From: World Tibet Network News, Wednesday, September 13, 1995

The Kashag

Central Tibetan Administration of His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Gangchen Kyishong

Dharamsala 176 215

INDIA

Your excellencies and dear sisters,

On behalf of all the Tibetan Women in and outside Tibet, I would like to congratulate you all for being able to gather here and attend this conference organized by the United Nations.

In 1991, the UN General Assembly gave China the opportunity to host the Fourth World Conference on Women. Since then, many UN world conferences were held on different issues in different countries around the world. In all these conferences, no government or NGO was banned from participation by any of the host countries. Unfortunately, against the UN's spirit and purpose of holding this conference, Beijing has denied the right of participation to free Tibetan women and some other groups.

But at the same time, the host country has been "training" hundreds of selected Tibetan women, subjected to constant fear and oppression in occupied Tibet, for putting up an orchestrated performance as a part of Beijing's participation. The whole purpose of this is to propagate a distorted and false picture of the real situation in Tibet. The truth is that all Beijing's claims that Tibetan women enjoy all kinds of rights under its constitution and national and international human rights laws are simply not true. The truth is that the free voice of Tibetan women will not be heard in this conference.

As the honourable delegates are aware, the basic objective of the Conference is to usher in "Equality, Development and Peace" in our quest for the advancement of the status of women. Yet, how can the agenda for equality become a reality, for the Tibetan women, when we are not treated as "equal" and integrated into the process of "Equality, Development and Peace"? What are the real, human values of these high sounding human rights terms if they are meant only to suit the interests of certain vested nations and groups?

Dear sisters, this conference cannot be complete without addressing the issues pertinent to these silenced voices who have been denied access to this Forum. It can hardly be rated a success unless the issues and problems of ALL the women of the world are heard and discussed. How can this conference be a CONFERENCE OF COMMITMENT?

We take this opportunity to appeal to ALL of you, our sisters, in your quest for equality, peace and justice, to promote our message of freedom and justice too.

Just as we have been denied, you too are being denied the opportunity to hear the truth about the Tibetan issue and about the situation of Tibetan women. We, therefore, request the United Nations to send its Commission on Human Rights' Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women to investigate the actual conditions of Tibetan Women in Tibet. We also urge the United Nations and the international community to initiate measures to bring to an immediate end violations of human rights of Tibetans and support our efforts at making Tibet a Zone of Peace.

With assurances of our highest esteem,

Your sincerely,

Rinchen K. Choegyal (Mrs.)

Minister for Education

19 August 1995