8.3.12

Después de seis años, la bandera olímpica sigue sin aparecer

Hace seis años, miembros de un grupo autodenominado  Native Warriors Society (Sociedad de Guerreros Nativos) robaron una bandera olímpica del Ayuntamiento de la ciudad canadiense de Vancouver, en protesta por los Juegos Olímpicos de Invierno que habrían de celebrarse en dicha ciudad en 2010.
Hasta ahora, sigue sin saberse nada ni de la bandera ni de los autores del hecho.

Five years later, the Olympic flag is still missing and unaccounted for
By Carlito Pablo, March 6, 2012

Like today, it was also a Tuesday five years ago when unidentified people crossed the lawn of Vancouver city hall in the early hours of March 6, 2007.

They pried open an access panel to a flagpole, cut the metal cable inside it, and brought down what they came for: the Olympic flag.

The next day, a group identifying itself as the Native Warriors Society claimed responsibility.

“We claim this action in honour of Harriet Nahanee, our elder-warrior, who was given a death sentence by the B.C. courts for her courageous stand in defending Mother Earth,” the warriors said in a statement released on March 7, 2007.

They defiantly declared: “No Olympics on Stolen Native Land!”

Except for a photo released by the Native Warrior Society, the flag hasn’t been seen since.

A few days before the fifth year anniversary of this daring raid, the Straight asked one prominent anti-Olympics activist what he has heard regarding the flag.

Chris Shaw, a UBC professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences, was among the more prominent critics of the 2010 Winter Olympics, and he moves in a number of activist circles.

Now he just wishes that he has the flag. “If I had it, I’d fly it from my balcony, but no I don’t,” Shaw said in a phone interview.

He added that he didn’t take it because he was in Ghana at that time.

“The rumour I had heard, and again this is going back to you before the Olympics—it was a couple of years after the flag was taken—was that because it could be something that one could be charged for, it was destroyed,” Shaw said. “That’s what I heard.”

Whatever happened to the flag, Shaw tips his hat to the people who took it.

“They have big brass balls,” Shaw said.

No hay comentarios: