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A Mission of Dissent In the Heart of Beijing
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"I don't expect Tibet to be free once the Olympics end," he said, "but we're trying to take the spotlight away from China's growth and put it on the abuses of their occupation."
The Plan
The planning for the Beijing protests, funded mostly through individual donations of as little as $10, began in earnest earlier this year as volunteers from around the world flooded Chinese visa offices with their applications.
Those who were approved deployed to Beijing in teams of four or five, with specific instructions. The teams were to operate independently and with only minimal communication with the outside. Each knew its own mission but was provided with little information about the other teams. That way, if one was captured, it couldn't tip off authorities to the broader plans.
Separately, a group of "citizen journalists" working for Students for a Free Tibet was assigned to photograph, film and otherwise document each protest and post footage on the Internet. A "witness" would watch and serve as a spokesman to the media if the protesters were arrested.
While in China, these observers were not to interact with the protesters. In many cases they would be told the time and location of the demonstrations -- or "actions" -- minutes before they happened. Only when speaking to reporters were they to identify themselves as spokesmen for Students for a Free Tibet.
Maron said he was assigned to what became known as Group 6. Its members had never met before a planning meeting in San Francisco this summer.
Besides Maron, the two other Americans were Bianca Bockman, 27, a substitute teacher from Oakland, Calif., who is active in animal and human rights campaigns, and Kelly Osborne, 39, a youth minister from Oklahoma City.
They were joined by Canadian Nicole Rycroft, 41, formerly a nationally ranked rower in Australia and head of an environmental group, and Britain's Phil Kirk, 24, an experienced rock climber who works in a sports equipment store.
Their motivations were as diverse as their backgrounds. Some had been inspired by listening to the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader. Others had spent time in India or Nepal and heard stories of Tibetan repression.
Rycroft said her goal was to tell the Chinese government: "It takes more than just economic might to be a world leader. Justice has to be part of that." Osborne said he hoped he could inspire ordinary Chinese to get involved. "I believed that as human beings, the Chinese people, if they knew what was really going on in Tibet, they would be outraged by that as well," he said.
For months, Maron agonized over whether to volunteer. His parents were worried he would get hurt. He was concerned he would never be able to get a Chinese visa again.
"But the more I thought about it, this is something I felt I had to do. I realized that I have the ability to go and to go speak out and in a way that a lot of Tibetans are not able to," he said.
