Last month, in Huairou, a town outside Beijing, women from around the world participated in the NGO forum, a meeting for nongovernmental organizations held parallel to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. For the forum's 10 days, participants exchanged information, organized and prepared to lobby governments at the official conference on issues vital to women.

U.N. officials from Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali down consistently speak of a U.N. partnership with NGOs. Yet in Beijing, when push literally came to shove, the United Nations did nothing to come to the aid of beleaguered NGOs to protect them from the Chinese government's harassment and surveillance, claiming it had no responsibility for dealing with these actions.

Because of their independent status and direct links to local communities, NGOs play a vital role in the U.N. system. NGO forums have grown in size and importance in recent years, becoming a permanent fixture that is integral to the success of major U.N. conferences. NGOs have achieved progress in key environmental, development and human rights areas. Yet these independent voices may be increasingly muzzled unless the United Nations and its member states learn the lessons of the recent experience in China.

Chinese government interference took many forms:

Throughout the forum, Chinese plainclothes security men filmed and followed NGO delegates, including human rights activists, Tibetan women and their supporters, lesbians and disabled women.

On the forum's first day, after the screening of a video on Tibetan women in exile, Chinese security seized the tape.

Hours after a group of disabled NGO participants demonstrated to call attention to the lack of access at the forum, Chinese staff informed them that no further transportation between the site and their hotel would be provided.

Chinese security personnel confiscated materials about lesbian and China-sensitive issues.

At the hotels of NGO participants, Chinese security conducted room searches, monitored guests' activities, tampered with luggage and prohibited participants from holding meetings.

At the same time, Chinese security at the forum failed to take action to protect Iranian, Iraqi, Sudanese and other NGO participants from harassment, threats and surveillance carried out by members of their governments' delegations or other NGOs.

All these acts of intimidation not seen at previous forums had a chilling effect.

Despite the Chinese government's claims, its security measures were not meant to protect conference participants but were clearly intended to prevent the dissemination of any ideas perceived as threatening to its rule. This intention was apparent as long ago as March, when the Chinese unexpectedly announced that the forum would be moved from its original site in Beijing to Huairou, some 30 miles from the official conference and Beijing's 8 million citizens.

Even before our arrival in Huairou, would-be participants faced the challenge of obtaining Chinese visas, a process in which the Chinese government singled out activists working on sensitive issues such as those facing Chinese, Taiwanese and Tibetan women, denying them visas outright or effectively doing so through unexplained delays. By the middle of the forum, the event's organizers stated that of the 37,000 women who had registered to attend, only 23,500 had arrived in Huairou.

China's ability to harass NGO participants while the United Nations and other governments stood by is an ominous sign for the future. The next major U.N. conference, Habitat II, is scheduled for Istanbul next year. There is nothing to prevent the Turkish government which recently charged an American journalist with violating state security for her reporting on Turkish suppression of the Kurds from subjecting individuals it deems a security threat to the same, or worse, treatment than we experienced in China.

Governments and the United Nations should move immediately to establish minimum conditions that will prevent host governments' unwarranted interference with U.N. conferences. For example:

NGO delegates must receive visas from the host country government. The United Nations should include such a provision in its contract with the host government.

NGOs must have guarantees that they can speak, share information and organize freely without surveillance or fear of retaliation. The United Nations should get specific assurances that national laws inconsistent with respect for these rights will not be applied within the context of the forum.

Independent and uncensored newspapers must be allowed to publish during these meetings. Participants at Huairou had no such source of information, and the official forum press did not report on China-sensitive information.

Forum and conference sites should be required to be in close proximity. Unlike its arrangements for past conferences, the United Nations did not include a provision guaranteeing a suitable forum site in its contract with the Chinese. As a result, much time and energy were wasted in the hour-long commute between Huairou and the official conference.

By implementing these steps, the U.N. secretary general, strongly backed by the United States and other governments, would ensure that the problems at Huairou are not repeated.

Abigail Abrash is program director of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights. Laurel Fletcher, an attorney in Oakland, Calif., attended the NGO forum as a delegate for the International Human Rights Law Group.