The Times - London

31 August 1995

AN INTERNATIONAL women's forum officially began in China last night without incident. although there were signs that all will not go as smoothly in future.

These came when a senior representative of the Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) forum here took issue with Chinese officials on just where participants could demonstrate in Huairou, a small town northeast of Peking to which the NGOs have been relegated by anxious Chinese officials eager to keep social rights-minded foreign women out of the capital. The forum is running alongside the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women which begins on Monday in Peking.

Last night about 30.000 mainly foreign NGO participants were bussed into Peking to attend a choreographed mass rally. After their leaders issued stirring calls for empowerment of women, Chinese students performed dances in the stadium where a billboard declared: "Our friendship will last as long as Heaven and Earth".

Nevertheless, there was a heavy security presence. but there were no incidents and most delegates said the ceremony had been a success.

At Huairou, 35 miles from Peking. Gertrude Mongella, the Tanzanian secretary-general of the main conference, visited a Tibetan tent and enthused: "I'm so happy because some rumours have been spread that Tibetan women cannot come here." But she did not realise that the Tibetans present were under the control of Peking. Tibetans who are deemed loyal to the Dalai Lama have been barred.

One unconfirmed report said a group of Tibetan women living in exile, and probably travelling on American or Swiss passports, had managed to enter China. A statement faxed to press offices by the "Tibetan Women's Delegation" said: "The delegation will address crucial issues faced by Tibetan women living under foreign occupation inside Tibet."

Protests about where delegates could demonstrate grew as Irene Santiago, an NGO official, rejected a Chinese order designating only a school field for such a purpose. She said: "All the forum site is in a designated area. We are not going to allow just a small area of the big forum site to be designated a site for freedom of expression." Many organisations were preparing tents to explain their causes, whether it he trafficking in women or female circumcision. One tent was marked ""Lisbiana" and was indicated by two Chinese characters for "female" joined together by a heart. One lesbian activist. an American, said: "All the police here who are expecting lesbians to have sex in the hack of a taxi or streak through Tiananmen Square are going to be disappointed."

On the agenda are hundreds of seminars and work- shops covering such diverse topics as sexual exploitation, prostitution, migration, Islam and women, the Afro-American woman's impact on the nation, women in armed conflicts, the contribution of women to the 21st century, and legislation to prohibit violence against women.

Washington: Hillary Clinton will go to Mongolia after attending the Peking conference, the White House said yesterday. She will spend one night in Ulan Bator, the capital. (AFP)