Agenda

RECOGNITION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE TIBETAN PEOPLE

The Regional Council of Piedmont,

considering

the EP 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, 15 April 2000 and 6 July 2000;

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

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;

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

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

recalling

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

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

- the reports of 1959 and of 1960 by the International Commission of Jurists on the question of Tibet;

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

- 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 Chinese cultural revolution of 1968;

- the demonstrations of protest in 198788 against the Chinese occupation and the extreme violence of the repression employed by the occupying forces;

- the martial law imposed by the Beijing authorities in Tibet in 1989 and 1990;

- 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, also due to the continuing practice of obligatory sterilisation and abortions for Tibetan women;

- that the Tibetan government in exile is hosted in the Indian Town of Dharamsala;

- that the "Decade for Decolonisation" organised by the United Nations ends this year;

recalling in particular

- 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;

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

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

- 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;

- 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;

- the award of the Nobel Prize for Peace to the Dalai Lama in 1989;

- the letter sent by the Dalai Lama to Deng Xiao Ping on 11 September 1992, in which he reiterated the willingness of the Tibetan authorities to negotiate with the Beijing government;

- the non-violent European demonstrations in Brussels in 1996 and in Geneva in 1997 for the freedom of Tibet and the opening of Sino-Tibetan negotiations, attended by thousands of European and Tibetan citizens;

confirming

- the resolution of the European Parliament of 6 July 2000, in which the EP "invites the governments of the member states of the European Union to give serious consideration to the possibility of recognising the Tibetan government in exile as the legitimate representative of the Tibetan people if, within three years, the Beijing authorities and the Tibetan government in exile fail to reach an agreement regarding a new statute for Tibet, by means of negotiations organised under the aegis of the Secretary General of the United Nations";

calls on

- the Government and the Parliament of the Republic to proceed to the immediate implementation of the Resolution of the European Parliament, thus helping to bring about an agreement that will guarantee the full autonomy of the Tibetan people in all the fields of political, economic, social and cultural life, with the sole exceptions of defence policy and foreign policy;

decides

- to display the Tibetan flag in a special place of the Regional Council until such time as the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Tibetan Government in exile reach an agreement on a new statute ensuring full autonomy for Tibet;

instructs

- the President of the Regional Council to forward the present Resolution to the President of the Council of Ministers, the Presidents of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, the Presidents of the Regional Councils, the President and the Prime Minister of the People's Republic of China, the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan government and parliament in exile, the President of the European Parliament and the Secretary General of the United Nations.