Torch’s Guards Have a Link to Tibet

As the Olympic torch procession fought its way through protesters in London and Paris on its way to Wednesday's leg in San Francisco, Chinese men in blue-and-white tracksuits guarded the flame, at times shoving away people who tried to get too close.

The guards appear to be members of the Beijing Olympic Games Sacred Flame Protection unit, a detachment of personnel from China's People's Armed Police. This paramilitary force has wide-ranging duties, from protecting diplomatic missions to maintaining internal security. Units of the People's Armed Police were deployed to forcibly quell violent unrest last month in Tibet.

In Tibet and other heavily Tibetan parts of China, Chinese authorities have arrested hundreds of people who they say were either involved in the initial outbreak of violence in Lhasa March 14 or in the unrest that has continued since then. Despite a decisive show of force in China's vast Tibetan region, authorities have struggled to bring the unrest under control.

Word of the involvement of the People's Armed Police with the Olympic flame is likely to further stoke protesters dogging the relay.

The identity of the men guarding the flame had been a mystery. British police would say only that they are "torch attendants whose role was to protect the torch.” Lord Sebastian Coe, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and chairman of London's Olympic organizing committee, called them "thugs."

"I have no idea who they were," said Marie Lajus, spokeswoman for the Paris police. Ms. Lajus said the Chinese security men rarely interacted with French police when the flame weaved through Paris streets amid throngs of protesters. Several times, the security men confiscated the torch from the torch-bearers and extinguished the flame for reasons that remain unclear, Ms. Lajus added.

Last August, Olympic officials, police officials and Beijing city officials held a well-publicized swearing-in ceremony for men recruited from the People's Armed Police special-forces training academy. Their mission: guard the torch and the lamp containing the flame from Olympia, Greece.

The unit includes 30 people for overseas missions and 40 to escort the torch on its journey through China. Chinese media reported that they had special physical-fitness preparation as well as "etiquette" and language training and practice in driving cars and motorcycles.

Now, a Touchy Subject

Despite the flurry of attention last year, the Chinese government and the Beijing Olympic organizing committee are more reticent now. The spokesman for the Beijing Games, Sun Weide, declined to confirm or deny that the men now running with the torch are from the paramilitary police. "What I can tell you is they are trained to protect the Olympic torch," he said.

A representative for the torch relay, Liu Yiyang, however, confirmed that the torch escorts had been students at the special police academy. The Public Security Ministry and the Ministry of Defense, both of which oversee the People's Armed Police, didn't respond to requests for comment.

China's government often guards information closely, and many aspects of China's Olympic preparations have been kept out of the public domain, from information about parts of the torch-relay route in Tibet to plans to shut down factories and restrict traffic to improve air quality. The unrest in Tibet and the role of the People's Armed Police, the main force used to put down demonstrations and restore order, has likely reinforced this tendency to secrecy.

Weeks before the torch reached Paris, officials from the Chinese embassy there met with Paris police to prepare for the protests. From the start of those talks, it became clear that the Chinese officials weren't accustomed to dealing with widespread street protest, according to Ms. Lajus, the Paris police spokeswoman.

"We had a hard time explaining to them that we couldn't just ban all protesters from the street," she said.

A person familiar with security arrangements in London said, "We received 12 guys, and we were told these guys would be the inner circle."

The person said British police weren't made aware that the Chinese men were members of the People's Armed Police. A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in London said he was "unaware" of who made up the security team.

The mystery around the identities of the Chinese guards has received a lot of attention in the British media. Tuesday's political cartoon in The Times of London had one tracksuited Chinese guard outside Number 10 Downing Street, with Prime Minister Gordon Brown looking at his usual police guard in a beaten-up heap.

Strong-Arm Tactics

Sunday, as one protester tried to wrestle the torch from TV presenter Konnie Huq, the Chinese guards leapt into action, pushing the protester to the ground and forcing the British police to intervene and snatch him back.

In interviews afterward, Ms. Huq described the guards as "aggressive" and "robotic," barking commands at her throughout the run.

Stéphane Diagana, a former hurdler who was the first torch-bearer in the Paris relay, said he noticed the Chinese guards were on edge from the beginning, when protesters immediately began to gather round the torch.

"They were very cross and nervous," he said. "They didn't care about the torch-bearers at all."

Mr. Diagana said one of the men told him to remove a badge saying "For a Better World" from his uniform. Mr. Diagana says he refused.

The People's Armed Police, a force of 660,000, performs a wide variety of functions in China. The bulk of its members are engaged in internal security. Large numbers have moved into the Tibet Autonomous Region and parts of neighboring provinces with large Tibetan populations to put down antigovernment protests by Tibetans.

The People's Armed Police also mans fire brigades across China, and special units are trained for crowd control, diplomatic security, counterterrorism and antihijacking missions. The force is designed to reinforce the country's military during wartime.

China's concern about security for the torch relay was especially evident when it became clear that Tibet activists, human-rights campaigners and others planned large protest rallies to coincide with the torch's visits to cities around the world.

A spokesman for the Greek foreign ministry said a team of Chinese police monitored the relay of the Olympic flame from Olympia to Athens last month. Those police were observers and weren't involved in the planning or execution of security for the events, the spokesman said.

Large demonstrations were expected to take place Wednesday as the torch passes through San Francisco. Monday, protesters scaled the Golden Gate Bridge and attached a Tibetan flag and two banners to the span.