How three Canadians upstaged Beijing

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080328.wtibetcampaign0328/BNStory/International/

LONDON — This was supposed to be China's week. Thelaunch of the longest Olympic torch relay in history was heralded inthe Chinese press as a spectacle that would bring the nation glory,until Monday, when editors of Beijing's newspapers struggled to editblood-covered Tibetan protesters out of photos of the torch-lightingceremony in Olympia, Greece.China's week has become Tibet's moment. Tibetans and theirsupporters are being driven by the belief that this Olympic year andits vast media attention are a last opportunity to challenge Beijing'srule. It now looks like activists have succeeded in making China's57-year occupation of the territory the dominant issue of the 2008Olympic Games.
Behind this dramatic capture of the world's attention are threeyoung women from British Columbia, who have spent much of the sevenyears since China won the Games organizing thousands of internationalvolunteers and hundreds of Tibet-related organizations into a six-monthcampaign of stealth activism intended to humiliate China before aninternational audience.
Standing just to the edge of the TV cameras in Greece on Monday wasKate Woznow, a 28-year-old Vancouverite who organized the day'sattention-grabbing interventions — blood-covered Tibetans lay down infront of the torch carrier during the lighting ceremony — from theoffices of Students for a Free Tibet in New York, where she runs theOlympic-related campaign:
                                                                                                                                                                             
Enlarge Image                                        CanadianLhadon Tethong pauses in fron of a Buddist templ in Beijing, China, inthis undated handout photo. Students for a Free Tibet says Tethong, thegroup's Tibetan-Canadian executive director, was arrested in Beijingtoday along with a colleague, Paul Golding. (CP PHOTO)



                                                                                                                                "We realized seven years ago, when China got the Olympics, what anincredible opportunity this would be to shine a spotlight on theterrible treatment of Tibet," she said as she arrived in London toorganize a day of demonstrations to coincide with the torch's arrivalin Beijing on Monday.
The Tibet cause has been popular on campuses for years, and hasattracted celebrities such as actor Richard Gere, but it has long hadthe somewhat passive image typified by bumper stickers and drumcircles. The runup to the Olympics has changed that, as have the eventsin Tibet this month, which have reportedly seen more than 100 Tibetanskilled by Chinese authorities in nationwide uprisings that seem to havebeen spurred by the Olympics protests.
"Young people really got it; they've been signing up and telling usthat they have a real determination to push the bar, to make this theyear when there's some change for Tibet. They know that every mediaorganization in the world is going to be focused on the Olympics, sofor years we've realized that what we have to do is to be creative andfind ways to insert the Tibet issue into that frame."
As Ms. Woznow was bailing the Tibetan students out of Greek jail(the two who appeared most prominently on TV were Swiss citizens),another B.C. woman, 28-year-old Freya Putt, was in her office inWashington, preparing documents that would be sent to 150 Tibet supportgroups around the world giving them detailed notes on how to behavewhen organizing similar disruptions as the torch makes its six-monthtrip around the world.
Last May, the Dalai Lama's Tibetan government-in-exile put togethera meeting in Brussels of all the major Tibet organizations — there arehundreds, and they're organized under a Washington-based umbrellagroup, the International Tibet Support Network. There, the exiledTibetans decided that the Olympics should be the single focus of theiractivities for the next 15 months, and they hired a full-time organizerfor the Olympic-disruption campaign.
They picked Ms. Putt, a University of Victoria graduate who hadspent years in the student movement. When Tibet activists disruptedthen-prime-minister Jean Chrétien's 2001 visit to China, Ms. Putt wasthere, directing it and communicating with the media as studentsunfurled a protest banner behind the Chinese and Canadian leaders. Oneof the demonstrators was Ms. Woznow, who was arrested and detained byChinese authorities.