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Rolling Buses in
Herald SunAustralia
Andrew Bolt
April 25, 2008 12:00am
IF I hadn't seen the circus with my own eyes, I'd think the $2 million we spent running a torch around
But I watched almost every comical minute of that three-hour relay of the
Far from blowing yet more cash on the most over-hyped sports day in history, we'd been given a lesson on truth and politics that's worth even Kevan Gosper's head in gold.
I don't think we'll soon forget seeing Australian police wrestling the Chinese "flame attendants" - actually members of
That wasn't the only joke - and lesson - of the day.
The other memorable image of this "Journey of Harmony" was the torch being run past brawling protesters, many bused in by the Chinese Government, while a dogfight broke out in the skies above. Somehow a battle with a newly muscled
Some 50 buses, we've learned, were laid on to take thousands of aggressively pro-Chinese supporters from Sydney and Melbourne to Canberra, where they were deployed to drown out and intimidate people protesting against China's record on Tibet and human rights.
Indeed, Uighur, Tibetan and other protesters yesterday claimed they'd been howled down, abused, punched and kicked by some of the pro-China demonstrators, several of whom were arrested.
So who were all these people singing patriotic Chinese songs and waving huge red flags for the cameras? Who formed this insta-crowd that filled the TV screens and allowed China's Xinhua newsagency to report back home the bright news that "tens of thousands of spectators, many of them enthusiastic Chinese expatriates and students, had lined both sides of the streets . . . chanting support for the Beijing Olympics"?
They were mainly students from
Dear Andrew Bolt of the Herald Sun :
Please watch the streets in
The Vietnamese Diaspora in
They are protesting the Communist Vietnamese government.
Thank you for your attention,
Jean Libby, editor
VietAm Review
