Eugene’s track and field culture will meet its political culture this weekend when activists vie for some of the national media spotlight that will come with the Olympic trials.
The Beijing 2008 Olympics are expected to draw political demonstrations against the Chinese government for its relations with Tibet, the Sudanese government and a variety of other issues, and Eugene’s trials may present a microcosm of the similar grievances.

The EMU Amphitheater will serve as the primary location for demonstrations during the ten-day festival. The EMU’s East Lawn will be available for exhibitions that require sound amplification and other amenities, and an area between Walton Complex and the University Health Center will also serve as a designated free speech zone for individual demonstrators with signs or banners.
University spokesperson Julie Brown CQ said the designated areas are “centrally located” and will foster free speech and give organizations a chance to present their messages without disturbing the trials.
“We’re anticipating that we are going to have a lot of visitors taking tours of campus outside of the Hayward Field area” that would pass the designated areas, she said.
Signs are banned from the festival area outside of Hayward Field and visitors will have to pass through metal detectors, Brown said.
The largest event scheduled so far is Camp Darfur, “an interactive educational exhibition depicting five different genocides, including Darfur,” which will be displayed in the amphitheater “to create awareness of China’s compliance with the genocide in Darfur,” according to a press release.
The Lane County Darfur Coalition, Amnesty International and the Survival Center are organizing the event, volunteer Kailyn Knight CQ said.
Organizers will also distribute blue armbands with the words “China Please.”
“The armbands represent a call to China to embrace its new role as a world power by fulfilling its obligation to promote human rights,” Knight said.
“We hope to be really visual and affect some of the fans that will be going to Hayward Field,” she said. “We want everything to be peaceful. We support the athletes. We just want to bring attention to what’s going on and China’s involvement.”
Another group, Tibetan Youth Congress CQ, will host a peace walk from the East Lawn to Downtown Eugene and back on June 28, followed by a peace concert and candlelight vigil at the amphitheater at 6:30 p.m.
Kyizom Wangmo CQ , a Tibetan community member involved with the event, said the walk will be silent and peaceful.
Jessi Steward CQ, the University scheduling manager, said all events for the amphitheater and the lawn need to be scheduled a couple of days in advance.
Steward said the same restrictions that would apply during the academic year will apply to the festival, such as not scheduling events in the middle of the night, but there are “no content issues we would try to stay away from.”
Cody Anderson CQ of Lane County Students for a Democratic Society said he is planning to schedule an event that is already being advertised around campus as a “day of action” to draw attention to “the impact of the Olympics on poor and homeless communities locally and globally.”
Anderson said the event came about as a response to “police oppression to the homeless because of the trials.”
“The reason we decided to mobilize was because there’s been a total media blackout. There’s been no recognition that this is happening to the homeless,” he said.
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