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Olympic torch in China-friendly Pakistan amid tight security

By admin | April 16, 2008

Pakistan welcomed the Olympic torch Wednesday for what its pro-China government hopes will be a trouble-free leg of its world tour.

Protests against China’s human rights record have marred the torch’s passage through Western cities, and Pakistan has gone to great lengths to avoid any repeat during the Olympic symbol’s 22-hour stay en route to Beijing.

A plane bringing the torch from Oman landed at the military section of Islamabad airport amid tight security early Wednesday.

A Chinese Olympic official carried a lantern containing the Olympic flame down the steps of the plane to where Pakistani sports chiefs and the Chinese ambassador were waiting.

The flame was to be taken later in the day to the city’s main sports complex, Jinnah Stadium, where “a colorful ceremony will be held to welcome the Olympic torch,” said event coordinator Mohammed Yahya from the Pakistan Olympic Association.
“There is absolutely no chance of any trouble, any protest against it,” Yahya said.

However, he said soldiers and police would guard the stadium to ensure peace during the ceremony.

About 60 Pakistani athletes were to take turns carrying the torch to the ceremony, featuring folk music and dancing before guests including President Pervez Musharraf, who just returned from a six-day state visit to China.

But instead of carrying the torch along a 3-kilometer (nearly 2-mile) route from the white-marble parliament building, as originally planned, the athletes were to run only around the grounds of the Jinnah Stadium.

Col. Baseer Haider, an army official helping organize the event, said the change was made because of the “overall security environment” and the risk of bad weather. A violent hailstorm hit Islamabad on Tuesday but weather was fine Wednesday.

The Pakistan Olympic Association has urged broadcasters using state TV coverage of the torch to avoid “negative comments” and make “no mention” of recent violence in Tibet.

Pakistan has strong and long-standing defense and economic links with China. Both are rivals of neighboring India.

There have been no indications that rights groups were planning to repeat in Pakistan their protests against China, which disrupted torch relays in Paris, London and San Francisco.

The torch’s stops in Argentina, Tanzania and Oman have been trouble-free.

However, rioting in two Pakistani cities in the past week has raised tension in a country permanently on guard against attacks by Islamic militants based along its border with Afghanistan. Chinese workers were targeted in two deadly attacks last year.

“We have to take care that there is no infiltration by some elements who are bent on disrupting our understanding and great relationship,” Musharraf said in China on Monday.

The turmoil over the torch relay and the growing international criticism of China’s policies on Tibet and Darfur have turned the Beijing Olympic Games — which begin Aug. 8 — into one of the most contentious in recent history.

The flame travels Thursday to India, home to nearly 100,000 Tibetan exiles including the Dalai Lama. Thousands of police are being deployed there to avoid chaotic protests.

Pakistani sports stars chosen to carry the torch include Hassan Sardar, a field hockey gold-medalist in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and squash legend Jahangir Khan.

Topics: Pakistan News |