SECOND WORLDWIDE CONFERENCE OF TIBET SUPPORT GROUPS

Bonn, June 14-17, 1996

Intervention by Olivier DUPUIS, General Secretary of the Radical Party, Member of the European Parliament

Your Holiness,

Mister Speaker of the Parliament, dear Rimpoche,

Messrs Members of the Government,

Messrs Secretaries of the Department,

Your Excellencies the Ambassadors,

Mister President, dear friends of the Friedrich Neumann Foundation,

Estimable representatives of the Tibet Support Groups,

Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends,

first of all allow me to express my joy for being here today with you, also on behalf of all the members of the Radical Party, no matter what country they belong, persuaded as they are of the exceptional importance of these working days for our cause and our hope.

The cause and hope for the freedom of Tibet, in the first place, and through it the birth of a new hope of possibility for all the peoples of this world to free themselves from the totalitarian and imperialist double yoke by means of organized nonviolence.

I would like to tell you how much we Radicals feel richer and stronger today. Richer and stronger in those common projects which became common enterprises, experiences and heritage, thanks to everyboby's work.

But, for the sake of brevity, let me concentrate on the present and the future.

During our recent meeting with You, Your Holiness, in Rome, I thought that You share with us, with Marco Pannella, the belief that the moment has come to proceed to the organizational stage of the project that Professor Samdong Rimpoche, other people with him, and we ourselves are developing since a long time: the worldwide Satyagraha for the freedom of Tibet.

If my perception is right, if the moment has really come, I believe that this conference that find us gathering in Bonn from every corner of the planet is a unique, I should say historical opportunity to define our goals and lay the foundations for a script of scheduled actions aimed to lead the present tens of thousands - the future hundreds of thousands that will discover themselves as friends of Tibet during the upcoming weeks and months -, to participate all together to that path of truth in the spring of 1998, the worldwide Satyagraha for the freedom of Tibet, for the freedom of all of us.

Now we all must work to define the intermediate stages useful to progressively create the conditions for thousands, tens of thousands everywhere in the world to be ready to join the Satyagraha in spring 1998, with fasts, hunger strikes, demonstrations, sit-ins and other actions of civil disobedience and nonviolent resistence, so that international institutions recognize the legitimacy and the right judicial, historical and political basis of the Tibetan people's struggle for freedom.

Your Holiness, mister Speaker of the Parliament, dear friends Members of the Government, allow me to introduce some proposals of initiative that might become elements of preparation for the great appointment in spring 1998.

Proposals

* If in the upcoming hours and days we will add hundreds of parliamentarians' signatures to the 800 that we have already collected under the appeal asking the UN Secretary General to receive the Dalai Lama, for the Tibetan question to be back in a UN facing the problem of the opening of unconditional Sino-Tibetan negotiations at last, then the next september would be - collaterally to the Third Worldwide Parliamentary Conference on Tibet -, the right opportunity to meet Boutros Ghali and entrust to him the appeal and the adhesions to it.

* We do believe that the upcoming October 2 might represent the most appropriate date to organize, in the greater possible number of capitals, a torch-light procession with the messages "Freedom for Tibet - Democracy for China", and "Freedom for the Panchen Lama, Freedom for Wei Jingshen". That would be a way to deepen co-operation and common work with our Chinese pro-democracy friends and to take stock on the campaigns for the Panchen Lama to be released and Wei awarded of the Nobel Peace Prize.

* That drives me to speak about someone called "great brave" by the Dalai Lama: Wei Jingsheng, who has been sentenced to a new 15-year term after 14 years in prison. As you know, Wei has also showed - and is dearly paying the price -, to be a friend of Tibet. If in the parliaments and universities all over the world we will be able to kindle thousands of adhesions supporting his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, I think that we could reasonably expect that a joyful day for democracy in China and Freedom for Tibet will be ordained in Oslo.

* We are organizing ourselves, and wishful to do it together with the greatest possible number of Support Groups, so that March 10, 1997 be the opportunity for thousands of municipalities all over the world to follow the tracks of over 600 cities that on last March 10 hoisted the symbol of Tibet, the symbol of our hope, the Tibetan flag. That could be also, if we want to, the opportunity for that symbol to fly in thousands of homes, and working and worship places.

These are, in brief, some of the initiatives that I propose to you on behalf of the Radical Party. I trust that - being strong of our nonviolence and that double hope of freedom and exemplariness of our struggle -, the upcoming weeks and months will be rich in success, and I wish "good luck" to you, to all of us.