TO: All Tibet support groups involved in political lobby work
FROM: The Tibet Support Committee, Denmark
DATE: 7 September 1996
Update on Tibet initiatives at the 96th Inter-Parliamentary Conference in Beijing on 16-21 September 1996, and request for your immediate action
Dear friends,
Many of you have responded to our earlier requests for action concerning the coming IPU meeting in Beijing. We have heard from TSGs in Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and the USA.
We urge all TSGs who have not yet done so to contact parliamentarians from your country who will participate in the 96th Inter-Parliamentary (IPU) Conference.
Your action is likely to make a difference. And it is needed now, before the IPU delegation from the parliament in your country leaves for Beijing late next week. The reason is that important initiatives for Tibet will be taken during the coming conference.
During the 95th IPU meeting in Istanbul in April, the IPU's "12+ Group" (a regional group consisting of parliamentarians from most European countries as well as from USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) formed an Ad Hoc Group on the Tibetan Issue with the Danish MP, Mr. Henning Gjellerod, as its coordinator. This group will present a memorandum on Tibet to the 12+ Group at the 96th IPU meeting in Beijing.
We hope the 12+ Group will support the memorandum. If it does, it is a major step forward for Tibet and will ensure subsequent debate on Tibet by the whole IPU - and, therefore, attention on Tibet by parliaments world-wide. This is why your action is important.
The draft memorandum - as it stands now - has been formulated by the Canadian senator Di Nino. It asks IPU members to support His Holiness the Dalai Lama's proposal for a non-violent, negotiated solution to the Tibetan problem and to establish a Tibet Friendship Group within the IPU. Of more direct concern are requests to the "board" of the IPU, the Inter-Parliamentary Council, to place on its agenda for its 160th session (in Seoul in April 1997) the establishment of an IPU Ad Hoc Committee on Tibet, and - when time is ripe - to grant observer status at future IPU conferences to the Tibetan Parliament in Exile. The draft memorandum has been distributed to members of the Ad Hoc Group on the Tibetan Issue together with a letter. Discussion of the text will continue in Beijing.
PLEASE TAKE THE FOLLOWING STEPS IMMEDIATELY (if you have not already done so):
1. Phone the information secretariat (or international department) of the parliament in your country and ask them to fax you a list of the parliamentarians (from your country only) who will participate in the 96th Inter-Parliamentary (IPU) Conference in Beijing on 16-21 September.
2. Write a letter to the members of the IPU delegation. We are not yet sure about the final wording of the memorandum that the Ad Hoc Group on the Tibetan Issue will bring forward at the meeting of the 12+ Group, so just
- remind the parliamentarians of the need to find a non-violent solution to the problems of the Tibetan people through negotiations between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama and the Government of Tibet in exile, and
ask them
- to take up the issue of Tibet at the 96th Inter-Parliamentary Conference in Beijing,
- to support initiatives from the Ad Hoc Group on the Tibetan Issue brought forward at the meeting of the IPU's 12+ Group,
- to ensure the establishment within the IPU of a group of parliamentarians that study the Tibetan issue on a permanent basis in order to keep world-wide attention focused on the situation in Tibet,
- to work for the IPU granting observer status at future IPU conferences to the Tibetan Parliament in Exile.
3. Please - if possible before Friday 13 September - inform the Tibet Support Committee, Denmark, about the results of your lobby work. We do not have resources to contact parliamentarians in your country ourselves but would like to know the names of parliamentarians who are interested in supporting the efforts for Tibet at the Beijing conference. We can then pass them on to Mr. Gjellerod.
The information given here should be sufficient to enable you to act, but you are of course most welcome to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions.
Please direct any information or questions to
Anders H. Andersen
anders@cybernet.dk
tel. +45 35 43 74 31
or
Stella Lutzer
lutzer.mathiasen@online.pol.dk
tel. +45 35 43 74 31
Many regards
Anders H. Andersen
information officer
Tibet Support Committee, Denmark
