, the IOC is talking about an Olympic Games that took place in some parallel universe, because it makes no mention of the Internet restrictions at "the best ever" media facilities or the harassment on foreign journalists or of so many press freedom violations during those two weeks in August.

The Times reminds the IOC bosses about a few other crucial details left out in the report:

Thousands of people were evicted from their homes to make way for construction of Olympic venues, and some activists were detained before the Games. Authorities set up protest zones during the Olympics, but no demonstrations took place. Several people who applied for protest permits were detained, including two elderly women who were sentenced to up to a year of “re-education through labor.” The sentences were later rescinded.

Despite promises by the Chinese that foreign journalists would have unfettered access to the Internet, authorities initially blocked access to several Web sites at the main press center. Although some of the restrictions were loosened, the I.O.C. member overseeing press operations, Kevan Gosper, accused the Olympic committee of betrayal. In addition, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China logged more than 60 incidents of reporting interference during the Olympics, including several cases in which foreign journalists were physically harassed.

This blog features many entries denouncing the Chinese Organizing Committee's endless broken promises it made in exchange for hosting the Games and how the Chinese bosses cynically used both the IOC and the Games to booster its image at home and abroad. Just type "Chinese Olympics" in the search window on top of this page.

The Times gives us a few other reminders indicative of the callowness of the IOC report:

The I.O.C. report praised the Games for improving public health in China, saying that authorities “took new steps to improve food and water safety.” It quoted a World Health Organization official, Hans Troedsson, as saying the public-health legacy of the Games was a “long-term gift to China.”

There was no mention of the tainted-milk scandal that broke just after the end of the Games and led to the death of four infants and sickened more than 50,000. [Media Director of Human rights Watch Minky] Worden pointed to reports that a Chinese journalist’s blog post about the contaminated milk was removed from a Web site just as the Games were beginning.

The damage is done as far as the Chinese Olympics and human decency are concerned. What the international human rights community feared was that the IOC would learn nothing from this fiasco and repeat the same mistakes in the future. Those fears now are nothing but reinforced by the IOC’s actions.

Many activists are already focusing on the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, which they say may raise many of the same issues as Beijing.

Human Rights Watch has called on the I.O.C. to set up an internal mechanism that would audit a host city’s human rights record before the Games. Human Rights Watch has lobbied several national Olympic committees to endorse the idea — including the United States Olympic Committee; so far only the German committee has formally expressed interest.

Meantime, President Jacques Rogge and the rest of the IOC insist on turning a blind eye on the deeds of a dictatorial regime that so handsomely profited from the Games and brandishes the same old, tired PR excuse, that "the Games should serve as a refuge from international conflicts and politics."

The truth is the Games have become an irresistible opportunity for autocratic regimes the world over to show what we could accurately describe as "dictatorship with a human face."

And China has showed them how.