491345348_a6f94b5a30_m.thumbnail.jpgAs if China’s genocide in Tibet and complicity in Darfur weren’t reason enough to boycott the Blood Olympics: the Official Hosts selected by the International Olympics Committee for the 2008 Summer Olympics sell human flesh taken from victims of China’s vast, corrupt execution industry. But wait – there’s more. We in the US pay for the anti-rejection drugs taken by Medicare recipients who "visit" China to purchase kidneys from the organ emporium otherwise known as China’s "justice" system.

Now there’s no reason to be surprised by corruption and inhumanity at the highest level of the IOC. The IOC’s president from 1974 to 2001 was Juan Antonio Samaranch.

Samaranch was a prominent fascist during the 37-year bloody dictatorship of General Francisco Franco. [A] picture of Samaranch…doing his favorite right arm exercise was taken in 1974 at a fascist ceremony in Barcelona. The Second World War had ended nearly 30 years earlier but Samaranch loved those Nazi rituals. When this picture was taken he was a vice-president of the IOC. Six years later he became President.

Samaranch was a deserter. He ran away from the Spanish Government Army in 1937 and joined the fascist rebels. After they won the civil war, backed by Hitler and Mussolini, he ingratiated himself with Franco’s daughter Carmen.

In 1956 Samaranch was pictured in his fascist uniform, second from left, at a ceremony commemorating dead Franco fascists. Note the Olympic-style flaming torches in the background. (The Olympic torch relay was invented by Adolf Hitler’s spindoctors for the 1936 Games. Now it belongs to Coca-Cola)

In the 1960s, again wearing his fascist uniform, Samaranch was shaking hands with the dictator. In 1967 he was sworn in at quasi-religious ceremony as Franco’s Sports Minister. The ageing dictator is second from left.

Days later he repeated his loyalty pledge surrounded by fascist goons wearing regulation blue shirts. Samaranch never missed a chance to grovel to Franco and wore his blue shirt (bottom right) at another fascist ceremony in 1974.

The IOC retained a number of prominent German and Italian Nazis in its ranks after World War Two.[snip]

Even today, mentioning Samaranch’s repellent fascist record is taboo at the IOC. Maybe that’s because he appointed 84 of the current 111 members.

(Andrew Jennings: Why Juan Antonio’s right arm is more muscular than his left)

But – after the bribery scandals of the 2002 Salt Lake City Games and Olympic Generalissimo Samarach’s resignation from Imperial office, the IOC’s all cleaned up, right?

Uh sure – and John McCain’s an emotionally stable, superbly informed, incorruptible politician closely followed by the hard-bitten press who travel with him and scrutinize his every move. Want some kidney with that Kool-Aid?

It’s not that Jennings has forgotten about the IOC, about whom he has written three books that stripped away any illusions that the Lords of the Rings have the best interests of athletes and the Games at heart.

Jennings yesterday presented a scathing indictment of the IOC at the University of Toronto entitled "The Olympic Games: Past Their Sell-By Date?" One of the images he used on the screen behind him during the talk was of former IOC president Samaranch performing the fascist salute on July 18, 1974, in Barcelona.

"Fascist dictatorships were hugely corrupt, never mind the horror of their ideology," said Jennings. "That’s what Samaranch brought to the IOC."

The fact the 2012 Summer Olympics are heading his way frightens Jennings.

OK – so what does this have to with Beijing’s Official Organ Traders? Well, the wholly amoral IOC rented Brand Olympics to the even more amoral kleptocracy that rules China so the latter could wipe away their human rights crimes and tyranny – or at least hide them – under the Five Rings Of The Olympic Kings.

And when you sell human organs, you need a lot of dressings. Of course, offing the donors cuts down considerably on the post-op expenses.

Even in global human rights pariahs like Israel, the UK, and the US, the vast majority of physicians still honor the value said to be derived from the ancient Hippocratic Oath: first do no harm.

And murdering – or maiming – one person to benefit others is a depraved act wholly proscribed by medical ethics. Which is why in Israel:

Senior transplant surgeons in Israel call on citizens to stop traveling to China for transplant surgeries: …more than half of Israeli patients awaiting transplants to go abroad for their transplant surgeries, mostly to China. In a special survey which was to be published this week in the medical journal "Harefua", director of the heart transplant unit at Sheba Medical Center Dr. Jacob Lavee spoke against the transplants performed in China and defined them as "crimes against humanity".

The reason for his condemnation of the surgeries was that about 90 percent of the transplanted organs in China were taken from prisoners on death row without their consent.

‘Organs removed while prisoner was alive’

The article quoted Dr. Wang Guayoki, a Chinese doctor who escaped China and sought political refuge in the United States. He described before a committee of the House of Representatives how he removed skin and corneas from the bodies of over 100 prisoners who were executed in Chinese prisons.

He explained that the "donors" receive a special injection which prevents their blood from clotting and aids in preserving their organs. The execution team shoots the prisoners in the head while a medical staff stands by in order to remove the organs meant for transplants.

Dr. Guayoki recounted a particularly shocking case where kidneys were removed from a prisoner while he was still alive due to a faulty execution. Other testimonies brought before congress confirmed other such cases.

And the BBC found:

The sale of organs taken from executed prisoners appears to be thriving in China, an undercover investigation by the BBC has found.

Organs from death row inmates are sold to foreigners who need transplants.

One hospital said it could provide a liver at a cost of £50,000 ($94,400), with the chief surgeon confirming an executed prisoner could be the donor.

China’s health ministry did not deny the practice, but said it was reviewing the system and regulations.

‘Present to society’

The BBC’s Rupert Wingfield-Hayes visited No 1 Central Hospital in Tianjin, ostensibly seeking a liver for his sick father.

Officials there told him that a matching liver could be available in three weeks.

One official said that the prisoners volunteered to give their organs as a "present to society".

He said there was currently an organ surplus because of an increase in executions ahead of the 1 October National Day.

And you thought holidays were bad for business, right? Well…not if you celebrate your nation’s "special" days by mass executions of dissidents – and pre-arrange to sell their organs like so many burgers.

Still want a kidney with that Kool-Aid? Or those Olympics? Still want Olympics with those organ harvesters, the Chinese rulers?

Oh – and how does Medicare subsidize China’s trade in kidneys taken from (usually) dead prisoners? Well, thanks to Al Gore, selling organs is against the law in the US – and rightly so:

…the National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) was passed in 1984, which strictly prohibits the sale of or trafficking in organs for transplantation. In addition, NOTA established the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), a private, nonprofit organization which was charged with codifying and streamlining transplantation activity in the United States. UNOS serves as a nationwide organizational force, as well as the major repository for data regarding transplantation.

So far, so good. Even better – for one form of organ failure – kidney failure – Medicare picks up the tab (plus 80% of the cost of the antirejection drugs transplant recipients require every day to keep their "alien" organ from being rejected by their bodies’ immune systems).

What’s wrong with that? Some depraved recipients fly to China to buy an execution victim’s kidney – and then come back and let US taxpayers foot the bill for the drugs – the drugs they need to take for the kidney they bought off the Official Organ Harvesters For The 2008 Summer Olympics

Ain’t globalization grand?

See you in the streets of San Francisco April 9th for The Great Olympic Torch March Forward.

Bon appetit.