World Tibet Network News Monday, May 25, 1998
Parliamentarians from Norway, Sweden and Denmark have signed a joint appeal calling on their respective governments to work to get the question of Tibet back on the agenda of the United Nations General Assembly. In their appeal, the Parliamentarians point out that "since 1994 repression in Tibet has only increased, despite a host of dialogues between individual Western governments and the People's Republic of China..
"It is high time that the international community take up the question [of Tibet] in a more vigorous and direct manner than has been the case so far". The appeal, signed by over 60 parliamentarians, including a number of party leaders, calls on Norwegian foreign minister Knut Vollebaek, Swedish foreign minister Lena Hjelm-Wallen and Danish foreign minister Niels Helveg Petersen "to do their utmost to ensure that debate on the question of Tibet is again put on the agenda of the United Nations General Assembly".
A demonstration was held in Oslo on the 19th May outside the Norwegian Parliament, where appeals were given by the Norwegian Tibet Committee and the leader of the Parliamentary Tibet Committee, MP Borge Brende. The demonstrators then walked to the Foreign Ministry where the appeal was delivered by hand to State Secretary (Deputy Foreign Minister) Janne Haaland Matlary. For the second time in recent weeks the Norwegian State Secretary stated the Norwegian government line that "there are not considered to be political grounds for the Tibet-question again being put on the agenda of the UN". The situation of the Tibetans would however continue to be taken up "bilaterally with the Chinese authorities and multilaterally in the relevant fora". At the latest session of the UN Commission on Human Rights, taking up "the situation of the Tibetans" amounted to the following statement: "We are also concerned about the situation for Tibetans, and underline theimportance of respect for their religious and cultural identity
". Norway's bilateral dialogue with China, meanwhile, has been going on for five years.
Submitted by Andrew Preston on behalf of the Norwegian Tibet Committee