|
Home Tibetan Asylum and Immigration Project |
U.N. Once Again Kowtowing to China
For Immediate Release
Contact: D'Arcy Richardson, 510-912-8215, darcy@tibetjustice.org
New York, NY-China is once again preparing to exclude a U.S.-based organization from participating in an upcoming U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development because of fears the group will criticize China's environmental record. At a Preparatory Session going on in New York this week for the upcoming U.N. Conference, to be held in September in South Africa, Tibet Justice Center, a human rights and environmental nonprofit in Berkeley, California, reported today that China is moving to prevent the Conference organizers from even considering the Center's application to attend.
"Under pressure from China, the Conference Secretariat tried at first to just bury our application," said D'Arcy Richardson, Chair of the Center's Environment Committee. "Only after the U.S. State Department intervened did they agree to recommend our accreditation." Non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, must be approved by the U.N. to attend the Conference. "The Secretariat has finally acknowledged that we are entitled to attend," said Richardson.
The Center now has been told that China will object and will move U.N. member states to take "no action" on the Center's application, effectively killing it. Using the same procedure, China earlier this year also prevented the International Campaign for Tibet from attending the same Conference.
"The real issue here is the systematic exclusion of one group of people from a global Summit," said Richardson. "This is a question of free speech. Through our environment and development work, Tibet Justice Center has done more to foster productive dialogue between China and Tibet than the U.N. has done in fifty years. It is outrageous for our group to be excluded from this Conference."
Richardson and Tashi Tsering, another environmental expert with the Center, are today contacting U.N. member states for support ahead of the vote, which they admit is an uphill battle given the vote on the International Campaign. "These countries have to stop being afraid that China will suddenly close the doors to their businesses if they refuse to kowtow," said Richardson. "At some point they have to stand up for principle. Frankly, this is not a big enough issue for China to carry through on its threats."
Richardson also pointed out that the Center is a member of the World Conservation Union (IUCN), an environmental organization with governmental and non-governmental members. The IUCN has Permanent Observer status at the U.N. and is heavily involved in planning for the South Africa summit. "Tibet Justice Center has twice now sat down with Chinese government officials and professionally negotiated resolutions concerning environmental issues in Tibet and Asia. We plan to follow up on these issues at the Conference. They know us. We take strong stands on human rights and environmental issues but open and informed discussion on these issues is what the U.N. Conference is supposed to be about," observed Tashi Tsering.
"We're also concerned that the State Department is not going to make any effort to win the vote among the members," said Richardson. "We've been contacting members of Congress to urge the State Department to intervene much more aggressively on behalf of an American organization being arbitrarily excluded from this important international public forum. The U.S. has to take leadership on an issue going to the heart of the U.N.'s integrity."
The exclusion of NGOs critical of China's human rights record is an increasingly common phenomenon. All NGOs with mandates relating to human rights in China and Tibet were summarily excluded from the 1995 Women's Conference in Beijing. In 1998, the U.N.'s Commission on the Status of Women tried to prevent a Tibetan woman, Losang Rabgey, representing Tibet Justice Center, from addressing the Commission solely because she was Tibetan. Only after protests from NGOs, the U.S. and Canadian delegates (Rabgey is a Canadian citizen) did the Commission back down. In an exception that proves the rule, the International Campaign for Tibet did succeed in getting accreditation to the Racism Conference in South Africa last year, but was excluded from this year's Conference. In the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, China, Cuba and other states with extremely poor human rights records have become more vocal and aggressive in trying to exclude NGOs who are critical of their records.
- top of page -
Home | Contact