The Secret Tibet (The Forbidden world)

NEW YORK: Actor RICHARD GERE chases a fugitive Bosnian war criminal in his latest movie role, but in real life the devout Buddhist is pursuing China on human rights abuses and says a boycott of the Beijing Olympics could help.

 Gere, chairman of the International Campaign for Tibet, said the 2008 Beijing Olympics were a good opportunity to encourage China to end human rights abuses in Tibet and allow the Himalayan region to decide its future.

"A general boycott to me certainly has value; it's probably impractical, but emotionally absolutely makes sense," Gere, 58, said. "Why should the world reward people who are obviously so bad to their own people, so bad to other people."

"In the same sense, encouragement is really important," he said in an interview to promote the new film, opening in US theatres on Friday. "Not one country on this planet has got it all together, including the United States."

In The Hunting Party Gere takes on another contentious international issue - fugitives from the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Gere plays war reporter Simon Hunt. In 2000 Hunt, cameraman Duck, played by TERRENCE HOWARD, and rookie reporter Benjamin, played by Jesse Eisenberg, set off on a sometimes humorous search for Bosnia's most wanted war criminal -- "The Fox."

he movie was developed from an Esquire magazine article by war correspondent SCOTT ANDERSON. Anderson and four other journalists reunited in Sarajevo in 2000 and came up with a sketchy plan to find top war crimes fugitive Radovan Karadzic.

To their surprise they came closer than they ever thought they would to finding Karadzic and had a run in with the CIA that left them with the impression that Washington didn't really want to catch war criminals.