_________________ WTN-L World Tibet Network News _________________

Published by: The Canada Tibet Committee

Editorial Board: Brian Given, Conrad Richter, Nima Dorjee,

Tseten Samdup, Thubten (Sam) Samdup

WTN Editors: wtn-editors@tibet.ca

______________________________________________________________________

Issue ID: 00/02/13 Compiled by Thubten (Sam) Samdup

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Sunday, February 13, 2000

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Contents:

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1. Increased restrictions on birth of children in Tibet

2. Seagram's Proud Legacy in China

3. CPN-UML demands action against those involved in Karmapa episode

4. 'Windhorse' is thoughtful story of Chinese in Tibet

5. The Cup is a winner

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1. Increased restrictions on birth of children in Tibet

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TIN News Update

9 February 2000

ISSN: 1355-3313

Increased restrictions on birth of children in Tibet

The Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) authorities have stepped up the

enforcement of birth control policy in the last two years, particularly

in farming and pastoral areas where more than 85% of the region's

population lives. Unofficial reports received by TIN indicate that a

"two child" limit is being applied to farmers and nomads in several

counties in the TAR for the first time. This represents the most

significant shift in family planning policy in the TAR since birth

control regulations, passed by the TAR government in 1992, limited

farmers and herders to three to four children. One report indicates that

those who speak out against birth control are criticised for "defying

the Chinese government" and in one township women who had not undergone

sterilisation were accused at a family planning meeting of being "guilty

of opposing socialism".

The official newspaper Tibet Daily reported last year that the more

stringent regulations have led to the region controlling the rate of

growth of its population and to improvements in its "population quality"

(Chinese language edition, 1 June 1999). The stated necessity for

limiting the births of children in the region is not borne out by

official Chinese population statistics, which show that the birth rate

of the TAR in 1998 was well below the target set for the Ninth Five-Year

Plan period of 1996-2000.

The TAR Ninth Five-Year Plan set a target for the regional population to

be kept under 2.57 million by the end of the year 2000 - the official

figures are that the total population of the TAR is 2.43 million and

that Tibetans make up 95% of this total. According to official

statistics, the TAR had a total of 50,700 births in 1998 and registered

a birth rate of 20.32 per 1000, down 8.43 per 1000 from the figure in

1991, with a natural population growth rate of 14.82 per thousand or

1.482% - well below the target set for the Ninth Five-Year Plan period

(1996-2000) of 16 per 1000 per year. The Chinese National Bureau of

Statistics claims that China's total population growth rate was below

the 1% mark in 1998 for the first time since the implementation of its

family planning policies.

In 1996, the then TAR governor Gyaltsen Norbu warned that the region was

facing an impending population boom during the Ninth Five-Year Plan

period. It is possible that this forecasted "boom" was used to justify

the intensification of birth control policies - despite the fact that

official Chinese statistics show a fall in population growth since 1994.

Official figures indicate that the net population growth in the TAR

dropped by over 50% from 1.82% per annum in the period 1990-1994, to a

mere 0.73% in the period 1994-1998 - well under the 1.02% per annum

growth for the PRC as a whole. It is not clear whether the drop in

population growth rate demonstrated the effectiveness of existing birth

control policies in the TAR or whether other factors, such as changing

infant mortality rates, were involved.

Available Chinese statistics fail to reflect a further significant

factor in determining population growth rate and implications for birth

control policy in the TAR by incorporating inadequate data on the influx

of Chinese migrants into Lhasa and other TAR cities, towns and rural

areas. As the non-resident population is not included in official

statistics, it is also highly likely that Tibetans who have children

without official permission and "birth certificates" (a certificate

allowing a couple to have a baby) will not be counted in official

population statistics. Unless certificates can be purchased through

illegal channels, in most cases a child born "out of plan" will not be

registered, and will therefore not receive full resident status.

According to official statistics the percentage of the TAR population

that is Tibetan has consistently remained at about 95% throughout the

1990s, despite clear evidence of Chinese immigration into Tibetan towns

and cities throughout the decade. Chinese statistics on population do

not, for instance, include unregistered immigrant workers and the

military. Rapid urbanisation in the capital, Lhasa, has led to a

seven-fold increase in population in the city over the past 40 years -

from 30,000 in 1959 to an estimated 200,000 today, with more than 50-60%

of this total estimated to be Chinese. The traditional Tibetan part of

the city now occupies less than 5% of the urban area.

Regulations required to "curb population growth"

Prior to 1990, family planning work amongst Tibetans in the TAR had

focused on the region's urban residents and the cadre force. The first

indication that the TAR authorities were preparing to introduce

regulations that would limit the size of Tibetan farmers' and herdsmen's

families came in a Xinhua report on 29 May 1990. Tashi Namgyal, the then

Deputy Director of the Regional Family Planning Office, said that this

reduction was needed in order to curb the region's fast population

growth rate and to control its "population quality" (Xinhua, 29 May

1990). In China the term "population quality" refers to the notion of

eugenics and the Chinese authorities' aim to reduce the number of

mentally defective children in Chinese society. The argument has

occasionally in the past been extended to justify singling out people

who are considered to be politically or socially undesirable.

In 1992, the TAR introduced family planning regulations that applied to

farmers and nomads. According to the regulations "fewer births, quality

births and births at intervals, and stress[ing] that couples who already

have three children no longer give birth" were to be advocated in

agricultural and nomadic areas, in line with the policy of "start[ing]

by trying out propaganda work, and then gradually widen[ing] the scope

[of the movement] on that basis".

In a speech to a TAR meeting on family planning work on 23 May 1996,

Gyaltsen Norbu called for a further strengthening of family planning

work in rural areas of the region, with particular emphasis on

"contraception" - which incorporates sterilisation, in the terminology

of the authorities. Gyaltsen Norbu stated that the Party, government and

family planning departments "should comprehensively implement the family

planning policy, adopt effective measures, carry out family planning

services right down to the peasants and herdsmen so that everyone's

contraception choice is met" (Tibet Daily, Chinese language edition, 30

May 1996). Gyaltsen Norbu said in the same speech: "Family planning work

in agricultural and pastoral areas where the population constitutes 88%

of the region's total, is just at the stage where propaganda and family

planning measures have not yet been earnestly implemented". He

emphasised that the focus of family planning work would be shifted to

the agricultural and pastoral areas as this was "of crucial importance

[as] to whether or not the region's population control target can be

achieved".

Population targets are set at national level and handed down to lower

levels of the administration. Gyaltsen Norbu stated in the same speech

that because "conditions differ and vary from place to place, it is

unnecessary to impose a unified pattern on population development.

Localities are encouraged to [..] put forth their own population

development targets so that population growth will be commensurate with

local economic development and resource environment under the framework

of the [Tibet] Autonomous Region's overall target."

One of the effects of this decentralisation of birth control policy is

that local officials must demonstrate in their population statistics

that they have implemented family planning requirements correctly, which

can cause distortion in the statistics produced. Cadres in local areas

are judged by their success in enforcing population targets, and it is

the punishments and rewards associated with the limits they impose that

are most likely to lead to excessive enforcement. According to reports

received by TIN, a considerable element of coercion is applied to women,

particularly in rural areas, through the mechanisms of fines and

administrative structures introduced by these officials.

Although the Chinese authorities generally deny the use of coercion in

imposing birth control restrictions, a rare admission was made by a

Chinese official from the Department of International Relations in the

State Family Planning Committee two years ago. Cong Jun, director of the

department, said in a speech to a Sino-European Seminar on Women's

Issues held on 29 October 1998 that the State Family Planning Committee

had issued circulars throughout the country to prohibit its branch

organisations at all levels from forcing women to undergo abortions or

sterilisation. She acknowledged that "there [were] some cases of forced

birth control in the huge grass-roots family planning network" and added

that "we will try our best to prevent more from happening [and] will

keep a close eye on the protection of women's rights in this issue".

Unsterilised women "guilty of opposing socialism"

According to a Tibetan from Ngamring county in Shigatse prefecture in

the TAR, new restrictions have been placed on the numbers of children

that farmers and nomads can have in four of the 18 counties in the

prefecture. Women in these counties who have already given birth to two

children have been sterilised. This is the first report that TIN has

received from the TAR of a two children limit being applied to farmers

and nomads in the region. There had reportedly been no real attempts in

Ngamring County prior to 1995 to implement the TAR limit set in 1992 of

three children for farmers and nomads.

The 30-year old Tibetan told TIN that a sterilisation programme was

launched in 1997 in Drongpa (Ch: Zhongba) County, a purely nomadic area,

and was then extended to the adjoining counties of Saga (Ch: Saga),

Kyirong (Ch: Jilong) and Ngamring (Ch: Angren) County. Saga, the most

densely populated of the four counties, has only ten people per square

kilometre, whilst Kyirong, the most sparsely populated has roughly one

person per square kilometre. The Tibetan source said that after the

programme reached Ngamring, a mixed farming and nomadic area, in 1998,

about two thirds of the women from approximately 300 households in his

township had been sterilised. The women in his township who had not

undergone sterilisation were "charged with being guilty of opposing

socialism" at the township's family planning meetings.

The Tibetan also told TIN that those who spoke out against birth control

to the authorities on the grounds that it was against their Tibetan

Buddhist beliefs and that they needed "more people to help [with] work

[farming]" were told that "expressing such discontent amounts to defying

the policy of the Chinese government". Opposition to the Chinese

government by Tibetans is taken seriously by the authorities and can

lead to severe repercussions.

A Tibetan former nomad, from Chamdo County, Chamdo Prefecture in the

TAR, told TIN that a birth control programme launched in his township in

1998 targetted all women in his township irrespective of the size of

their families. The 61-year old Tibetan told TIN that at the launch of

this programme seven poor women from each of the five units in the

township were summoned by the authorities for birth control measures and

threatened with a 1000 yuan (US$118) fine if they refused. This sum

amounts to approximately two-thirds of the average per capita net annual

income for farmers and herders in the TAR. The women were given a choice

of "being inserted with loops [IUD], sterilisation or injection"

according to the source. "It was impossible for them to get the 1000

yuan to pay the fine, so none of the women could dare refuse."

Other reports received by TIN indicate that women in the TAR frequently

do not have a choice in the contraceptive or preventative method

implemented. Unofficial accounts state that women who are taken to

hospital for "birth control measures" do not always know the procedure

that has been carried out - for instance, whether they have had a coil

(IUD) fitted or whether they have been sterilised.

Free sterilisations for the masses in TAR

The authorities gave a rare insight into the extent of sterilisation in

one county in a report on Lhatse County Hospital in Shigatse prefecture

(Tibet Daily, 2 September 1998). The Tibetan edition of the paper

reported that the county had "strengthened" its family planning work

since 1995. The women's wing of the Lhatse County Hospital had organised

medical teams to go into the townships, particularly those with the

greatest numbers of poor households, to operate on those women who had

requested to be sterilised. A total of 2267 women in farming and herding

areas of the county were sterilised in 1997 according to the report; of

this total 265 were in the townships of "Le-woo" and "Ra-sa", two of the

townships with the greatest numbers of poor households. Lhatse County

had a population of 43,500 in 1994, with the total number of people

living in rural areas accounting for 21,700 of this total according to

the 1995 TAR Statistical Yearbook.

Tibet Daily, the official TAR newspaper, stated that the staff of the

women's wing of the hospital had carried out "extraordinary" work in

providing aid to the poor farmers and herders of the county by making

family planning available to them. The paper reported an unnamed woman

"from a poor household" as expressing her gratitude to the county

hospital and the local clinics for helping her take the path to

extricating herself from poverty by providing her with free

sterilisation and medicine as well as material aid. According to the

newspaper, Penpa, the director of the county hospital, said: "The masses

have fostered the good habit of taking the initiative in practising

family planning policies" as a result of the work done in providing

effective education and propaganda in these townships.

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2. Seagram's Proud Legacy in China

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[WTN had published in Issue ID: 00/02/10 that Hollywood production

companies were backing permanent most favored nation trading status for

China ("Studio chiefs battle China syndrome") and included among its

media "moguls" Seagram Co. CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. Some WTN readers

thought it would be useful to republish one of the many news accounts

from 1991 concerning Seagram and China. WTN]

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Chinese political prisoners used as labor for Seagram's plant

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BY SARAH LUBMAN

United Press International

BEIJING, March 30, 1991 -- A joint venture company producing wine

coolers for the leading Canadian distiller Seagram has acknowledged that

Chinese political prisoners were used to make packages for the product,

but says it will halt the practice.

''We're an innocent party,'' said Philip Leung, the manager of Shanghai

Seagram Limited, which began marketing Seagrams wine coolers and French

brandy in Shanghai last July.

Unbeknownst to Seagram, Leung said, its local packaging suppliers had

contracted labor in a wing of Shanghai Prison where

''counterrevolutionary'' inmates are held. The term refers to political

offenses against the communist regime.

The arrangement came to light when a delegation of lawyers from the

American Bar Association toured the prison last week. The group

requested and was allowed to visit the ''political prisoner'' wing,

according to James Feinerman, a China scholar at Georgetown University

who accompanied the lawyers.

The lawyers were shown a group of cells holding 65 men serving prison

sentences from eight to 10 years for unspecified

''counterrevolutionary'' crimes, including ''a man from Hong Kong in his

30s,'' Feinerman said.

Most had been behind bars for several years. Wardens told the group that

another four or five women convicted of political crimes lived in a

separate wing of the prison, which holds a total of 4,000 inmates.

The visit was rare in a country that maintains it has no political

prisoners despite the recent trials and sentencings of scores of

dissidents for political crimes linked to the 1989 pro-democracy

movement.

Leaving the prison, the lawyers noticed a large stack of cardboard

six-pack cartons printed with the Seagrams logo. They were told the

cartons were assembled by the political prisoners.

''We took one of the cartons, but prison officials later got nervous and

asked us to return it,'' Feinerman said.

Leung, reached by telephone at his Shanghai office, said the work had

been contracted by a third party without his knowledge and vowed to find

another supplier. Shanghai Seagram is a division of Seagram Co. Ltd. of

Toronto and is Shanghai's first Sino-Canadian joint venture.

''This is sensitive,'' Leung said. ''I was not aware of this.''

Upon inquiry, Leung discovered his local packaging manager had known

about the Shanghai Prison agreement, but hadn't mentioned it because he

''didn't think it was important,'' Leung said.

According to Leung, Shanghai Seagram hired a Sino-Singaporean joint-

venture printing firm to manufacture the cardboard carrying cases. The

coolers sell for about $1 domestically, with Southeast Asia and Hong

Kong targeted as future export markets.

The Xinda Printing Company then hired a local middleman who contracted

peasants and political prisoners to glue the cartons together without

Seagram's knowledge, Leung said.

''I don't like it and we better put a stop to it,'' Leung said. He said

he had instructed his packaging manager to fire the middleman and

investigate the situation at Shanghai Prison.

The political prisoners making Seagrams wine cooler cartons live three

to a cell like criminals in other parts of the jail, witnesses said.

Seagram's complicated arrangement with the prison illustrates the perils

of doing business in China's partially liberalized and increasingly

chaotic economy.

More than a decade of economic reforms and decentralization have given

rise to innumerable middlemen who act as conduits for transactions once

handled exclusively through the government bureaucracy.

Seagram's case may not be an isolated incident, and occurs against a

backdrop of growing Western alarm over China's alleged use of ''slave

labor'' for manufacturing exports.

Some U.S. lawmakers are lobbying to punish China for what they say is a

widespread practice of forcing prisoners at ''reform through labor''

camps to do piecework on export goods.

The lawmakers, led by conservative Republican Sen. Jesse Helms, claim

such work not only violates U.S. human rights policy but constitutes

unfair competition that further fuels a growing Sino-U.S. trade deficit.

The United States posted a $10 billion deficit with China in 1990, with

estimates for 1991 reaching as high as $15 billion.

Shanghai Seagram Limited, a joint venture with the China Distillery in

Shanghai, currently operates at one-third to one-quarter its annual

capacity of 300,000 cases.

The joint venture was established with an initial investment of $8

million, with each partner contributing half. Seagram has launched an

aggressive advertising campaign in Shanghai since its grand opening last

November and sales so far have been ''very good,'' Leung said.

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3. CPN-UML demands action against those involved in Karmapa episode

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By Nepal News Correspondent

Kathmandu, Feb 11:

The main opposition CPN-UML accused some senior leaders of the Nepali

Congress and high-ranking government officials of assisting Tibetan

religious leader Karmapa Rimpochhe to flee Tibet via Nepal.

In a statement issued by chief of foreign affairs department of the

CPN-UML Jhala Nath Khanal, it is said that Karmapa Rimpochhe fled to

India via Nepal with the active assistance of some Nepali Congress

leaders and bureaucrats.

CPN-UML demanded that government make public all the organizations and

individuals involved in the Karmapa's fleeing to Dharmashala of India.

CPN-UML claimed that helicopter and state machinery were misused to

assist Karmapa Rimpochhe to flee to India via Nepal.

However, it did not give the names of Nepali Congress leaders and

bureaucrats who it claimed to have been involved in the incident.

The main opposition party accused the government of allowing Nepalese

soil to be used against China.

"The recent Karmapa episode has violated Nepal's established policy of

not allowing Nepal's soil against any friendly country and five

principles of peaceful co-existence on the basis of which relations

between Nepal and China were established and developed.

Karmapa Rimpochhe recently fled to India, which has been a big

embarrassment to China.

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4. 'Windhorse' is thoughtful story of Chinese in Tibet

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The Grand Rapids Press

February 10, 2000

John Douglas

On Film

Watching this film made me contemplate the differences in the lives of

people all over the world. While we in Grand Rapids are sweating out the

S-curve construction, the people in Tibet are undergoing all kinds of

horrors under the occupation of the Chinese.

My blood never fails to boil when I see what some people who are in

power do to others, including torture and murder them. I have seen it in

films from all over the world and read about it in the newspaper. Of

course, I do nothing about it, and continue with my diatribes about

cellular telephones and salad bars. I feel more than a little guilty

about that after seeing a film like "Windhorse."

This is a very special movie, much of which was shot in Tibet on the

sly. Some of the actors and technicians who worked on the film have

requested that their names not be used in the credits for fear of

reprisals on themselves and their families by the Chinese.

Career woman

The principal character in the film, which is based on a true story, is

a young Tibetan woman named Dolkar (Dadon) who is on the verge of a

popular music career. She is being helped by a young Chinese man

(Richard Chang) who has connections in the business. In fact, he has

arranged for her to sing live on television in a program that will be

broadcast all over China.

In the meantime, her cousin Pema (name withheld), a Tibetan nun, is

released from prison, but near death from beatings and torture to which

she was subjected while under interrogation by the Chinese.

Pema's heinous crime was standing in a public place and saying good

things about the Dalai Lama. It seems that the Chinese do not even allow

people to own pictures of the Dalai Lama.

So Dolkar must reassess her career in light of what has happened to her

cousin at the hands of the Chinese.

Dadon, who plays Dolkar, actually lived much of what her character goes

through in the film. She was a pop singer in Tibet who got involved in

protests and had to escape from her country by walking out over the

Himalayas. Dadon now lives in the United States.

It's an extraordinary little film that packs a big message for all of

us.

The film opens tonight at the Knickerbocker in Holland, but will also

have a three-day run at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts next

week.

"Windhorse" is a very important movie and I hope you can avail yourself

of its showings in West Michigan. The people of Tibet wish to speak to

you.

*********

Windhorse

*********

Graham Mason

the Paper. February 10-16, 2000

UICA, Knickerbocker

Using a Tibetan cast and crew with little to no filmmaking experience,

American Paul Wagner created a movie with a behind-the-scenes story as

interesting as the one onscreen.

"Windhorse," which tells several stories of a family caught in the

social tumult felt in Tibet during the past 50 years.

Because of its strong pro-Tibet message, the 1999 film was shot out of

sight of the Chinese government.

The Academy Award-winning Wagner went so far as to film several key

scenes with digital video cameras by crew members as tourists. Many crew

members withheld their names from the credits for fear that revealing

their identity would risk their aiding the pro-Tibet movement any

further.

Wagner collaboated with a Tibetan exile community in Nepal to create the

film. Some footage from Nepal was almost confiscated, but the crew

escorted it out of the country before the government officials acted.

The Charlottesville Weekly says "'Windhorse' matches its potent

political messages with masterful control over all its cinematic

elements. It's one of the best movies of the year."

The English-language China Daily criticized the film for its alleged

attempts to "deceive audiences" and "hurt a nation's feelings."

Both UICA and the Knickerbocker Theatre in Holland will screen

"Windhorse" during the next 10 days.

"Windhorse" begins four decades after the Chinese occupation of Tibet.

It traces the lives of three relatives living in Lhasa, Tibet's capital.

Dolkar, her brother Dorjee, and their cousin Pema have lived under

Chinese rule all of their lives. Dolkar aspires to become a Tibetan pop

singer, but her career is limited by a government that wishes her to shy

away from political messages. Dorjee has some connections with the

Tibetan underground but is unemployed and has become a drunk. However,

the siblings' lives are changed when they hear news that Pema, who has

become a Buddhist nun, has been imprisoned. The Chinese banned

photographs of the Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and Pema,

overcome with rage, shouted "Free Tibet" in Lhasa and was arrested.

Eventually, Pema is released from prison brutally tortured, and Dolkar

and Dorjee vow to bring her story of human rights abuse to the world

outside of Tibet. They enlist the help of Amy, an American tourist and

Lobsang, a member of the Free Tibetan underground and boldly fight to

bring Pema's story of injustice to light.

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5. The Cup is a winner

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By BRUCE KIRKLAND

Toronto Sun

I can guarantee you have never seen a film like The Cup -- because none

quite like it has ever been made before. I can also guarantee that

you'll like it, if you give it the chance to spin its web of monk magic.

Officially, The Cup is the first feature film from the country of

Bhutan. But it was made in northern India by a Bhutan-born Tibetan

Buddhist monk who works in exile from his Tibetan spiritual homeland and

is recognized as the reincarnation of a 19th century religious reformer

and saint.

This man is Khyentse Norbu, who is also known as a Tibetan lama under

the name H.E. Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche. Norbu is making his

feature film debut.

With this introduction, I've probably made The Cup sound too serious,

too important and too remote. Which is too bad, so I'll try to correct

the impression.

Actually, it's a charming, humanistic comedy about the inner workings of

a monastery. The place is brimming with young monks who are obsessed

with the World Cup of Soccer. During the 1998 competition, when France

rules the world, the monks sneak out after midnight to watch games on TV

in a nearby Indian village.

The soccer-mad monks are led by an impetuous youngster (played by a

real-life novice monk named Jamyang Lodro), who gets others in trouble

but always means well.

Overseeing their welfare is a tough yet patient leader (Orgyen Tobgyal,

a real-life lama who also happens to be co-star Jamyang Lodro's father,

although you would never guess that watching the film).

Everyone else in the monastery is also the real thing in life. Norbu

chose to populate his film with real monks, lending the story a sense of

depth, honesty and passion.

The story is a fiction inspired by true events that writer-director

Norbu observed a decade ago during a previous World Cup, at a monastary

he oversees as a lama. The story focuses on daily life, with a minimum

of politics and little mention of the horrors inflicted on Tibet by the

Chinese.

The activities in the monastery are keenly observed and utterly human.

There's a monk who falls asleep in every ceremony. Others who goof off

during prayer. There are others who are homesick and lonely. There is a

gruff and grumpy seer who is ridiculed for his personal hygiene.

On a higher plane, there is a gulf between the traditional leaders and

the young monks who have links with the modern world. The soccer

obsession, of course, is an obvious link. The movie explores other

issues too, more subtly.

So The Cup looks deceptively simple -- and is shot conventionally,

without adornment. Yet it speaks wisely, with a sophisticated grasp of

both life in the monastery and life in the world far beyond the world of

Tibet.

Shot in the Tibetan language and playing here with English subtitles,

The Cup is a film that transcends borders and religions and sport and

emerges quietly triumphant, winning its matches in the arena of life.

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