Newsletter on the campaigns of the Radical Party for the freedom of Tibet.

"I truly believe that individuals can make a difference in society. Since periods of great change such as the present one come so rarely in human history, it is up to each of us to make the best use of our time to help create a happier world"

His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, 1992

#24, May 31, 1996

Editor: Massimo Lensi, Dorottya u. 3.III.em6. - H-1051 Budapest - tel 36-1-2663486 - 2660935 - fax 1187937 - e-mail M.Lensi@agora.stm.it WWW-Url: htt//:www.agora.stm.it/pr - Telnet: Agora.stm.it

Distribution: Alberto Novi - rue Belliard 89 - Rem 508, B-1047 Brussels; tel. 32-2- 2304121, fax 32-2-2303670.

Published in English, French, Spanish, Italian, Hungarian, Croatian and

Rumanian.

WHO IS WEI JINGSHENG?

Since we keep receiving requests of information on the life and work of Wei Jingsheng, we decided to publish a long article on the Chinese dissident appeared on the French daily "Le Monde." Besides hoping that Wei and his work be known by most, we also hope that this article will help to make people understand the importance of his candidacy to the 1997 Nobel Prize for Peace. Certainly, our opinion on the censorship--on the part of many media-- surrounding the dissident movement inside and outside China, and on the Tibet question, remain unchanged. As usual, except for rare exceptions, the international press and TV are not covering the whole story regarding the supposed democratization process in China.

Wei's life is endangered because of his ideas, and we are at risk of hearing soon "Who was he, anyway?" Similarly, we risk to forget all of those who, like Wei, have decided to realize democracy and are paying with long years of jail for their ideas. Needless to say, assigning the Prize to Wei will also bring their cases to attention, as we have seen it happening in Poland.

We also thought it important to publish the integral text of the Resolution on the human rights violations in Tibet voted by the European Parliament on May 23. A significative step in recognizing and denouncing the devastations inflicted upon this country over the years, under the eyes of the western countries.

Because of space reasons, informations on the current political campaigns for the liberation of the Panchen Lama and to call a meeting between the U.N. General Secretary and the Dalai Lama are being postponed to the next "Freedom for Tibet - Democracy for China fax" issue.

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT / TIBET RESOLUTION

On May 23 the European Parliament approved a Resolution on respecting human rights in Tibet. The document had been presented by the European Representatives MOORHOUSE and MAIJ-WEGGEN of PPE, AGLIETTA and ORLANDO of the Greens, DUPUIS, DELL'ALBA, and MAMERE for the ARE group, LARIVE and ANDRE-LEONARD for the ELDR group, D'ANCONA for the PSE group.

* Resolution on human rights in Tibet

The European Parliament,

- recalling its earlier resolutions on the situation in Tibet,

A. gravely concerned by reports from Beijing and Lhasa that the Chinese authorities of occupied Tibet have widened a ban on pictures of the Dalai Lama from monasteries and temples to include schools and private homes, whereas pictures of the Dalai Lama in Tibet had been allowed since 1979,

B. deploring that, according to these reports, house-to-house searches are being made to check for possession of photographs of the Dalai Lama,

C. noting the reports of death and serious injury of a number of Tibetans as a result of violent suppression of the resulting protest,

1. Deplores China's increasing policy of repression and intimidation, as well as their continued policy of transferring population, in Tibet;

2. Calls on the Chinese authorities to respect the freedom of religion of the Tibetan people;

3. Urges the Chinese authorities to ensure that all those injured are allowed access to medical treatment without fear of arrest or intimidation;

4. Instructs its Delegation for Relations with China to raise these issues

with their counterparts during the upcoming meeting in Beijing in an appropriate manner;

5. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council, the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Tibetan Government in Exile.

TIBET TELEX

TIBET / "VOICE OF TIBET" BEGINS BROADCASTING

Paolo VIGEVANO, Radical Radio Director, and Olivier DUPUIS, Radical Party Secretary, announced the upcoming broadcasting of "Voice of Tibet". Following is the text of the press release. "Today a new internationally backed radio station VOT (VOICE OF TIBET) - goes on the air. 15 minutes daily broadcasts in the two main Tibetan dialects will be on the short-wave bands to listeners in Tibet and other parts of Asia.The programs are produced by a Tibetan editorial staff in cooperation with independent human rights support groups in several countries, including Norway, Italy, Britain, India and the USA. After a short period of test-broadcasts, the VOT goes on the air officially today on short-wave frequencies. The introduction of the VOT coincided with the European Tour by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate the Dalai Lama. The Tibetan spiritual (and political) leader who was forced into exile in India in 1959."

CANADA / SOLUTION PROPOSAL FOR WEI

A proposal for the solution of Chinese dissident Wei's case has been presented to the Canadian Parliament. The text contains a plead asking the government of the Popular Republic of China to immediately release Wei and assure him medical care, and to immediately start a process of an open and independent juridical process to re-examine his case, process which will allow the participation of internationally recognized legal experts.

PRESS REVIEW

THE WEI JINGSHENG CAMPAIGN FOR 1997 NOBEL PRIZE FOR PEACE

In this issue of "Freedom for Tibet - Democracy for China Fax" we are publishing Francis DERON's article on Chinese dissident Wei appeared on the French daily "Le Monde." DERON gives us a survey of his life and of the impact it had on the struggle for a democratic China. We suggest that the groups gathering adhesions for his candidacy attach a copy of this article to the candidacy proposal form, in order to better enlighten the potential supporter about Wei's life. Finally, we would like to remind that, as previously printed here, the Norwegian Committee regulations only accept proposals from parliamentarians and tenured university professors in the disciplines of Law, History, Political Sciences, and Philosophy. Keep up the good work!

Wei Jingsheng, prisoner in Tangshan

by Francis Deron, Le Monde (April 9, 1996)

At 46, the Chinese dissident has already spent 14 years in prison. Now, for 15 years more, his world will be narrowed by his cell's walls. His crime: denouncing the renewed despotism and human rights violations in his country.

Some considerations seem to be made on purpose to write them on a cell's wall: "The willingness to be cheated is the main pillar on which slavery stands", wrote Wei Jingsheng in 1979, a short time before becoming the most celebrated Chinese political prisoner. He was detained for a long period, fourteen years and half up to 1993, by Deng Xiaoping's will (who Wei described as a despot), and then imprisoned again in 1994 with a 15-year sentence until November 20, 2009, unless advanced release, by will of Deng's heirs on behalf of a power which still ascribes itself to communism.

It is very harsh, at 46, to pay again for the refusal to be reduced to slavery. Isn't the price too dear?, Wei, like others formerly, might ask himself. In 1994, a short time before returning to prison, he assured it is not. But we don't know very well what Wei, shut in his cell, thinks today. Unlike other political prisoners, Wei doesn't communicate very much with the outer world.

His prison is located 60 miles from Beijing, in the neighbourhood of Tangshan, epicenter of a frightful earthquake in 1976, a short time before Mao Tsetung's death. Anyway, things changed a little in recent times. In fact, there was a period when his family received very scarce news about him and, anyway, frightened by the police didn't speak to foreign journalists, the prisoner's disgrace falling upon his family. A bitter life, especially for his father in dissention with him: a good communist of the hopes' era, during the struggle that led to the establishment of the regime, Wei's father broke off almost all relations with his restless son, one out of four.

Born in Beijing in 1950, Wei bears a name that his parents hoped to be of good wish: it means "Born in the capital". Their son embodied the pride of a country born again from its ashes, after a century and a half of wars, humiliations and oppression. Today, on the contrary, he is the symbol of any opposer's determination against the abuse of power of a regime that promised justice to its own people. It's 30 years by now that, with perseverance uninjured by the repression, Wei leads the opposition on all the issues: democracy, anti- militarism, the Tibetan question... He owes such a strength of character to the same regime that, with methods proper of the proletarian dictatorship, condemned him to reflect as a self-taught man.

Wei's political birth is due to Mao Tsetung. In December 1966, while China regales itself to the Red Guards' Cultural Revolution, Wei and other children of the regime cadres gather into a movement, the Committee of United Action of the Capital's Red Guards, determined to fight the extremist trends of the ruling staff closer to Mao's wife Jiang Qing, egeria of the wave that threatens to overthrow the system. Those teenagers (Wei was 16) allowed themselves to assault the political police headquarters and destroy part of the secret files about their relatives. That episode bears witness of the existence, among the fascinating

Red Guards, of pro-democratic trends revolting the repressive system. After the Red Guards organizations were dismantled and the Army regained the power, Wei and millions other people were sent to the countryside, where he discovered the poverty and the waves of famine in the sixties, brought about by the regime's errors. He came to the conclusion that the merits of communism and the economic miracle extoled by the propaganda were falsehoods. Back to the city, he found a job as electrician at the Beijing zoo. But Wei was not a Lech Walesa: he reflected, read a lot, but didn't think to an independent trade-union activity in the workers' circles. He prefer to be a polemic. He took part, aloof, to the first anti-government outburst in Tienanmen square on April 5, 1976, with Mao still alive. Two years later the Wall of Democracy, a corner where the democratic protest tazebaos were put up, appeared at one of the main crossroads of the Capital, briefly allowed by a Deng Xiaoping exploiting the movement in order to

get rid of the maoist political enemies. On December 5, 1978, Wei put up the text that made him famous, the Fifth Modernization, in

which he developed the idea that the country's economic progress must pass through the system's democratization, otherwise the people cannot benefit by the four modernizations extoled by the regime. Then Wei founded a magazine, Explorations, printed on a paper as much poor as expensive and distributed to the Wall's audience. He eloquently denounced the imprisonments for political reasons, the poverty of a large part of the population, the political origin of juvenile delinquency, the sale of children in the streets of Beijing. At the same time he discovered a question that he began to know thanks to his then girlfriend, a Tibetan woman: the repression in the roof of the world. The idea that a primary form of colonialism was taking place in Tibet was later resumed by a General Secretary of the Communist Party consequently discharged. Soon Wei found himself in clash with Deng Xiaoping who, firmly holding the regime's reins, was about to restore order. In 1979 Wei opposed the Chinese attack to the neighboring V

ietnamese provinces, and denounced the new despotism of the leader of the post-maoist era. He was arrested on March 29 and disappeared in a Chinese gulag after a farcical "public" trial in which the regime satisfied the dutiful publicity simply showing a photograph of Wei, head shaven, while reading himself his defence. The Power didn't know that Wei's statements were recorded by a dissident penetrated into the guard and later made public outside, showing Wei calmly turning down the indictments against him as well as the counter-revolutionary nature of his writings (published in French with Wei's statements in "Un bol de nids d'hirondelles ne fait pas le printemps de Pekin" Biblotheque asiatique, Christian Bourgois editeur, 1980). Wei was also rebuked for transmitting military secrets to foreign journalists.

As a matter of fact, they were wide-spread official information over military operations in Vietnam. Other dissidents lost their freedom for siding with Wei or helping for his statements to become public. Since then alarmist rumors, according to which he became insane, have gone around over his fate. He persisted in refusing to repent, while the prison system tried to annihilate him. During the first two years in detention, he was banished in a subterranean, lightless cell. Afterwards the situation got comparatively better. At the end, he will tell later, Wei enjoyed some respect from the warders in the forced labour camps. The refusal to admit his error helped him with them: he was Deng's personal prisoner. He was pleased when he asked for some paper to write to the Patriarch, more to support his protesting political ideas than to bewail his condition. In the West, particularly in France, Wei became the Chinese symbol of the struggle for human rights, to such an extent that in September 1993 he was released

at last, six months before the end of the expected punishment. That gesture, probably difficult to accept for Deng, was aimed to obtain the designation of Beijing as the host city for the year 2000 Olympic Games. But the memory of the bloody events in Tienanmen square in 1989 drove the International Olympic Games

Committee to decide differently. Since the moment of his release, while theoretically deprived of political rights, Wei got his freedom of speech back. Less polemically than before, maybe with more reflection, Wei considered to direct his action closer to the reality, for instance taking interest in the workers' claims and the protest movements against the conditions of disadvantaged people, of those oppressed by the system, and began to speak of democracy starting from concrete experiences. For some months he seemed to enjoy the favour of the powerful. He trusted to be successful in wringing the promise to be allowed to freely speak to foreign journalists because he agreed with the regime for Beijing to be designated for the Olympic and because he asked the United States not to use the human rights question for striking Chinese export with higher duties.

But Washington made a faux pas: the State Department official in charge for human rights, John Shattuck, met Wei in Beijing before meeting his official host, Foreign Ministry Qian Qichen. Furthermore, the International Olympic Committee preferred Sidney to Beijing for the games, and the relations between China and the U.S. deteriorated. On April 1, 1994, Wei was arrested again, together with his girlfriend Tong Yi, a former student who took part to the Tienanmen movement in 1989. That time the regime put into practice a new strategy. Wei and Tong Yi simply disappeared. Even their families lost their track. The suspect is that the regime wants him exiled, an opportunity that he previously already refused. What is Wei going to do now? He will continue to question the regime. "I couldn't do anything else: they condemned me to dissidence and my place is here in China", he told us before his arrest. At last, on December 13, 1995, wei was taken before the court. The trial was brusque, the tribunal was deaf to the

proofs developed by Wei and his attorney to deny the prosecutor's office thesis, according to which he was plotting to overthrow the government. He was sentenced to 15 years in jail. Such a simulacrum of justice, not only reveals the regime's willingness to obey to a judicial formalism, but also confirms that some minority forces were pushing for a moderate liberalization of the system and, following a tested method, using one more time the emblematic symbol that Wei was and is. Otherwise his family wouldn't be allowed to enjoy neither the possibility to appeal (the first time in vain just after the conviction, the second time on February 1, 1996), nor that to contact human rights organizations in the U.S. (where for the first time, last year, Wei was proposed for the Nobel Peace Prize), nor to publicly worry for the state of his health after 16 years in conditions of detention harsh to an extreme: even an electric hot-plate essential to cook the food (Wei is completely toothless) was denied to him. His art

iculations are debilitated because of the wet cold in the cell he left in 1993, while a stifling heat is coming soon.

The very special guest of Tengshen number one prison now waits for some relief to appear again on the political prisoners' horizon in the last large country still looking to Lenin. He certainly ponders over the bitter irony of his situation, after the efforts to be moderate that he bore during the short period in partial freedom.