From: World Tibet Network News, Sunday, August 27, 1995

Published by: The Canada-Tibet Committee

THE SECRETARY OF THE RADICAL PARTY, OLIVIER DUPUIS, SENDS LETTERS TO THE PRIME MINISTERS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION ASKING THEM TO TRANSFER THE CONFERENCE

Brussels, August 26, 1995. Just a few days from the opening of the Fourth UN World Women's Conference (Peking September 4-15) and the Forum of Non-Government Organizations (Hairou August 30 - September 8) unacceptable facts are being verified regarding the work of the Chinese authorities and ECOSOC.

The UN Economic and Social Council, under pressure from the Chinese government, has denied accreditation to Tibetan women for the UN Conference. Although they conceded in allowing a few of the NGO organizations which support the Tibetan cause into the NGO forum in Hairou, the Chinese government claims that Tibetan women are already being represented as part of the Chinese women's contingent.

These facts, aside from confirming the authoritarian and anti-libertarian orientation of the Peking regime, make up another unacceptable precedent: the UN's abandoning the choice of participation to the host country. This choice, whether or not someone has the right to participate in a conference organized to by the UN, is made at the whim of the host country's own political criteria.

For these reasons, the Transnational Radical Party asks the governments of participating countries what initiatives they intend to take in order to reestablish the normal conditions for the running of the Conference and the Forum and, where this is not possible, to propose a transfer of the Forum and Conference to another place.

Parti Radical

Transnational et transparti

97-113 rue Belliard-REM 508

1047 Bruxelles

Tel. +32.2.2842579

Fax. +32.2.2303670

Pr.Bruxelles@agora.stm.it

Partito radicale

Via di Torre Argentina, 76

00186 Roma

Tel. +39.6.689791

Fax. +39.6.68805396

Radical.Party@agora.stm.it

Transnational Radical Party

866 United Nations Plaza #408

10017 New York-NY

Tel. +212.9801031

Fax. +212.9801072

Trans.Rad.Ny@agora.stm.it

* The Radical Party is a transnational and transparty political organization. That is, an organization of citizens and parliamentarians belonging to various national political forces who have chosen to commit themselves to a number of specific campaigns. The current campaigns of the Radical Party are: the universal abolition of the death penalty; the establishment of a permanent international criminal court; the revision, in an anti-prohibitionist direction, of the international laws and conventions on drugs; support for Bosnia-Hercegovina, in particular through its immediate membership of the European Union; world democracy and, of course, Tibet. The Radical Party does not take part in national elections. It recently obtained First Category Consultative Status from the United Nations.

PEKING: LETTER TO PRIME MINISTERS

To the attention of Prime Minister

Brussels, August 26, 1995

Dearest Mr Major,

I am writing you regarding the Fourth UN World Conference on Women which is scheduled to be held in Peking from September 4 - 15 and which will be preceded by a Forum of Non-Government Organizations (Hairou, August 30 - September 8).

As you know, the theme of this conference, "Equality, Development and Peace", is centered on the objective to stimulate the advancement of the status of women and in particular of all the oppressed women of the world. It seems therefore strange that some of the most oppressed and discriminated against women, Tibetan women, have been excluded from the Conference.

The Economic and Social Council of the UN (ECOSOC), in response to pressure by the Chinese government, has infact denied accreditation to Tibetan women for the Conference. The Chinese government claims that Tibetan women are already being represented by Chinese women and has allowed for only a few NGOs who support the Tibetan cause to be accredited to the NGO Forum.

In addition to this first discrimination, another more serious one has been added since China is actually denying the visas of many of the women who have already been accredited by the United Nations.

This incredible and unprecedented decision of the Chinese government is located in the context in which human and civil rights are being violated daily and in which numerous executions are being sentenced daily in China, as can be gathered from sources of information.

A similar position on the part of the Chinese government seems serious since it conveys an ulterior expression of the authoritative and anti-libertarian orientation of that regime. Furthermore it appears as an unacceptable precedent for the UN that who has or does not have the right to participate in the meetings organized by the UN itself, has been left to the an arbitrary choice of the host country according to its own political criteria.

I ask you, if you believe that you should make the participation of your government's delegation conditional to the release on the part of the Chinese authorities, of the entrance visas to all those who have already been accredited by the Organizing Secretary of the Fourth Conference on Women of the United Nations.

I ask you if your government intends to assume initiatives and acts towards reestablishing the normal conditions of procedure at the Forum and the Conference, even tot he point of asking for the suspension of the Fourth World Conference and its transfer to another place to conditions more adequate to the nature and dignity of the Organization of the United Nations.

I ask you furthermore if you believe in undertaking any political or diplomatic action, in order to attain from the Chinese authorities a reversal on the tendency and application in the legislative code of capital punishment.

I send you my warmest regards

Olivier DUPUIS

Secretary of the Radical Party

Transnational and transparty