SPEECH BY OLIVIER DUPUIS, GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE TRANSNATIONAL RADICAL PARTY, DURING THE DEMONSTRATION "FREEDOM FOR TIBET" IN GENEVA

Geneva, March 9th, 1997

Hello! I should like to start by drawing your attention to less pleasant issues: I would like to discuss with you matters of utmost importance. I am presently witnessing within the European Parliament an attempt, for the following week, for the session at Strasbourg to transform the ultimate goals of the Tibetan people, of the Dalai Lama, of the Tibetan government in exile and transform them into a cultural and religious autonomy. Which, as you probably know, is a thousand miles away from that which our Tibetan friends want and from what we all want. A proposal for a resolution has been deposited by the socialist MP Colajanni and the Spanish MP Colom y Naval. In co-operation with our friends from The Tibetan Intergroup in the European Parliament we are working on preventing such a thing from happening, on preventing from being in vain all those years of hard work, of strenuous efforts in and outside the EP, the years of exertion for all of us here and the thousands of others in Europe or anywhere around the

world that are working for and supporting Tibet's cause; we are trying to prevent events from going backwards, the way they were 10 years ago, and to turn our wishes, hopes, and willingness as well as that of the Tibetan people into a cultural and religious autonomy.

We all know the way things stand in Tibet. Point number one on the agenda now is the liberation of Tibet, liberty and democracy for the Tibetan people and, in addition, democracy for all our Chinese friends.

In the belief that this is a very positive fact, I wuold also like to salute particularly cordially our Chinese friends whose delegation was numerous. All the leaders of China's Federation for Democracy are now with us, particularly the sister of someone very dear to us. Wei Shan Shan, Wei Jingseng's sister is one of us and a very dear friend. This is a clear sign that our struggle is winning ground. Among the positive things is that we are numerous, abundant, and that our programme is not as it was initially. Furthermore, I believe that after a while we will also be able to impress choreographiically with all those lights and candles lit up and manifested in support for the liberty of Tibet, for the democracy in China, for the liberty in eastern Turkestan and for the liberty of inner Mongolia.

Therefore, we are only at the beginning of the road. Something else that I wish to add. It could be seen as a precondition for all of us to work better, more efficiently in the months that follow. What I feel all our attention should concentrate upon is the simple fact that we cannot afford to continue working in a disorganised manner.

We must strenthen our organization, communication and all activities, and in order to come out and take action we shouldn't wait for the arrival of the 10th of March or the several weeks preceeding this date. This year our campaign "A Flag for Tibet" has succeded in drawing 700-800 municipalities accepting and following our initiative and we should continue to act in accordance with that which we had decided in Bonn which would be realized by 1998, by which date there will be, in effect, throughout Europe and throughout the world thousands of mayors who will have hung up the Tibetan flag and by which point our work will have become genuinely efficient.

There is also another initiative that has gained success in the course of these past few days "A place named after Tibet". I am sure that you understand the significant importance of this initiative because the name of a street which is Tibet is something that remains and that doesn't go away. Among the first to associate with this initiative was a community in Switzerland, called Veyrier, in the vicinity of Geneva which has decide to grant the name Tibet to one of the squares. I reckon that in the successive days and weeks there would be hundreds of Swiss, French, German and many other communities throughout Europe that would have named a street after Tibet. And there will be one such street in Strasbourg, in Paris, In Brussels, and in every other place all over the world. This is something that each of us should start considering, it is not necessary to be an MP or a member of a community council in order to start putting pressure on the members of Council until a point to which those communities will mult

iply.

Indeed, I believe that these last 2 or 3 years have seen the movement for Tibet assume a dimension that is without a paragon in comparison to that of 5 or 10 years ago. But I also think that we have reached a point at which we, each and everyone of us, should make an effort to give anything that we are able to give, more than we have given so far in order to start acting more efficiently, to start acting according to all international institutions, in order to submit to the rules of governments and also to oblige the parliaments so that we can suceed in effectively affronting the issues of the liberty of Tibet and the democracy in China. These issues have been talked over a lot and have thus become united under this slogan, under a desire, a feeling of urgency and necessity, under a single word which is "Satyagraha 98" chosen as a slogan for Tibet's liberty.

There are, indeed, many things which were said regarding the question of what should this word be, and what should it mean. In my opinion there still exists much confusion over this, and i think it is necessary to know that Satyagraha is not an objective, but a metodology. The Satyagraha is a way of acting. The objective is that of Dalai Lama, of the Tibetan government in exile, that of all our Tibetan friends in Tibet. Our ultimate goal is tha autonomy, but an autonomy that is strong, real, complete for all matters that touch the lives of the Tibetans living in Tibet except for, as the Dalai Lama said, the defence policy and the foreign policy. And therefore this could never be disputed over. These are our objectives and Satyagraha is just the medium, the instrument, the organized nonviolence which we have yet to create, imagine up and invent, day after day until this objective becomes a reality in Tibet and until, in the very near future, Tibet is liberated. I think, therefore, that in every European city,

in every city that you may be coming from, people should start considering and putting on the agendaas well as circulate those ideas until, in the following months rather than weeks, we begin to work seriously and begin to work also in co-operation with our friends from the USA, Australia, India, until eventually, in 1998 the movement Satyagraha has grown equivalent to the power quantity of the anti-war movements for Vietnam in the 60s. Hundreds of thousands of people all over the world on the same day, at the same hour, with the same slogan and with the same demands will take part in the demonstrations, the hunger strikes, the sit-ins and many other ideas that we'll come up with, as I believe imagination is one of our strong points. Together, we will launch a movement that, in contrast with that about Vietnam will not be an ANTI movement, but rather, a FOR movement. It will be FOR the liberty of Tibet, for the democracy in China. I believe that if we find within ourselves the strengh, the power to be FOR,

we will have no difficulty finding the the strengh to stay together, and to become tens of thousands next year on the 10th of March, and to start right here right now.

So that we wuold be able to do 10 and even 100 times more than what we have done so far. Which is already a lot. And we are certain, anyway, that the leap in quality will be gigantic. I would like to conclude this speech by specially thanking several persons, which I feel obliged in doing because without those persons our meeting today could not have taken place. I would particularly like to thank Alain, Jean-Luc, Lapka, Monique and Veronique from the Tibet Support Group in Geneva, all of them have contributed extraordinarily to our work during these past few weeks. I would like to thank Massimo Lensi, Tiziana, Olga and Andrea, who, along with these people have acted as the motoring power of this organizationa and of the concrete projects and have rendered it possible that we would be here now. Herewith, I thank you for your dedication in working for us all theseweeks; a warm and hearty applause for the dozen or so people that were there for us day after day hour after hour, night after night, just because w

e needed them.

Well, we'll make it at least 20 thousand next year!