From the Tibet Bureau for United Nations affairs, Geneva

February 24, 1997

Geneva, 24 February - Mr. J. M. Mukhi, a former adviser to the Indian Foreign Ministry and advocate of the Indian Supreme Court, highlighted the situation of demographic changes in Tibet at last week's UN seminar on population transfer. The UN organized a five-day seminar called, "Expert Seminar on the Human Rights Dimensions of Population Transfer, including the Implementation of Settlers and Settlements," from 17 to 21 February here in Geneva.

Mr. Mukhi, one of the six experts invited to the seminar, while describing population transfers during armed conflict and occupation said: "After the World War II, well after the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration, the Chinese forces invaded Tibet. This was on the 7th October, 1950. 400,000 Tibetans were killed by military action alone. More than a million perished during and as a direct result of Chinese occupation. In addition to infliction of various categories of gross violations of human rights, China mounted demographical aggression on Tibet and sought to destroy the Tibetans as a people and reduce them to a minority in their homeland."

This seminar was organized to provide concrete recommendation to Mr. Awn Shawnar Al-Khasawneh's final report on population transfer. The report will be presented at the 49th session of the UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities which will meet in Geneva from 4-29 August, 1997. Mr. Al-Khasawneh, a Jordanian diplomat, was appointed as the Special Rapporteur of the Sub-Commission on population transfer in 19092. A statement read on behalf of Mr. Jose Ayala Lasso, the UN High commissioner for Human Rights, said: "I think your deliberations are of great importance because population transfers, including the implementation of settlers and settlements, this tragic and anachronistic aberration, continues to make victims throughout the world."

The seminar was also attended by government delegates, including a Chinese. On 18 February, a Chinese government delegate in a nervous statement reiterated his government's propaganda that there was "no" population transfer in Tibet. While quoting the Tibetan population in the so-called "Tibet Autonomous Region", he said that the seminar was being used to "interfere in China's internal affairs."

The situation of Chinese settlements in Tibet and its consequences was also raised by Dr. Michael van Walt in a statement on behalf of Pax Christi International, an NGO with consultative status in the United Nations. "In Tibet and Eastern Turkestan, millions of Chines have been induced to move and settle in those regions in order to change the demographic composition of those territories," he informed the seminar.

The seminar was reported to have drawn some very concrete and strong recommendation to the Special Rapporteur. Unfortunately, the recommendations said to have been approved during a closed-session of the Experts, was not made available to the participants as some supporting documents were not complete.

The proceedings of the seminar was observed by Mrs. Chungdak Koren and Mr. Ngawang Drakmargyapon of the Tibet Bureau for UN Affairs in Geneva. The Tibetan Government-in-Exile has been emphasizing the grave situation of population transfer of Chinese settlers in Tibet at various United Nations forums since 1989.