主题：境外圣火护卫团？这个问题怎么看？？ -- lxshncd

可是奇怪的是，在金晶传递火炬的那一段，除了后面推轮椅的那位盲人和身边的那位女士，却看不到圣火护卫团的成员，只有稀少的几个法国警察在顾此失彼的应对着，不知道是什么原因导致了圣火护卫团的的缺席，而小姑娘的身边很孤单。

Top Chinese cops protect Olympic flame By ANITA CHANG, Associated Press Writer

BEIJING - They wear bright blue tracksuitsand Beijing Olympic organizers call them "flameattendants." But a military bearing hints at their true pedigree: paramilitary police sent by Beijing to guard the Olympic flame during its journey around the world.

Torchbearers have criticized the security detail for aggressive behavior, and a top London Olympics official simply called them "thugs."

"They were barking orders at me, like 'Run! Stop! This! That!' and I was like, 'Oh my gosh, who are these people?'" former television host Konnie Huq told British Broadcasting Corp. radio about her encounter with the men in blue during London's leg of the relay Sunday.

So far, the "29th Olympic Games Torch Relay Flame Protection Unit" — as the squad is officially known — has kept the flame from being seized during chaotic, protest-filled runs through Paris and London.

Its mettle is likely to be further tested Wednesday in San Francisco, where activists protesting China's crackdown in Tibet and its human rights record have promised widespread demonstrations.

Officially, Beijing has said only that the unit's mission was to guard the flame, in keeping with practices of past Olympic games.

Members were picked from special police units of the People's Armed Police, China's internal security force. The requirements for the job: to be "tall, handsome, mighty, in exceptional physical condition similar to that of professional athletes," the state-run China News Service said.

Special police units are the top tier of the paramilitary corps, chosen for skills in martial arts, marksmanship and hand-to-hand combat, according to sinodefence.com, a British-based Web site specializing in Chinese military affairs.

The training for the Olympic flame detail included daily mountain runs of at least six miles and lessons in protocol. They also learned basic commands such as "go," "step back," "speed up" and "slow down" in English, French, German, Spanish and Japanese, the China News Service said.

But as the torch made a stormy procession through London and Paris, the military training rather than the protocol seemed to come to the fore.

At least one torchbearer said she clashed with the squad, and others have criticized their heavy-handed tactics.

Yolaine De La Bigne, a French environmental journalist who was a torchbearer in Paris, told The Associated Press she tried to wear a headband with a Tibetan flag, but the Chinese agents ripped it away from her.

"It was seen and then, after four seconds, all the Chinese security pounced on me. There were at least five or six (of them). They started to get angry" and shouted "No! No! No!" in English, she said.

De La Bigne tried to push several agents away as they grabbed her arm. She said two French athletes who are martial arts experts tried to help her and clashed briefly with the security detail.

The chairman of the London 2012 Games, Sebastian Coe, was even more blunt.

"They tried to push me out of the way three times. They are horrible. They did not speak English. They were thugs," Coe, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was quoted as saying in British media. A spokeswoman for the London 2012 Olympics committee confirmed that Coe was quoted accurately, but added that he thought he was making private comments.

The Olympic flame wasn't part of the ancient games, and the torch relay didn't become a fixture in the modern Olympics until the 1936 Berlin Games, when it was part of the Nazi pageantry that promoted Hitler's beliefs of Aryan supremacy in the world of sports.

That first 12-day relay from Ancient Olympia to Berlin traversed Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and other nations that would later be invaded by the Nazis. And the torch was borne into the Olympic stadium by a blond, blue-eyed runner chosen for his Aryan features.

In years since, security details have been sent out by Olympic hosts to accompany the torch, but until now, they never faced such protests.

For the Sydney games in 2000, at least one uniformed guard followed the torch, and more security was added after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. Security officials escorted the flame throughout the 2004 relay for the Athens games, though in small numbers and amid a festive atmosphere.

For Beijing's relay, protesters disrupted the ceremony at Ancient Olympia when the Olympic flame was lit two weeks ago. In London, protesters nearly grabbed the torch, and in Paris, the men in blue extinguished its flame and hustled it to the safety of nearby buses, amid rowdy protests that prompted officials to call off the last third of the relay.

In China, paramilitary police are responsible for a wide range of security tasks from fighting forest fires to quelling civil unrest. After deadly riots and protests broke out in Tibet last month, detachments mobilized to reassert government control.

The Olympics squad is composed of two groups: 30 members covering the torch route outside China, and 40 handling the relay inside China, according to China News Service.

The guards work around-the-clock shifts to ensure the Olympic flame never goes out. News photos showed them on an Air China charter jet staring at two lanterns containing the flame.

In London, the guards stopped a protester from wrenching the torch from the hands of Huq, the former TV host, but she was unsure who they were and what their role was.

"The men in blue perplexed everyone," she said. "Nobody actually seemed to know who they were officially or what their title was. They were kind of very robotic, very full on."

Officials with the Beijing Olympic organizing committee and the government had only praise for the flame attendants.

"I think our protection team members have been following regulations and properly carrying out their flame protection work," said an official in the Olympic torch relay center in Beijing, who gave only his surname, Liu, because he is not an official spokesman.

Zhao Shangsen, a spokesman at the Chinese Embassy in London, said it is "routine practice" for flame attendants to accompany the torch as it travels around the world.

"Their job is to protect the torch," he said.

Associated Press writers Jerome Pugmire in Paris and Greg Katz in London contributed to this report.

中国顶级警察保护奥运圣火

anita chang， 美联社作者

北京。他们穿着亮蓝色的运动服，北京奥运组织者们称呼他们是圣火服务员。但一个军事标识暗示出他们的真正身份：北京派出的准军事警察，其职责在于在全球传递期间保护奥运圣火的安全。

火炬手们批评了这些安全人员，认为他们的行为很粗暴。一位伦敦奥运会的高级官员把他们说成是暴徒。

“他们冲我喊着命令，例如“跑！停下！这个！那个！”我的反应是“天哪，他们是谁？””从前的电视主持人konnie huq在无线电里对英国广播公司诉说她在周日伦敦接力时和那些蓝衣人的遭遇。

目前为止，29届奥林匹克运动会火炬传递圣火保护小组，也就是他们的官方名称，一直致力于避免圣火在暴乱和充斥抗议的巴黎和伦敦城中被抢走。

他们的勇气在周三的旧金山进一步得到了证实，那里的活动分子在抗议中国“镇压”西X以及中国的人权记录，示威活动很广泛。

北京官方宣称他们的任务仅仅在于保护圣火，类似于往届奥林匹克运动会。

从人民武装警察部队的特警单位里挑选出了这些人，人民武警就是中国的内务部队。下面是从事本工作的要求：高大、英俊、强有力、具有类似专业运动员的体质。这是中国国营媒体透露的。

特警是中国准军事队伍里最精英的部队。他们精通武术、射击、徒手格斗（消息来源sinodefence.com，一家关注中国军情的英国网站）

这些选派人员的训练包括每日至少6英里的山地跑步训练和礼仪课程。他们也学习一些基本的外语命令，例如走，回来，加速，慢点之类，语种包括英法德西日，消息来源中国新闻媒体。

但当火炬传递在伦敦和巴黎遭遇剧烈抗议后，军事训练的内容走在了礼仪课程的前面。

至少一位火炬手说她和这些人发生了冲突，还有一些人批评他们出手过重。

Yolaine De La Bigne是一位法国环境报道的记者，她在巴黎担任火炬手。她告诉美联社她试图把一个印着那块破布的头带戴起来，但中国特工们把头带夺走了。

“过了4秒，那些中国警卫都冲了过来。他们有至少5、6个。他们开始生气了，用英语喊着不成~不成！”她说。

她试图把几个特工推开，当时那些人抓住了她的胳膊。她说两个法国专业武术运动员打算帮助她并和特工发生了小冲突。

Sebastian Coe是2012奥运会的主席，他说得更直接。

“他们打算把我从路上推开，至少有3次。他们很吓人，他们不说英语，他们是暴徒。”他是一位得过两个金牌的奥运选手。他的话被引用在英国媒体上。一位2012奥运会的发言人证实了该报道，但接着说coe认为他的评论只是私人性质的。

奥运圣火不是古代奥运会的一部分，火炬接力也是直到36年柏林奥运会才开始固定下来的。当时柏林奥运会作为纳粹的盛会促使希特勒更加确信了雅利安人在世界体育上的主导地位。

那第一次12天从古奥林匹亚到柏林的传递活动经过了南斯拉夫，捷克斯洛伐克，匈牙利和其他一些纳粹后来侵略的国家。最后火炬进入奥林匹克运动场，一位金发碧眼的跑步选手因其雅利安的特征而被选中运送火炬。

自从那之后，历届奥运都有安全人员小组被主办国派遣去伴随火炬，但直到今天，他们还没有碰上过这种抗议。

2000悉尼奥运会来说，有至少一位制服警卫伴随着火炬，而更多的安全人员在911后加入进来。安全官员护送圣火贯穿了整个04雅典接力，虽然他们人数仍然很少而且气氛很热烈。

对北京的接力来说，两周前抗议者们中断了在古代奥林匹亚的点火仪式。在伦敦，抗议者几乎抢走了火炬，在巴黎，蓝衣人们熄灭了火炬并把它送入了附近的巴士里进行保护，而狂暴的抗议者们迫使官方撤销了最后也就是第三棒的接力。

在中国，准军事警察负责很广泛的安全事务，从森林消防到镇压国内暴动。在上月严重的暴乱和抗议活动在西X爆发后，武警支队给动员起来以保证政府的控制。

武警的奥运分队包括两个部分：30人组成的国外组和40人的国内组，据中国媒体报道。

这些警卫们不间断地换班以保证圣火不熄灭。新闻照片现实他们在国航的包机上照看着两个装着圣火的灯笼。

在伦敦，警卫们制止了一个试图从huq手里抢火炬的抗议者，huq是那个前主持人，她当时不知道这些是什么人，他们来这里干嘛。

“这些蓝衣人让所有人都很吃惊。”她说。“没人看上去知道他们是什么人或他们的头衔是什么。他们就像是机器人，非常机械精准。”

北京奥组委和政府的官员们却独独表扬了他们。

“我觉得我们的保护组人员在执行规定并正确地执行了他们保护圣火的使命。”一位奥运火炬接力中心的官员在北京说。他只肯说他姓刘，因为他不是官方发言人。

赵尚森（音）是中国在伦敦大使馆的发言人，他说这些属于圣火服务员伴随火炬全球接力时的常规内容。

他们的任务就是保护火炬。”他说。

美联社作假jerome pugmire报道于巴黎，greg katz在伦敦也参与编写本报道。