By Simon Santow
It may not make any difference to the medal count, but Australia’s athletes will have some high-profile barrackers in the corner during the Olympic Games in August.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has ended months of speculation by confirming that he will attend the opening ceremony in Beijing and the first couple of days of competition.
Governor-General Michael Jeffery will also be there.
But in accepting the Chinese Government’s invitation, both men have disappointed human rights advocates, who say they should stay away in protest of abuses in Tibet and other parts of China.
For Mr Rudd, going to Beijing was simply a matter of finding the time in a very tight prime ministerial schedule.
“We’ve made it work and I’ll be going to the opening ceremony and I’ll be there for a few days after that,” he said.
But Mr Rudd insists that his delayed decision to go was not intended as some sort of diplomatic snub aimed at upsetting China and he doesn’t think that was the way it went down in Beijing.
“I’m unaware of any of that so I’m pretty relaxed about going,” he said.
“The Chinese Government have extended an invitation and the Australian Olympics Committee (AOC) have been supportive of the decision to go.
“I think it’s the right thing to do, and more importantly, just to cheer for the Australian team and to respond positively to the invitation which has been extended to me personally by the Chinese President.”
Mr Rudd announced he would be going to the Games while addressing Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) athletes in Canberra. He regaled the Olympians with his own sporting and cultural exploits.
“Things have changed, it’s good to see that they have,” he said.
“The closest thing I got to competitive sport in Beijing was playing for Australia in the Australian team in Beijing in cricket.
“There were only 12 Australians in China at the time and I was selected as 12th man. As our captain said, I never troubled the score-keepers much.”
‘Political pollution’
While Mr Rudd may have been self-deprecating in his manner, some of his political opponents – including Greens leader Bob Brown – don’t see anything funny about his decision to attend the games.
“The pollution of Beijing strong-arm politics has reached the Prime Minister’s office here in Canberra,” Senator Brown said.
He says going to Beijing gives the Chinese Government credibility when it should be criticised for human rights abuses, particularly in Tibet.
“Mr Rudd should be not going to the opening ceremony unless there was a real breakthrough for the Tibetans in negotiating the conditions between [Chinese President] Hu Jintao, the top communist leader in Beijing, and the Dalai Lama and his representatives,” Senator Brown said.
“It’s not much of an ask, but even that’s been dropped by Kevin Rudd.
“It’s not just pollution here that’s affecting our ability to have the full team at the opening ceremony – and quite a few of the athletes will be looking after their health by waiting until the track events – but there’s a political pollution that is very, very damaging here, and that is the sheer trade power and the dollar power and the money power and the political power of the Beijing bosses.”
Senator Brown’s argument has been bolstered by Amnesty International’s claim that as many as 1,000 detainees from the riots in Tibet in March remain unaccounted for.
“For Amnesty International, simply the story is that hundreds – over 1,000 people – are unaccounted for in the Tibetan autonomous region and the neighbouring Tibetan populated areas,” spokeswoman Roseanne Rice said.
“The Chinese Government, through official media reports, has told us about numbers who’ve surrendered, who have been detained and then who have been charged and sentenced – and there’s a huge discrepancy. There’s hundreds of people unaccounted for.
Amnesty says under Chinese law, it is possible to be held in detention for four years without being charged.
