TORCHING THE RELAY TRANSCRIPT
To say the least, 'farce' is a much over-used word when it comes to journalists and commentators. But how else would you describe the Olympic torch's long and - if you'll pardon the expression - tortured journey around the globe, along with its blue track-suited Chinese security guards? Tomorrow it's in Canberra. Late last week, as the flame passed through New Delhi, police were out on the streets in force to keep the pro-Tibet demonstrators at bay. David Brill - who's covered a few demos in his time - managed to get the trust of one group as they plotted to disrupt the Olympic symbol's relay. When David returned from his assignment, George Negus sat down and went through his fly-on-the-wall footage with him.
GEORGE NEGUS: David, this is a tricky assignment, even for a bloke like you. So, how did you go about it? You got to India, you got to New Delhi. To get inside with the protesters, what did you have to do?
DAVID BRILL, ‘DATELINE’ REPORTER: We had a contact there called Tensing who was one of the leaders, known as a general, to do with the Tibetan demonstrators and he promised us that if I got up there, there would be something worthwhile doing and I asked, "Can we do an interview? Can we do an interview with my fixer?" He said, "All right, at 10 o'clock in the morning,in a park in the New Delhi."
GEORGE NEGUS: So he wouldn't meet you just go anywhere?
DAVID BRILL: He wouldn't meet us anywhere. He said, "Come to this park at 10 o'clock, I'll be under a tree." We went over there to the park, rang him on his mobile, he said, "I can see you, I'm under this tree here." Very cloak and dagger. So over we went. He was very suspicious and he was worried about the police and security agencies. He took us around the back, under a wall, where I did this interview.
TENZIN TSUNDUE, SECRETARY GENERAL FRIENDS OF TIBET (INDIA): We have a large number of people. Tibetans from all over the country are coming in all different batches and we don't even know what number that would be because people are coming on their own in groups of tens and fifteens, or even hundreds, from schools, monasteries, individuals from refugee camps, people are coming on their own, in trains and buses and in many different ways. So they will do their own protest so we will have to see who is better - the security, 15,000 security personnel, or the Tibetans coming on their own.
DAVID BRILL: Then I said, "I want to come with you today, spend time with you preparing for the demonstration tomorrow." He said, "Get yourself in a car, come to a certain spot, I'll send somebody out on a motorbike to bring you into where I am." So myself and my film producer, we went in the car, we arrived in this place on the outskirts of New Delhi. A guy came along on a bike, smiled and said, "Please put your camera in your bag, follow me into this compound." So I went down through the alley ways up some stairs into this dark apartment and there he was on the floor with his comrades with maps, phones going off everywhere, planning the demonstration for the next day. It was like going into say, Iraq, finding one of the rebel leaders.
GEORGE NEGUS: Almost like a war plan?
DAVID BRILL: Yes it was, very much like a war plan. And that is the way they organised it - he had his captains with him, who were heads of various groups which were going to scatter around the torch area the next day. But they were paranoid about being picked up.
PROTESTER: Everywhere the police is following them..If they find any groups they get caught, so it’s really hard to manage all these things.
TENZIN TSUNDUE: We have almost 600-700 Tibetans who like going to be deputy under their commander into all different places. They are presently hiding in all different places. They will direct them where to go and when to go.
DAVID BRILL: While the Tibetan protesters were in their so-called war room, setting out where they would demonstrate on the day of the torch relay, I heard there was another demonstration going on near by. India is very proud of being the largest democracy in the world. So it be, but they have this small area, about 400-500 yards long where anybody can go and demonstrate - like a demonstration corner.
GEORGE NEGUS: Like a demonstration strip?
DAVID BRILL: Just a demonstration strip - part of a road. So I went there.
GEORGE NEGUS: An officially sanctioned area so they can go to?
DAVID BRILL: Yes. A locked-off area where they can officially go and demonstrate and do what they like. It was something the Indian authorities wanted to do, was to allow the Tibetans to demonstrate a day before the actual torch run. The police were there of course, but that was about four kilometres or five kilometres from where the torch was going to be to run.
GEORGE NEGUS: Knowing India, that is half-an-hour at least away.
DAVID BRILL: At least, in a car. So I got amongst them there and it was really powerful stuff to see these people who were really emotionally involved about getting their own country back. There was an Indian MP who got up and spoke about what the Chinese should do with Tibet - give it back to the people.
GEORGE NEGUS: He was anti-China?
DAVID BRILL: He was anti-China.
KIREN RIJIJU, INDIAN MP: We cannot afford to celebrate the Olympics. The Olympics is for peace, the Olympics is for unity, the Olympics is a movement for glorifying the unification of the whole world but this cannot be possible if basic human rights are being curtailed, the innocent people are being killed and the basic spirit of freedom is being suppressed. You cannot curtail the democratic voice of the people in India. That is why I am upset with the stand taken by our own government.
DAVID BRILL: It was really heavy stuff, what he was talking about. But just to see the old people - the old Tibetans living in India for all their lives - and the young ones. This thing is not going to get better, it is going to get worse until something is done. You can see it in their faces.
CROWD: Stop killing! In Tibet! Stop killing! In Tibet! Stop killing! In Tibet!
DAVID BRILL: And so they allowed me to stay until it got very dark that night. They did all their planning, went back to the hotel, arranged to meet them again at another safe house at 9 o'clock in the morning on the Thursday. They had been working on it for four months all over India, just for this one day. It was their big opportunity - the torch being in Delhi, the international media being there. They didn't want to get caught before it even started and they couldn't demonstrate. So it was really heavy, heavy stuff, what they were doing to stop getting caught by the security agency.
PROTESTER: We’ll stick on the schedule. It’ll be on a very flexible way, otherwise if you just stick on that, who knows..I mean the schedule might be changed in the last moment, so we have to keep it in such a way that it’s very flexible and we can hit it three different ways.
GEORGE NEGUS: And many people were involved in this hard core of generals?
DAVID BRILL: About eight of them sitting around.
GEORGE NEGUS: Were they all from Dar es Salaam?
DAVID BRILL: They were all from Dar es Salaam, they were all Tibetans and they were the leaders of about 600-700 demonstrators they had organised for the Thursday.
GEORGE NEGUS: Did you get the feeling, dealing with them the way you did - for hours on end by the sounds of it - were they a violent people? Were they inclined towards violence or were they the peaceful Buddhist types that we think they are?
DAVID BRILL: They kept saying to me that they wanted to a peaceful demonstration, "We're not into violence, we want to have a peaceful demonstration just to show our cause, to show what is happening in Tibet."
GEORGE NEGUS: So they were trying to stay ahead of the police, the police were trying to stay ahead of them?
DAVID BRILL: Absolutely. And so the phones are going off, they're changing all the time and their phones were being tapped. And so some calls are coming in the same, "I am from AP Television or from Reuters" and they knew they weren't. These people were asking them, "Where are you going to demonstrate? We want to be there."
GEORGE NEGUS: How did you convince them that you were innocent?
DAVID BRILL: Well, it took a while, because they were very suspicious of me but after a while they knew I was from Australia, and they put trust into me. Before they actually left, they got in a big huddle and, "Free Tibet! Free Tibet!", hugged each other and off they went there. They were on the case.
GROUP: Free Tibet!
DAVID BRILL: I went with one of these captains in his car. We stopped about 15 minutes out from where we were, picked up all the flags.
GEORGE NEGUS: They were heading towards the torch.
DAVID BRILL: They were trying to head towards the torch or to another safe house where another hundred or so demonstrators were waiting to go and demonstrate. But we got held up in the traffic.
TENZIN TSUNDUE: We are wasting time here.
DAVID BRILL: We couldn't get anywhere and he was starting to panic because we had these people waiting for him. We did a U-turn, somehow got back, left the car, got into a subway, went about eight or nine stops in the subway. Got out of the subway, got into some rickshaws, went to this apartment building, again around the back stairs, up in the dark, and there were 100 people ages from 70 down to about 10 or 11, getting ready to be picked up in some Kombi vans and taken to the demonstration. They were getting 'Free Tibet' written on their arms and T-shirts - it was a very, very moving moment.
We left that last safe house with the hundred or so demonstrators getting into Kombi vans. It was like the President's White House carpool going out somewhere. It was huge. We got out onto the road to about three kilometres or four kilometres away from where the torch was going to start its run and the police stopped us. They came over to our car, then they saw the demonstrators, the monks, in the cars behind ours and they said, "What are you doing?" And they knew. So I got out, started filming the police checking them and all of a sudden, the back doors on these Kombi vans opened up and these quietly spoken, quiet people got out, put on their red robes and banners and screamed down the road, straight past the police and knocking people down. Then they came - two kilometres further on - to a barricade, a big police barricade where there were police in riot gear and a couple of police buses and so forth waiting if they arrested people. Then it was on for young and old.
They tried to break through the barrier. The police stopped them obviously. One of them fainted and they threw water over him. Another one broke his shoulder - they put him in the ambulance. There was a woman standing beside him saying, "Please, don't hurt him, don't hurt him." This went on for about 15-20 minutes and then they arrested most of them, put them into the police buses and drove them off.
GEORGE NEGUS: It sounds to me, David, as though it was only partly a success. The police did thwart them - they never got near the torch. On the other hand, they made a lot of noise as the international media has recorded. We now know what they're on about. Did they regard their whole exercise - their whole strategy - 'cause that's what it was - as a success?
DAVID BRILL: It was like a military operation, the way they set it up. I don't think so. Partly yes, but not overall, because they couldn't get anywhere, the barricades were so far back. New Delhi had been closed down that day since 1 o'clock. All the government officials were allowed to go home, so it was like a Sunday except for the barricades and the police. So they couldn't get close to the torch at all. Also, George, they didn't want to tell the media exactly where they were 'cause they didn't know whether it was the media or the secret police ringing them up.
GEORGE NEGUS: We saw the trouble you had getting information.
DAVID BRILL: Yes, and I was in them with them very, very closely.
GEORGE NEGUS: Nobody had any doubt what they were about?
DAVID BRILL: Nobody had any doubt what they were about.
Feature Report: Torching the Relay
Reporter/Camera
DAVID BRILL
Editor
WAYNE LOVE
Field Producer
SANJAY JHA