The organizers called on people attending the opening ceremony to light candles, lighters and flashlights to coincide with entrance of the Chinese delegation into the Olympic arena and asked motorists to drive with headlights on August 8.

They named 14 countries, including the United States, Britain, Germany, the Philippines, Greece and Brazil where the protests would be held.

The organizers said the Dalai Lama has endorsed the campaign and quoted his representative Tsering Tashi as expressing the hope that the campaign would inspire the Chinese authorities to appreciate the value of freedom for all mankind and the importance of Tibetan Buddhist culture which has the "potential to serve all mankind."

The Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile, he said, are not against the Beijing Olympics. "We are also not against the Chinese people, who also do not enjoy genuine human rights and freedoms that the people in the free world take for granted," he added.

The organizers said "Sad Smoky Mountains" teams will fire flares with red smoke from skyscrapers, monuments and major buildings and from the summit of a hundred mountains synchronizing with the opening of the Olympics in the action called "The Greatest Light Protest on Earth."

In a statement, the Sad Smoky Mountains said they would make the monuments talk the language of smoke "the evanescent colour of blood" on the day the Olympic torch is lit.

The repression in Tibet during an event of worldwide interest has become a symbol of "failure and betrayal" of the international community despite its ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights sixty years ago, it said.