Motion for a resolution presented in accordance with article 50 of the Regulations

On the necessity to stop the chinese colonisation and to adopt a new statute for Tibet

Tabled by Olivier Dupuis, Marco Pannella, Emma Bonino, Maurizio Turco, Gianfranco Dell'Alba, Marco Cappato e Benedetto Della Vedova on behalf of the TDI group

The European Parliament,

- considering its previous resolutions on Tibet of 14 October 1987, 15 March 1989, 15 September 1993, 17 May 1995, 13 July 1995, 14 December 1995, 18 April 1996, 23 May 1996, 13 March 1997, 16 January 1998, 13 May 1998, and 15 April 2000;

- considering the resolutions on the violations of fundamental rights in Tibet adopted by the German Bundestag (15 October 1987), the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Italian Chamber of Deputies (12 April 1989), the German Bundestag (20 June 1996), the Belgian Chamber of Deputies (20 June 1990), and the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Irish Parliament (21 July 1998);

- considering the resolution adopted on 23 August 1991 by the United Nations Sub-Committee for the prevention of discrimination and the protection of the rights of minorities;

- considering the resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (E.D. 173, 5 October 1988);

- considering also the resolutions adopted by the American Congress, the Australian Chamber of Deputies, the Parliament of Liechtenstein and the Czech Parliament;

a) remembering that Tibet was invaded and occupied in 1949 and 1950 by the armed forces of the Beijing regime and that it is still occupied;

b) remembering that although the '17-point agreement' signed under constriction in Beijing by the Tibetan authorities confirmed the annexation of Tibet to the People's Republic, it also guaranteed the full autonomy of Tibet and in particular the perpetuity of its political system and the full respect of religious freedom;

c) remembering the uprising in Lhasa against the occupation by the Beijing regime on 10 March 1959 that caused the death and imprisonment of thousands of Tibetans and the exile of the Dalai Lama and of tens of thousands of other Tibetans;

d) remembering United Nations Resolutions 1353 of 1959, 1723 of 1961 and 2079 of 1965 which ask for the cessation of all practices that deprive the Tibetan people of their fundamental human rights, including the right to self-determination;

e) remembering the reports of 1959 and of 1960 by the International Commission of Jurists on the question of Tibet and justice;

f) remembering the resistance struggle of the Tibetan people in the 1950s and 1960s which caused the death of over one million Tibetans, that is of over one-fifth of its population at the time;

g) remembering the institution in 1965 of the Autonomous Region of Tibet (ART) on the part of the Beijing authorities;

h) remembering the destruction of over 6,000 Tibetan monasteries, the burning of hundreds of libraries, the plundering of temples, the theft of religious and cultural treasures, the summary execution of tens of thousands of Tibetans carried out by the Red Guards during the so-called cultural revolution of 1968;

i) remembering the repeated attempts made in 1979, after the death of Mao Tse Tong, by the Dalai Lama and by the Tibetan government in exile to re-establish dialogue with the Beijing authorities;

j) remembering the demonstrations of protest in 1987-88 against the Chinese occupation and the extreme violence of the repression employed by the occupying forces;

k) remembering the repeated attempts made by the Dalai Lama to re-establish dialogue through the '5-point plan' presented before the American Congress in 1987 and the 'Strasbourg proposal' presented before the European Parliament in 1988;

l) remembering the martial law imposed by the Beijing authorities in Tibet in 1989 and 1990;

m) remembering the award of the Nobel Prize for Peace to the Dalai Lama in 1989;n) remembering the transformation of Tibet in 1992 into a 'Special Economic Zone' and the consequent large-scale transfer of Chinese colonisers to Tibet, which in the space of a few years turned the Tibetans into a minority in their own country;

o) remembering the letter sent by the Dalai Lama to Deng Xiao Ping on 11 September 1992, in which he reiterated his willingness to negotiate;

p) remembering the European demonstrations for the opening of Sino-Tibetan negotiations in Brussels in 1996 and in Geneva in 1997, attended by thousands of European and Tibetan citizens and the different initiatives for the freedom of Tibet all over the world;

q) recalling the existence of a Tibetan government in exile hosted in the Indian Town of Dharamsala;

r) reaffirming its opposition to the "Western China Poverty Reduction Project" which implies the transfer of several dozens of thousands of new Chines settlers into Tibet;

s) wherease the support of the World Bank to such a project would de facto mean a de facto backing, by the international community of the policy of colonization of Tibet carried out by the People's Republic of China;

t) recalling that the support of the World Bank to such a project would imply a violation of its own rules with regard to indigenous peoples, involontary resettlement and environment;

u) recalling the unfavourable opinion given by the "Inspection Panel's Report and Findings" on the project;

1. calls on the governments of the Member States to engage solemnly and without further delay to recognise the Tibetan government in exile if, within three years of the assumption of the solemn engagement, the Beijing authorities and the Tibetan government in exile have not, through negotiations organised under the aegis of the Secretary General of the United Nations, signed an agreement on a new statute for Tibet ensuring the full autonomy of the Tibetan people in all the fields of political, economic, social and cultural life, with the sole exception of defence policy and foreign policy;

2. decides, as far as the European Parliament itself is concerned, to establish officials relations with the Tibetan Parliament in exile if, within three years of the approval of this Resolution, the government of the People's Republic of China and the Tibetan government in exile have not agreed on a statute that ensures full autonomy for Tibet;

3. urges the Commission and the Council to do their utmost to call on the World Bank to decide, according to its own rules and regulations, not to finance the "Western China Poverty Reduction Project" showing thus its will not to participate in any menner, directly or indirectly, to any sort of colonization activity;

4. instructs its President to forward the present Resolution to the Council, the Commission, the parliaments of the Member States and the parliaments of the candidate states, the President and the Prime Minister of the People's Republic of China, the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan government and parliament in exile, the Secretary General of the United Nations and to the Chairman of the World Bank.