CHINA - TIBET: THE UNITED STATES HAVE REAFFIRMED THEIR OPPOSITION TO THE LOAN (334 MILLIONS DOLLARS) OF THE WORLD BANK TO CHINA FOR A PROJECT WHICH PROVIDES FOR THE TRANSFER OF 60.000 NEW CHINESE SETTLERS IN THE TIBETAN TERRITORY. WHICH WILL BE THE POSITION OF THE EUROPEAN UNION?

DECLARATION OF OLIVIER DUPUIS, SECRETARY OF TRANSNATIONAL RADICAL PARTY AND MEMBER OF EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

Rome, 24 June, 1999. Lawrence Summers, future American TreasurySecretary, has reaffirmed that the United States oppose, within the Board of the World Bank, the concession of a loan of 334 millions dollars to the People's Republic of China. This loan would finance a project providing for the transfer into the Tibetan territory of 60.000 new Chinese settlers.

Declaration of Olivier Dupuis, Secretary of Transnational Radical Party and Member of European Parliament:

"The stand of the United States on the question of the loan to China is particularly welcome. It arrives actually in a moment when we risk to assist to a drift of the World Bank which would see it becoming active accomplice of the grave violations of human rights. But, above all, it occurs in a moment when, within the chanceries of Member States of European Union, there is more and more increasing temptation to yield once again to the mermaids of the so-called Chinese eldorado, without hesitation in doing so to sacrifice the principles on whose the attribution of the World Bank's loans are based. We hope that this appropriate recall to the elementary principles by the Americans will be stronger that indisputable fascination of European Governments by the splendours and the red carpets of the last communist empire".

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