SUMMARY IN ENGLISH
CONTRA # 3 2008
Raped Tibet is fed up,
by Tommy Hansson
Tibet is once again in the focus of world events. Thanks to the IOC
decision to give Peking the 2008 Olympic Games. From the 7th century Tibet
was an independent state with short exceptions, when Tibet was occupied
by foreign powers. The still on-going Chinese occupation started in 1950.
Recent protests show that Tibetans are fed up by Chinese violations of
their rights.
The suffering can come to an end only with a free Tibet!
One of the most revolting stories on Chinese communist oppression in Tibet was written by the Tibetan monk Palden Gyatso. His book "Fire Under the Snow" was published in 1997 and was an immediate international bestseller, when Palden told about his 33 years in prison. He was released in 1992 and was then successful in fleeing across the Himalayas to Dharamsala in India, to where he brought a smuggled collection of Chinese tools of torture.
False propaganda fronts in Berlin and Peking
At two previous occassions the Olympic Games have been held in totalitarian
dicatorships: in Berlin, Germany in 1936 and in Moscow, Russia in 1980.
Both used the games in their propaganda wars to promote national socialism
and communism respectively. In the short run the events were turned into
great successes, although the Games in Moscow were hit by an international
boycot. But in the long run it turned out worse, within a decade the two
dictatorships had fallen. Maybe the Olympic Games in China will be the
beginning of the end of the Chinese dictatorship?
40 years later
Forty years ago, in May 1968, a communist mob occupied the Student Union
building in Stockholm. For some odd reasons this non-event has been turned
into a major event by politically correct media. The end of the occupation
was however that a few hundred protesters had to leave the building heavily
protected by police when they had run out of food. Thousands of anti-communists
protested outside the building. And in the student elections the next
year the conservatives won a large victory and was in continuous power
for more than two decades.
Contra has interviewd two participants in the event. One who was inside
the building with the Communist occupiers and one staying with the anti-communist
crowd outside the building.
Clarence Thomas and the left
by Allan C. Brownfeld
Clarence Thomas describes his life in "My Grandfather´s Son" (Harper). The book should be an American classic.
The right gets back in South Korea
by Tommy Hansson
After eight long years with the left in power the presidential election returned the conservatives to power, by electing 66 year old Lee Myung-bak from the Hannara Party (Grand National Party, GNP) President. Also in the parliamentary election Lee's party was victorious gaining 153 of 299 seats in the National Assembly. The leftist United Democratic Party (UDP) turned out second largest, winning 81 seats. Lee, with the nickname "the Bulldozer”, is a dynamic politician with a broad background.
”Transfair/Fairtrade” – inferior products
with 80 per cent administration fees
by Fredrik Runebert
Trade with "Transfair"/"Fairtade" labels increase for products like coffee and chocolate. Many politicians have requested that local governments should buy only products marked with Fairtrade Labels. We should thus look closer at the business of Fairtade Labels. And the picture is not as nice as the propaganda would like us to have it.
