John O'Shea, Irish Independent , 7 August 2008

THE price of integrity was most famously pitched at 30 pieces of silver. These days it costs a bit more.

The Olympic Games which kick off tomorrow were purchased for EUR30bn by Beijing.

This would have been cheap at twice the price. They were buying credibility, prestige and most critically acceptance.

But when China was awarded the games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said it would be keeping a "wary eye" on the country's human rights record.

This was to be the quid pro quo, but the cheque has bounced and a morally bankrupt charade is about to begin, Beijing has been let off the hook.

The IOC's wary eye has certainly not stopped atrocities in Darfur in which 300,000 people died. Nor did it save Tibetan monks being battoned off the streets.

In Burma, the military junta turned away aid for the starving to the horror of the world. The dictators rule with an iron fist; cruelty and ruthlessness confirm their grip on power.

In all three places the Chinese wield unique power through a combination of economic muscle and brute force.

The 2008 Games were handed to China on the grounds that they might encourage Beijing to improve its humanitarian record and promote democracy.

But activists have been imprisoned and kept away, free speech is still regarded as treasonable, and even the internet has been censored for the world's media. So where sits the flame of truth in all of this?

Baron de Coubertin, who so lavishly revived the games in 1896, thought they should be suited to "the conditions of modern life".

Maybe that is the problem; perhaps the Games all too accurately reflect "the conditions of modern life".

Certainly this is what the participation of our Government would suggest. That is, if one accepts that life is only about selling to the highest bidder and " let the Devil take the hind most".

Ireland had a unique opportunity as a small country with an independent voice. We had a chance to speak up for those whose rights have been trampled on, and who feel the blows of oppression. In fact, given our history, we have a duty to do so.

But like all the others, we have bowed to the altar of commerce and sacrificed our principles for pragmatism.

China is a big cat commercially and, as our Government sees it, we need to be at the feast to catch what crumbs we can – regardless of how they were acquired.

And so we have shamefully dispatched our Minister for Sport, Martin Cullen, to represent us. Never mind that Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi, the peaceful activist enters her 20th anniversary under lock and key by the generals, as the pageantry begins in the Bird's Nest Stadium.

Defending his reasons for participating in the spectacle Mr Cullen said: "Sport and politics don't mix." Try telling that to Nelson Mandela in postapartheid South Africa. Mr Cullen should have checked his sources before he spoke. The phrase "politics has no place in sport" was first coined by Avery Brundage in 1934.

The then President of the US Olympic Committee was trying to persuade America not to boycott the upcoming games. These went ahead.

In 1936, Goebbels orchestrated the greatest propaganda coup Hitler ever achieved when he was serenaded before the world by a choir of 3,000.

Now China is to have its moment in the sun, but many in the Third World are to be left in darkness because once more the international community has bottled it.

There is no denying that the Olympics were awarded for a mixture of economic and political reasons.

But China has proven itself unwilling or unable to reform and the West has turned a blind eye.

It is surely in the interests of Beijing as well as the rest of the world to point this out to the mandarins so that progress can eventually be achieved.

In response to the slightest murmurs of criticism, China pulled the "anti-Chinese sentiments" trigger and produced a groundswell of jingoistic support back home which was enough to scare off further censure.

All that was required was for a handful of countries to stand up and say that "what you are doing in facilitating the Sudanese government in riding rough-shod over the people of Darfur is wrong".

A global peace-keeping force must be allowed in and Beijing has the power to make this happen.

Equally, it has the capacity to use its powerful voice to order the generals in Rangoon to permit a fullscale international relief effort.

Right across Africa, China is depriving populations of scarce resources in exchange for trinkets but the world still keeps a respectful silence, and China is treated with silk gloves.

That is why we needed to stand up, and that is why we needed to use the leverage that the staging of the games afforded. But to stand up requires a back bone which we sadly still appear to be lacking.

No doubt the 2008 Olympics will be slick and successful, presented and packaged in a parade of patriotism that the Chinese will be proud of.

But in the Third World survival is still the only game in town and there are only graves for the losers.

Instead of being "bolder and stronger" the message we have sent out is: "Let the games begin – so long as the action takes place somewhere where the cameras do not have access". Somewhere, like Burma, Darfur or Tibet perhaps?

JOHN O'SHEA IS CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF AID AGENCY GOAL