阴谋还是作假 ?奥运火炬登珠峰被怀疑作假


所有跟贴·加跟贴·新语丝读书论坛

送交者: html 于 2008-08-04, 21:25:32:


Did China fake Olympic Everest summit?
Icon - Comments 12 Comments | 0 Trackbacks | Permalink
Jack Marx Live Blog Icon Arrow

Jack Marx
Tuesday, August 05, 2008 at 08:56am

An interesting conspiracy theory is taking root in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, one that says the Chinese Summit of Mt Everest with the Olympic torch back in May was faked. Considering the history of this particular expedition, it’s one conspiracy theory that might actually be worth a closer look.

It was late in April when the world began to suspect that the much-publicised Olympic torch ascent of Everest might not be such a grand gesture for humanity after all. It had been known for some time that the Chinese were to restrict access to Everest, but, on April 21, 2008, Nepalnews.com reported that “due to possible threat that pro-Tibetan protestors could thwart the Olympic torch rally to Everest, the Nepal government has deployed additional security personnel on the base camp of Mt Everest...The soldiers have been given orders to shoot if necessary.”

Understandably enough, the odd rogue protester was reportedly thrashed off the mountain (while others were sent packing due to “illness”), but as bad weather began to threaten the Chinese deadline of May 10, it started to look like authorities wanted as few eyewitnesses as possible - news filtered through that nobody was to be allowed on the mountain between May 1 and May 10, Tibetan placard or not. The BBC was expelled from the Nepalese side of the mountain on April 28th and, the following day, on the Tibetan side, Olympic torch diarist Jonah Fisher reported wearily upon the “restrictions on satellite phones and video cameras” and threats that any mountaineers caught chatting to foreign media would be expelled. “Having invited us here to cover the ascent of the flame, the Chinese appear to have taken fright,” Fisher wrote. “Every question about the torch is stonewalled. It now seems that they only want us to report the victorious summit moment...The only fact we possess is that the flame is somewhere in the area.”

Nevertheless, official Chinese media reported the odds to have been conquered on May 8 by a phalanx of some 30 climbers, assistants and one official cameraman. In what one might assume to be a most unfortunate oversight on behalf of the Chinese authorities, this mighty host atop the roof of the world did not contain a single western journalist or outside observer at all. Two days later, on the final day of the imposed ban, the torch was gone and the mountain open to foreigners again, torch relay base camp chief Li Zhixin announcing breathlessly: “We kept our promise.”

According to Nepalese blog, Blogdai, rumours that something wasn’t right about the Chinese summit first came from “friends who were among the first to summit Everest after the climbing ban was lifted”, who claimed they saw “no new flags, momentos or any evidence that the olympic torch ever reached the summit”. But the most compelling evidence of all would seem to come from the official footage of the alleged summit, as released to the western media. Not only is there “no apparent evidence of the old, faded prayer flags that mark the summit and have been known to stay in place for a few seasons or more”, but there appear to be some visible anomolies when one compares the footage to visual documents from previous summits.

Blogdai points to the complete lack of visual reference points - peaks in the background, or immediate surrounds that might give any sense of summit dimension - photographic proof of which has been standard verification for Everest summits since Hillary and Norgay. (Interestingly, one of the few supposedly successful Everest campaigns to have returned without such evidence is the controversial 1960 Chinese summit, which, rather unfortunately, took place in the dead of night). There is also the matter of exhalation vapour apparent in the Chinese footage, which some climbers claim doesn’t readily appear above much lower altitudes (nor does it appear in other summit videos). The voices chattering in the background are implausible ("Ask anyone who’s summited Everest and they’ll tell you it’s not a place for a monologue. Short, clipped sentences are all most can manage at that altitude"), and there are lights glowing down the mountain which would not have been visible from the summit, particularly given the climbing ban.

“I’d be very suprised if they had to fake it,” says Andrew Lock, who successfully summitted Everest in 2000 and 2004. “When you’ve got that much support behind you, and the desire to do it, I can’t see why you wouldn’t succeed. Why would the Chinese risk faking it?”

The answer to that question could be found, perhaps, in the equally baffling Chinese fixation with media control and their apparent nonchalance towards international criticism it yields. To the Chinese, its seems, being caught cheating is nowhere near as embarassing as failure.

However, Lock also contests the argument that exhalation vapour doesn’t appear on the summit.

“It depends very much on the weather,” he says, “and it’s extremely cold up there.”

Not so sure is Lincoln Hall, the Australian who nearly lost his life on Everest in 2006.

“The vapour, with the conspicuous lack of rime ice (frost around lips and mouth), is the thing that perhaps doesn’t add up, and the rate at which some of them are climbing in the video seems a bit fast for the summit,” he told me this morning. “As for the terrain, though, it seems to me a pretty good match - what you see in the footage fits visually with what you do find at the summit.”

Hall, who is a director of the Australian Himalayan Foundation, believes that, whether they succeeded in May or not, it’s quite possible the madia blackout on Everest was a precaution taken by the Chinese just in case they didn’t make it to the summit. Moreover, he believes that false claims of success are not at all beyond the Chinese.

“I’ll say I’m unsure about the Olympic torch summit,” he says, “but I’m certainly of the opinion now that it’s highly unlikely the Chinese made it in 1960. I was a believer before, in the Chinese claims that they’d made it at night, and that they’d climbed the second step - which is basically a four or five metre cliff - by one climber standing on the shoulders of another. But, since seeing the second step for myself, I’ve come to believe that what they claim probably wasn’t possible, and that they didn’t make it after all.”

Could a similar deception have happened in 2008? One theory is that the Olympic torch wouldn’t light on the summit in May, so they simply repeated the moment for the cameras further down the mountain, which would account for the various anomolies. Others have claimed the footage was secretly shot back in 2007, as insurance against failure.

Whatever the case, thanks again to the Chinese obsession with media plumbing, a gesture of generous global significance may forever be shadowed by doubt.




所有跟贴:


加跟贴

笔名: 密码: 注册笔名请按这里

标题:

内容: (BBCode使用说明