O'Shea says threat of Olympic ban could force action on rights

GOAL CHIEF executive John O'Shea has said an international threat to boycott the Olympic Games could force China to confront its record on human rights.

Mr O'Shea said nothing since the Great Wall of China had entered the psyche of the Chinese people to the same extent.

"They have got to stage the best and biggest Olympics of all time. They will let nothing interfere with that. So why is the world not threatening to boycott the games?"

He said China would never let go of Tibet, but it could be forced by international pressure to allow peacekeepers into Darfur, saving the lives of 3.5 million people.

"Our own soldiers could be in danger because if the rebels, backed by the Chinese, take over Chad, they will turn their guns on the 300,000 refugees being protected by Irish soldiers."

Speaking at the Burren law school in Ballyvaughan, Co Clare, Mr O'Shea said it was staggering that the entire world, including Ireland, was putting economic considerations first in relations with China.

Outlining his aid agency's international programmes, Mr O'Shea warned that China would own Africa within a few years.

"It will strip the continent of its natural resources. The poor, of course, are the ones who will suffer."

The chairman of the National Forum on Europe, Maurice Hayes, argued that China and India, "two historically great nations and ancient civilisations", would play an increasingly important role in world affairs. The present players would have to learn to accommodate that.

He said there was a strong feeling abroad that they might be seeing a shift in the centre of gravity of world affairs, with the centre not in Jerusalem, Rome, or the USA, but in eastern Europe or the Asian sub-continent, as empires faded and the baton was passed to another contender for world economic, political and cultural dominance.

Nobel peace prize winner and former SDLP leader John Hume said the Belfast Agreement contained the three principles required for peace everywhere: respect for difference, with no victory for either side; proportionately-elected institutions; and working together, in common interest, with people spilling their sweat and not their blood.

Speakers at the three-day school, with the theme "East meets West - a clash of cultures", also included Paris correspondent of The Irish Times Lara Marlowe, and Conor O'Clery, who held a number of foreign posts with the newspaper. The school director is Senator Ivana Bacik.

As well as lectures and group discussions, there were field trips and historical walks.

Mr Hume received a standing ovation from a packed hall in Newtown Castle following his rendition of Danny Boy.

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times