Published by: World Tibet Network News, Monday, Jun 10, 1996

Submitted by Kunzang Yuthok, TRC

Istanbul, June 10, 1996: The workshop convened by the International Committee of Lawyers for Tibet went well. There was no trouble from the Chinese. They did not attend. There was good discussion regarding housing issues including those in exile after the presentation.

Access to the Informal Drafting Group which is working on the 'contentious' sections of the language is tight. Yesterday, we were able to linger outside the doors of the meeting room, but today, NGOs are not even allowed up the staircase leading to the room. I think that the 3 NGO representatives which were permitted to the room as observers are still being permitted to attend. However, at this time, have not information to confirm this.

COMMITTEE I:

Negotiations on the document is going very slowly. The morning session ended with paragraph 132 (this section ends at paragraph 141). It is expected that they will go late into the night session in order to accomplish their task.

COMMITTEE II:

Today was the day that NGOs made their partnership statements to Committee II. This morning there were statements representing women's groups such as the Women's Caucus and SuperCoalition. After the presentation and the questions and comments from member states, two women made statements criticizing the established women's groups for not representing their issues.

One woman brought up the fact that the Canadian Government had given $40,000 to Bella Abzug's organization to bring Ms. Abzug here to Habitat. Ms. Abzug, Co-Chair of Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) had already left the room when this statement was made. However, the Canadian Delegate commented that Ms. Abzug did not need the money to come to Istanbul but that the money had been earmarked for women from developing countries to attend Habitat II. The audience laughed at these comments. This set a negative tone to the morning session of the NGO presentations at Committee II.