World Tibet News - December 07, 1999
Christian Wiedemann
## aus der Gruppe: c.wie...@lm102.link-m.de
_________________ WTN-L World Tibet Network News _________________
Published by: The Canada Tibet Committee
Editorial Board: Brian Given, Conrad Richter, Nima Dorjee,
Tseten Samdup, Thubten (Sam) Samdup
WTN Editors: wtn-e...@tibet.ca
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Issue ID: 99/12/07 Compiled by Thubten (Sam) Samdup
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Tuesday, December 07, 1999
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Contents:
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1. Mbeki has no time to see Dalai Lama
2. Facing up to world abuse
3. Taking Aim at Chinese Policy, Lawyers Say: 'Hello, Dalai!'
4. Shroud over shawl traders
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1. Mbeki has no time to see Dalai Lama
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The Star, South Africa
December 06 1999
President Thabo Mbeki's office has repeated its insistence that Mbeki's
decision not to grant exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama a personal
audience was due to constraints on Mbeki's time, and not a request from the
Chinese government.
Mbeki's office was reacting to a Voteline question run in The Star on the
issue on Monday.
Contrary to the impression created by the Voteline question - that Mbeki had
caved in to Chinese pressure to turn down a personal audience - the question
"is based on a non-existent premise that the (senior Chinese leader)
Chairman Mr Li Peng asked the president of the South African government not
to have a meeting with the Dalai Lama," the president's spokesperson, Parks
Mankahlana, said.
"On more than one occasion, the Presidency has made it clear in public
releases that Chairman Li Peng had never made any request that the Dalai
Lama not be received by the government.
"In fact the visit of the Dalai Lama to South Africa to attend the
Parliament of World Religious never arose in the meeting (between Mbeki and
Li Peng) that took place on November 21," Mankahlana said in a letter to The
Star.
He continued: "The presidency has repeatedly made it known that we were in
consultation with the organisers of the conference in Cape Town with a view
to organising a representative meeting between the participants at the
convention and the president.
"We considered this approach the most practical because it would have been
impossible for the president to accommodate the numerous requests we
expected from the various religious leaders of the different faiths who are
expected in South Africa for the summit.
"It made sense to us to agree to a representative meeting which would
accommodate everyone, especially given the constraints on the President's
time.
"It was in fact President Mbeki who introduced the question of Tibet in the
deliberations with Li Peng. Indeed, Chairman Li Peng restated the position
of the People's Republic of China regarding Tibet, a position that is well
known to the South African government.
"Throughout the discussion, the question of the Dalai Lama's visit was never
mentioned, not once."
Mbeki is due to meet the Dalai Lama as part of a delegation of religious
leaders he has granted an audience to later this week.
The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959, after it was occupied by Chinese troops
following an unsuccessful armed uprising against the Chinese. He won the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.
Beijing insists Tibet is, historically, a part of China and uses a heavy
military presence to keep it under control.
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2. Facing up to world abuse
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Sunday Times - South Africa
December 5, 1999
CONGOLESE artist Ismael Kamara's untitled painting features in the
International Print Portfolio Exhibition, which opens at the Durban Art
Gallery on Friday. The exhibition, which represents the culmination of a
week-long human rights programme at the gallery, marks the 50th anniversary
of the Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations.
The programme includes an address tomorrow by the exiled spiritual leader of
Tibet, the Dalai Lama. Artists participating in the exhibition, which is due
to travel to other centres in South Africa and around the world, are from
countries where gross human rights abuses have occurred.
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3. Taking Aim at Chinese Policy, Lawyers Say: 'Hello, Dalai!'
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By Torri Still
Cal Law, Monday, December 6, 1999
For Lindsay Harris, a contract attorney for Morrison & Foerster, a recent
trip to Dharmsala, India, to document the stories of young Tibetan refugees
proved wrenching.
October marked the second time Harris had traveled to Dharmsala on behalf of
the Berkeley-based International Committee of Lawyers for Tibet, a nonprofit
agency that advocates self-determination for the Tibetan people.
"These very young children have had very adult and very traumatic
experiences in their short lives," Harris says. "Their parents had sent them
out of Tibet on a dangerous journey, and they had spent three weeks walking
through the Himalayas."
Harris, whose work with ICLT is not affiliated with MoFo, was a member of a
team of attorneys, psychologists and interpreters dispatched by ICLT to
interview children as part of its children's rights project. While in India,
the group also met with the Dalai Lama.
As was the case with the women's rights project the organization sponsored
last year, the team will present its findings in a report to the United
Nations.
ICLT, which was founded in 1989, comprises 1,200 members, 30 percent of whom
are attorneys. Although the children's and women's rights projects are
currently on the front burner of the organization's agenda, ICLT also
provides legal assistance to Tibetans through referrals to pro bono
attorneys and sponsors environmental and economic rights projects, among
others.
Dennis Cusack, a partner at Farella Braun & Martel who is taking a leave of
absence from the firm to write a book on the Tibetan freedom movement, is
ICLT's president.
Lawyers are especially suited to human rights work, says Cusack, because
"the bottom line is that what is most useful are advocacy skills."
Attorneys' knowledge of international law concepts, Cusack notes, allows
them to "point out historical facts about Tibet's sovereignty prior to
China's invasion and present a convincing picture of what's going on in
Tibet."
ICLT executive director Janice Mantell says that attorneys who join ICLT
often do so out of a sense that something is missing from their lives.
"Maybe they're doing work on insurance cases," she says, "and they want to
contribute to a greater goal: human rights."
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4. Shroud over shawl traders
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by Ian MacKinnon
New Delhi, 4 December, 1999 (The Australian) - The calls with their
anonymous tip-offs have been coming in for several weeks - names and
addresses of dealers, or simply those brazen enough to flaunt their penchant
in public.
But those who feature on the growing hit list are not drug barons or even
users. In the Indian capital, as the winter chill sets in, the mood has
turned against those who trade In shahtoosh shawls, or merely have the
audacity to wear their expensive wraps outside.
Wealthy women in New Delhi - the "shahtoosh capital" of India - are running
scared. They fear arrest and imprisonment If they dare to be seen in the
banned shawls made from the fine wool of the protected Tibetan chiru
antelope.
The high-profile arrest of an art and antiques dealer this week, after he
tried to sell a grey shahtoosh shawl dating from 1800, was the catalyst for
the climate of fear.
It was the biggest success to date for a campaign spearheaded by Traffic
India and the World Wide Fund for Nature. Prominent adverts in newspapers
two weeks ago urged people to "Say no to shahtoosh" and warned of the
penalties of possessing a shawl or engaging in the illegal trade.
But the campaign backed by Delhi's Government, also appealed for information
about those flouting the law, giving hotlines and e-mail addresses and
pledging to protect informants' identities.
Delhi in particular has been the focus for the drive because of its
preponderance of rich Indians and wealthy tourists able to afford the $3500
shawls seen as status symbols.
Raw wool from the Tibetan antelope is smuggled over the border from China,
where the species is endangered. The fine wool from the underbelly can only
be obtained by slaughtering the animals and plucking the hide. An estimated
20,000 from a population of 70,000 are killed each year.
Trade In any part of the animal or products from it was banned by the Indian
Wildlife Act in 1977, followed two years later by the Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species.
In India, owners of shahtoosh shawls were at the time of the ban offered the
opportunity to register them to avoid prosecution. Even today those who
could prove their shawl pre-dated 1977 would be exempt. But none came
forward, making all shahtoosh ownership illegal.
Since last year, more than 350 shahtoosh shawls have been seized In raids.
Rajiv Talwar, secretary of the Environment, Forests and Wildlife Department,
said: "Once this fear gets across, the demand will dry up. We're trying to
tell people these are shawls of shame. Most of these women are vegetarians,
but here they are wearing shrouds of death.
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