The best way to deal with this is to attend the Olympic Games. If I were a head of state my approach would be to attend the Games and use it as a mechanism to try and make change.

I have found that dealing with the Chinese administration even on the smallest of matters, they need considerable dialogue in order to initiate change. The best way to deal with matters is dialogue.

The Nation News also reports that Barbados will “attend the Games in full regalia”. Do you think this “full regalia” will be more interesting than Canada’s infamous pajamas posing as an Olympic uniform?

Related:
Country Report: Barbados in the Olympic Games

From Reuters: Archbishop Desmond Tutu urged world leaders on Sunday to stay away from the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in August.

“The leaders of the free world, for goodness sake, don’t attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games until it is quite clear that they (the Chinese) mean business and that they will stop the violence against the Tibetans,” Tutu said at a Cape Town ceremony for an alternative “Tibetan” Olympic torch.

South Africa’s Nobel Peace laureate lit a “Tibetan” Olympic torch, which was kindled in Delhi on January 30 and will travel to cities on five continents before arriving in May back in Dharamsala, India, where Tibet’s parliament-in-exile is based.

Protesters have followed the official Olympic flame as it travelled around the world and highlighted China’s human rights record in Tibet ahead of the Games starting on Aug. 8.

“Let us make China know this is a moral universe,” Tutu said. “We must tell them ‘watch out’ because there is no way in which wrong will prevail forever. There is no way that injustice will prevail forever. We must tell all those oppressors, let us whisper in the ear of (Zimbabwean President Robert) Mugabe ‘you have already lost’,” he said to applause.

Zimbabwe has been criticised for failing to release the results of a March 29 presidential election, which the opposition says it won. Asked about China’s announcement of planned talks with aides of Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, Tutu said he hoped they would be “meaningful negotiations”.

“We pray that the Chinese will know that it is in their best interests to do that,” he told Reuters. Tutu is a close friend of the Dalai Lama.

The boycott calls prompted us here at The Olympian Blog to come up with the following list of party goers and party poopers. See where your President/Prime Minister, some athletes, and some famous personalities stand on this issue.

The Party Goers
1. Finland: Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen will go to the party. Turns out that Finland has a policy of keeping politics and sports separate so PM Vanhanen is free to go.

Do you think the Finns have the right idea? To end the endless debate on how to deal with the issue of sports and politics, maybe each country should come up with its policy of either mixing sports and politics or keeping them in separate realms.

2. Mongolia: President Nambaryn Enkhbayar will attend the opening ceremony. On top of that he will also watch some matches. No doubt he’ll be cheering for Mongolia’s 13 athletes who are hoping that they can bring home a medal for their country.

3. Algeria: President Abdelaziz Bouteflika will attend the opening ceremony. According this source, he will be the first Algerian President to attend the Olympic Games.

4. Cambodia: King Norodom Sihamoni will attend the opening ceremony according to this report.

5. Singapore: Ex-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew is attending the opening ceremonies according to a report by Bloomberg.

The Party Poopers
1. The European Parliament: It passed a resolution urging a boycott by European Union (EU) leaders.

2. Gold medalist Yvonne Boenisch (Judo, Germany): She will skip the opening day festivities to “send a signal.” However she does not endorse a general boycott of the Games because “participating in the Olympics is every athlete’s biggest wish and a [general] boycott now would shatter thousands of athletes’ dreams.”

3. Poland: Prime Minister Donald Tusk “questioned whether world leaders should attend, given China’s conduct“.

4. Czech Republic: President Vaclav Klaus will boycott the event and adds that those who voted to give the Games to China should now not be surprised by the recent troubles in Tibet.

5. Germany: Chancellor Angela Merkel earned the distinction as the first world leader to decide not to attend the opening ceremonies.

6. Canada: Prime Minister Stephen Harper won’t attend but stated that his absence has nothing to do with a boycott and that he planned to skip the ceremonies long before the unrest in Tibet.

7. U.K.: Prime Minister Gordon Brown will not attend the opening but insists that it’s not a boycott. He will attend the closing ceremonies as head of the nation to host the next Olympics, the London 2o12 Olympic Games.

Pooper Leaning (a.k.a. Those Who Might Boycott)
1. France: President Nicolas Sarkozy became the first world leader to suggest that he might boycott the Beijing Olympics. Hey, Nicolas, enough with this “might” thing. Decide already so we will remove this “Pooper Leaning” category.

Okay. This is it for now. But visit this thread again because we will be regularly updating it.