Olympic flame summits Mount
Everest
BEIJING (AP) - Cheering mountaineers
raised the Olympic torch at the summit of the world's highest
peak Thursday, producing the triumphant image that China has
longed for in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics.
The final ascent along Mount
Everest's icy ridge was broadcast live and provided organizers
with a dramatic counterpoint to the pro-Tibet protests that marked
parts of the torch's international relay.
"One World, One Dream,"
team captain Nyima Cering, a Tibetan, yelled in English as his
torch was lit a few yards from the summit - the slogan for the
Beijing Olympics in August.
The 19-member team, dressed in
red parkas emblazoned with Olympic logos, broke camp at 27,390
feet before dawn and reached the top of the 29,035-foot mountain
a little more than six hours later.
The flame was passed up a line
of five torchbearers to a Tibetan woman named Cering Wangmo on
the summit. The other team members unfurled Chinese and Olympic
flags as a Tibetan prayer flag lined the path and fluttered in
the wind.
The jubilant group clustered
together, shouting in Chinese "We made it," and "Beijing
welcomes you."
The emotional moment, shown on
national TV, displayed teamwork and national pride among the
Tibetan and ethnic Han Chinese mountaineers - and none of the
anti-government sentiment or ethnic tensions that fueled recent
protests in Lhasa and other Tibetan areas of western China.
China Vice President Xi Jinping
hailed the feat as "one of the greatest events in the history
of Olympic Games and a precious gift given by the Chinese to
the Olympics and people worldwide," in comments carried
by the official Xinhua News Agency.
The Everest torch was separate
from the main Olympic flame, which on Thursday was on the opposite
side of China, in the southeastern province of Guangdong.
China had planned for the Beijing
Olympics to be a showcase of its rapid development from impoverished
agrarian nation to rising industrial power.
Its preparations have been meticulous:
building glittering new venues, modernizing Beijing and even
ordering residents to stop bad behavior like spitting, littering
and jumping in line.
But taking the torch to the top
of Everest had been criticized from the outset because of China's
often harsh rule over Tibet - where Everest is located on the
border with Nepal - and the torch relay drew even more intense
scrutiny after recent unrest in Tibet and Tibetan areas of western
China.
Tibetan activists continued to
accuse Beijing of using the climb to symbolize its control over
Tibet. China says it has ruled Tibet for centuries, although
many Tibetans say their homeland was essentially independent
for much of that time.
"The Chinese government's
obsession with summiting Everest with the Olympic torch betrays
the depth of its insecurity over its rule in Tibet which was
so clearly challenged by Tibetans in March and April," Tenzin
Dorjee, deputy director of Students for a Free Tibet, said in
a statement.
Chinese officials and state media
have tried to depict the climb as a demonstration of the Olympic
spirit.
The Chinese mountaineering team
was predominantly Tibetan, with two of the five torchbearers
Tibetan as well. Having a mixed team carry the flame to the peak
of Everest helped China send a message of ethnic unity, analysts
said.
While the intended display of
unity at Everest's summit was not entirely convincing, it was
a positive statement, said David Zweig, head of the Center on
China's Transnational Relations at Hong Kong's University of
Science and Technology.
"(For) those who are strongly
opposed to China's control of Tibet, it has no meaning. It's
propaganda," he said. But it would be interpreted as a nice
gesture by those who are more likely to accept the government's
stance on the issue, he said.
Taking the torch to Everest's
peak and broadcasting it live was a technological feat. CCTV
spent heavily to build a television studio at base camp and construct
transmission points at four camps on the mountain face.
The torch was designed by a Chinese
company that specializes in burning systems for rockets. Fueled
by propane, the flame burned brightly in the frigid, windy, oxygen-thin
Himalayan air.
© Associated Press reserves
all rights.
|