Chicago As we pack to leave for Vietnam and another great Organizers’ Forum dialogue and then to India, the Commonwealth Games is on a death watch. New Zealand, Scotland, and the Welsh put the games on alert. Canada, which is crucial to the games and has been silently allowing all of the displacement to go forward, has now delayed its flight to the games during the death watch. The head of the Games who has presided over this disaster is supposedly flying (according to the Guardian to meet with Prime Minister Singh.
This is all too little, too late.
The real death watch should have been looking at the body count of injured workers and tragic working conditions in the Games, which we have frequently reported at www.commonwealthgamescampaign.org. The real watch and demand should have been for decent living conditions for all, not just some elite athletes from around the world.
Some years ago they changed the name of the games from British Empire Games to the Commonwealth Games. Even with the name change, it still all seems the same!