World Tibet Network News Tuesday, March 31, 1998

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA, March 31 (Reuters) - U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson said on Tuesday she was negotiating the terms of a trip to China planned for September, including a possible stop in Tibet.

Robinson, speaking at a breakfast with reporters in Geneva, said the aim of the six-day official visit was to boost China's national capacity to protect and promote human rights.

The former Irish president also welcomed efforts by China to address its human rights problems in line with international standards. She cited Beijing's announcement that it would sign the main U.N. treaty guaranteeing civil and political freedoms.

China issued an invitation to the U.N. rights chief in January, saying the trip was intended to strengthen cooperation.

``I am in dialogue with the government of China. I am in the course of planning an official visit which will take place in September,'' Robinson said. ``The visit will be followed by an after-process.''

``All of this is about national capacity building. It will not mean that serious problems are not there or that serious problems suddenly disappear. Of course not,'' she added. ``But then each country has human rights problems.''

Robinson said: ``I do believe in an approach to national capacity building of human rights in China. I find it is well worth encouraging and supporting.

``I think it is important that China clearly is not only taking ownership of its problems but is addressing those problems by national capacity building with reference to international standards and norms.''

In addition to the announcement this month that it will sign the international covenant on civil and political rights, she listed as a positive step China's accepting to report to U.N. bodies about compliance with rights pacts in Hong Kong.

Robinson, asked whether she was insisting on a trip to Tibet, replied: ``That is being discussed. There are a number of broad areas under discussion at the moment.''

The lawyer made clear that labour rights, women's issues and rural poverty would be among her priorities.

No exact dates have been set for the trip, being negotiated in a series of meetings with China's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Wu Jianmin.

The talks are being held on the fringes of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, now in the third week of its annual six-week session in Geneva.

Despite Western criticism of its record, China has escaped censure every year since Chinese troops crushed pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

The 53-member body is unlikely to try to pass a resolution expressing concern over allegations of violations in China. Both the European Union and United States have announced they would not back a text this year in the light of dialogue and progress.

But activist groups including Amnesty International have criticised the two Western blocs for letting China off the hook.

Nicholas Howen, legal director at the London-based rights group, told a news briefing on March 12: ``We still have the fundamentals in China that have not changed.

``In China last year, we saw increasing repression in Xinjiang province, a clampdown in Tibet, over 200,000 people still detained without charges or trial under re-education through labour and over 200 protesters arrested,'' he said.

Independent U.N. experts who visited prisons in China last October welcomed recent reform of its criminal procedure law, but called for the crime of `endangering national security'' to be better defined to avoid a ``serious risk of misuse.''