World Tibet Network News Thursday, March 12, 1998

By Tom Raum, Associated Press

WASHINGTON, March 11, 1998 (AP) House and Senate committees approved an effort Wednesday to prod the Clinton administration to condemn "serious human rights abuses'' in China at a meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Commission.

The House International Relations Committee passed by voice vote a nonbinding resolution by Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., urging the administration to introduce a resolution denouncing China's rights record when the U.N. commission meets next week in China.

"Those abuses continue unabated, and the need for a resolution is more pressing than ever,'' Smith said.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, meanwhile, approved 17-1 a nearly identical resolution, calling on President Clinton to "introduce and take all

necessary measures to pass a resolution criticizing China for its human rights abuses.''

The panel rejected amendments that would have also called attention to rights

abuses in other countries.

Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., said that Clinton, when he dropped a link between human rights progress and the annual renewal of trade benefits to China, "pledged to promote human rights through other channels.''

Helms called the resolution "a straightforward and restrained effort to register Senate support for U.S. action on China at the U.N. Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva.''

In the House, Smith said that there have not been any improvements in China on the human rights front and that "persecution in some minority areas, such as Tibet and East Turkestan, even intensified during the past year.''

In particular, he cited the long-term detention of a boy chosen by the Dalai Lama to be the spiritual leader of Tibet. The child, Gedhun Cheokyi Name, disappeared shortly after he was selected in May 1995 as the Panchen Lama. He was 6 years old at the time. Since the Dalai Lama is in exile, the Panchen Lama is the highest spiritual leader in Tibet.

"What words are enough to describe a government that arranges the disappearance of a little boy because too many people love him?'' said Smith.

The resolutions go next to the House and Senate floors, where endorsement was expected.