In 1949, Tibet, an independent country with an age-old history, was invaded by the armed forces of the People's Republic of China. The occupation that followed was indescribably savage, during which massacres, torture, and mass imprisonment were inflicted; women were forced to undergo sterilization and abortion; and the country's cultural, religious and ecological heritage was destroyed.

After four decades of fierce Tibetan resistance the Chinese, faced with a people who stubbornly refused to submit, elaborated and put into action, during the Eighties, a new form of "final solution": "ethnic cleansing" by thinning out the population.

And so the transfer of the Chinese population to Tibet began on a massive scale. Once there were only tens of thousands of Chinese inhabitants in Tibet; now there are seven million. This makes the Tibetans are a minority race in their own country. The objective of the occupying power is to have forty million Chinese in Tibet by 2020. When that happens you will only be able to read about the Tibetans, and their language, culture, religion, customs and traditions, in history books.

Time is running out. We must put a stop to this silent genocide, while it is still possible. We must save Tibet, the Tibetans, and the treasure constituted by their history, culture and civilization, and by the harmonious way of living they have created for themselves and shared with humanity. We must protect their right to exist not merely as individuals but also as a people.

We must also stop the last totalitarian empire from spreading its death and destruction. Starting with Tibet, its freedom and its liberation, we must lay the foundations for the freedom and liberation of the one billion and two hundred million Chinese from age-old communist totalitarianism.

At a time when, in this world, violence seems to be the ultimate weapon against dialogue, we must hold up the nonviolent resistance of the Tibetan people and its leadership, beginning with the Dalai Lama, as a shining example to the rest of humanity.

To do this we must organize ourselves, without delay!

In every part of the world millions of men and women must unite, in the name of nonviolence, in a concrete and militant initiative, so that Tibet may rediscover its freedom; the authorities in Peking may begin decolonization on a vast scale immediately, in the meantime guaranteeing that the individual rights, and the civil and political rights, of Tibetans, be respected.

We, men and women, humble or powerful, citizen of big cities, small cities or towns, underwriting this appeal, will give all our efforts so that the on March 10th, 1996, day of the non violent revolt of Lhasa in 1959, becomes throughout the world, a day of action and concrete hope for the freedom of Tibet, for the freedom of the Tibetan people and therefore the freedom of the Chinese people and all of us.

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