Mr. Chairman,

Earlier this month the spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry was quoted by news agencies as proclaiming that today China enjoys the best situation of human rights in its history. As a Chinese who cannot now freely live in China, I do not agree to that statement like majority of the people in China. My own experience as a teacher who publicly criticised the Chinese government for its role in the 4 June 1989 massacre in Beijing has been devastating. I was imprisoned for almost three years for exercising my freedom of speech.

Today the call for a democratic China is once again suppressed as the leaders of the Democratic Party of China and many other dissidents were given harsh prison sentences for speaking up. The unreasonable ban on the practice of Falun Gong is another indication of disregard for basic human aspiration or believes. The Chinese Government even intercept donations sent by some people in different countries for the victims' families on the 4 June 1989 massacre in Beijing.

Mr. Chairman, when we speak of human rights, bodies like this Commission, cannot forgot the most vulnerable ones on our human planet. The oppressed, as we learned in the 20th century, generally become the victims who suffer the most. The situation of human rights in Tibet is one such example. The Chinese authorities has been committing gross and systematic violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms in Tibet with impunity. The international community just looks on! As a Chinese I condemn the policies implemented in Tibet by the Chinese Government.

Like other Chinese of my generation, I grew up thinking that China really "liberated" Tibet. We actually believed that the Chinese government was helping the Tibetans to be free from what the Beijing leadership calls, "serfdom". But when we had access to independent information on what actually transpired, we could not believe how the government indoctrinated us into believing its propaganda on Tibet.

Mr. Chairman, today more than 40 years after the Peopleís Liberation Army forced its way into Tibet, Tibetans remain denied of their basic human rights, including the freedom of expression, the freedom to propagate and to practice their religion and the freedom to preserve their distinct culture and language. These days communist cadres regularly enter monasteries and nunneries to conduct the so-called "patriotic re-education" sessions whereby monks and nuns are forced to either denounce the Dalai Lama or to declare their support for the child the Chinese government picked to be the Panchen Lama. More than 11,000 monks and nuns have been expelled for opposing these indoctrination sessions, a human rights report said last month. The Dalai Lama in his 10 March Statement this year, described the current situation in Tibet as "witnessing the return of an atmosphere of intimidation, coercion and fear, reminiscent of the days of the Cultural Revolution."

Mr. Chairman, many Chinese are against the continued and unchecked atrocities being committed in Tibet by the Chinese Government. This realisation will definitely spread when more people in China learn about the true nature of the Chinese presence in Tibet. A lot of people in China will also support the policy of the Dalai Lama to seek genuine self-rule in Tibet through a negotiated peaceful settlement of the Tibetan issue. Some analyst in China believe that the Chinese government is buying time as far as the Tibetan issue is concerned. In late 1999 a confidential Chinese document as revealed. In it a senior Chinese official is quoted as saying the following. "We have no need to engage in dialogue with the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lamas return to China will bring a great risk of instability. We will then not be able to control Tibet. The Dalai Lama is now fairly old. At the most, it will be ten years before he dies. When he dies, the issue of Tibet is resolved forever. We, therefore, have to use skilful means to prevent his return."

Against this background, the people of Tibet or for that matter, the people of China, have no other way to appeal but to forums like this Commission whose thematic mechanisms continue to document the human rights abuses in Tibet and China. This Commission has the moral obligation to make countries, big or small, fully accountable for their human rights failures. The Commission on Human Rights should also not ignore the fact that a Security Council member of the United Nations is holding a 10-year-old boy Tibetan boy as the worldís youngest political prisoner.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, if the UN Commission on Human Rights requires a credible outlook in the 21st century, member-countries cannot ignore the plight of the Tibetan people as it has done in the 20th century. We cannot belittle the worldís longest non-violent freedom struggle by such discrimination. It is, therefore, appropriate for the Commission on Human Rights, this year to unanimously act on China and adopt a resolution which will greatly help to promote and protect human rights in China and Tibet.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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Last updated: 30-Mar-2000