Kyiv, March 10, 1996

Under the campaign initiated by Transnational Radical party, in Ukraina, that has declared itself a democratic state, members of RP have planned following initiatives:

mayors' campaign "Flag for Tibet";

campaign of citizens of countries of the world "Tibetan Flag in Your Window";

collecting signatures under the appeal to Secretary General of UN with a request to receive His Holiness Dalai Lama as soon as possible;

scientific and practical seminar "Tibet: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow", scheduled on Saturday, March 2, 1996;

protest demonstration in Kyiv city in front of Chinese embassy for Ukraina, scheduled on Sunday, March 10, 1996.

At early stages of organization of this international campaign, Ukraina could be called one of progressive countries. Thus, Mr POZHIVANOV, the Chairman of state executive committee (mayor) of Mariupol city, was one of the first who has joined the worldwide mayors' campaign "Flag for Tibet". Later, mayors of 10 more cities of Ukraina expressed their intention to fly a flag of Tibet at buildings of their city executive committees (townhalls) on March 10, the anniversary of nonviolent insurrection in Lhasa.

The same day, 7 citizens of Ukraina desired to hang Tibetan flags out of their windows and have paid for them from 10 to 20 USD -- a considerable sum of money for an average Ukrainian.

Taking under consideration the natural ignorance of citizens of ex-USSR countries concerning the case of Tibet, activists of Radical party in Ukraina initiated organization of scientific and practical seminar "Tibet: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow". Famous figures of science, culture and religion of CIS countries were invited to participate the seminar, along with representatives of embassies of China, Mongolia, India and USA for Ukraina. To attend at the seminar, Mr NAVANG (Moscow), the representative of His Holiness Dalai Lama in CIS countries and Mongolia, Mr TERENTIEV (Sanct Peterbourg), a famous tibetolog, and others came to Kyiv.

In 8 days before the beginning of the seminar, the permission of Kyiv city state administration for carrying out the seminar (No. 006/01_060 of 02/23/96) was received. However, after Chinese Ambassador for Ukraina has visited Ukrainian MFA, and taking under consideration presence of Deputy Foreign Minister of China in Ukraina with an official visit (March 3 and 4), position of Ukrainian authorities has changed severely. As a result, on March 1, on the eve of the seminar opening, less then in 20 hours before the beginning, organizers of the seminar have received another document of Kyiv city state administration (No. 006/01_065 of 03/01/96) forbidding carrying out scientific and practical seminar "Tibet: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow", referring to baseless reasons. Apart from this, organizers were exposed to massive pressures of power departments.

In spite of all obstacles, yet the seminar was held in a narrow room of Kyiv office of RP, and yet the public (more than 60 people) who attended at the seminar could have the pleasure of discussing the issue of Tibet, its present status and prospect.

After carrying out the seminar, pressures of power departments didn't vanish, moreover, they grew an took more serious forms. Thus, some activists of RP have discovered a round-the-clock supervision including using candid camera.

In spite of all this, on March 10, citizens of Ukraina, who stayed not indifferent to the fate of Tibet and its people, came to Chinese embassy for Ukraina to express their protest against the total violation of human rights in Tibet. 13 people who came at 12:00 pm to the building of Chinese embassy with slogans "FREE TIBET", "SAVE TIBET, SAVE PEACE", "NO TO VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN TIBET" were met by the number of police officers 3-4 times surpassing the number of participants, the police having been waiting there beforehand. Using methods of psychologic pressures and threatening directly with an arrest, police workers didn't allow to raise slogans for freedom of Tibet, but the same time didn't dare to arrest participants of the picket, when they raised slogans "I LOVE UKRAINA" and "I AM FOR DEMOCRACY IN UKRAINA" having been written on the spot with a textmarker. All the time the participants were at the Chinese embassy, people in uniforms and in plain never stopped to provoke them to any illegal actio

n to create a cause for arrest; when all provocations failed, they attempted to pull some participants into police cars by force.

Possibly, only attention of strangers and photo- and videocameras pointed at the picketing suspended arrest of Alexander Kostritskiy under pretence of "personality identification", though he had his identification papers with him.

So, due to an active intervention of power departments, a harmless picketing has turned to a farce, people in blue uniforms having become the main personages of it.

Thus, although we have no information yet about authorities' influence concerning 11 Ukrainian mayors who agreed to fly flags of Tibet on townhalls of their cities, and no information yet if any of them did this, for this time we can surely say that Ukrainian authorities "under some dictation" have blocked up and wrecked all actions in Ukraina under the international campaign of Radical party "Free Tibet".