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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 24th, 2008 Summit of Tibetan exiles rejects ‘total independence’ call. By Clifford Coonan in Dharamsala
Tibetan exiles have shied away from pursuing total independence from China and agreed to back the non-violent “Middle Way” policy of the Dalai Lama. “[The] majority of views have come up supporting the Middle Way path … which is right,” the Dalai Lama, 73, said at the end of a week-long meeting of almost 600 exiles in the Himalayan town of Dharamsala. “Total independence is not practical.” The Buddhist leader, revered as a god-king by Tibetans but reviled by Beijing as a dangerous splittist, also sought to quash speculation that he might step down following a spell in hospital earlier this year with abdominal pain. “There is no point, or question of my retirement,” he said. “It is my moral responsibility till my death to work for the Tibetan cause.” The Dalai Lama called the meeting after the failure of eight rounds of talks with Beijing. At its conclusion he struck a sombre tone, saying the Tibetan nation was close to a “death sentence”. “My trust in Chinese officials has become thinner and thinner. In the next 20 years, if we are not careful in our actions and planning, then there is great danger to the Tibetan community,” he said. Exiled Tibetans backed the “Middle Way” because they fear losing international support and further heightening tensions with Beijing. The decision came as a disappointment for those groups, particularly younger delegates, who had sought a shift towards an unequivocal demand for full independence. However, Lhadon Tethorg, a pro-independence delegate and New York-based executive director of Students For A Free Tibet, said she was happy that the issue of a more aggressive approach had been discussed. “Independence is on the table now,” she said. This was recognised in the meeting’s communiqué, in which the Tibetans said their patience was limited. The Tibetan issue has taken on a much greater political significance in China since protests in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, in March erupted into violence that spread to other areas of western China with Tibetan populations. Tibet’s government-in-exile said more than 200 Tibetans were killed in a Chinese crackdown. Beijing said the riots mostly killed ethnic Han Chinese and were the work of gangsters sponsored by the Dalai Lama and his “clique”. ———————- Related Articles It is easy to call on the world’s freedom movements to seek the path of negotiation over the way of violence. But what happens if it gets you nowhere? That was the bleak question asked by Tibetan exiles at a meeting in Dharmsala in India that ended at the weekend. It is five decades since Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, fled the country after an aborted revolt against Chinese rule. Since then, he has consistently foresworn violence and urged a negotiated settlement, accepting the reality of Chinese suzerainty in exchange for autonomy. The 73-year-old Dalai Lama has received a Nobel prize for his moderation but no Chinese concessions for his pains. The whole course of Chinese policy in the past decade has been to isolate him from his people, weaning away popular loyalty through economic investment from Beijing, asserting political control of the monasteries and weakening the ethnic basis of the country through Han Chinese immigration. It is this latter policy that helped foment the rebellion last summer. It was these riots, and the failure of talks to relieve the pressure of Chinese rule, which induced the Tibetan leader to call this meeting, partly to pressure China into a more conciliatory policy and partly to head off the growing call among young Tibetans to ditch the policy of seeking autonomy and go for full independence. In this, the Dalai Lama succeeded, for the Dharamsala meeting ended with an endorsement of his authority, and of his policy of seeking a “middle way” between independence and Chinese rule. However, it will not be easy to deflect the calls for Tibetan independence forever. Indeed, the Chinese are assisting this trend, encouraging radicalism as a way of splitting the Dalai Lama from his adherents and then waiting for him to reach an isolated death. This is a dangerous policy. Marginalising moderation, as we know from the Islamic world, only plays into the hands of the extremists, of which there are an increasing number amongst young Tibetans. The call for independence, as opposed to autonomy, will grow louder. Beijing should heed the Dalai Lama’s call for the “middle way” before it finds that events have moved beyond its control. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 10th, 2008 Tackling Tibet and Taiwan - Differently: writes Antoaneta Bezlova for IPS from Beijing, November 9, 2008. BEIJING, Nov 9 (IPS) - Chinese negotiators have, this week, discussed Tibet’s quest for genuine autonomy with the Dalai Lama’s representatives and also pushed forward the agenda to establish economic rapprochement with Taipei. Beijing has been seeking reunification with Taiwan for as long as Tibet has pursued a promised right to self-determination. Tellingly, the two negotiations got very different treatments in the state-sanctioned Chinese press. The Taiwan talks, which sought to build foundations for closer engagement over the Taiwan Strait, were covered extensively in the mainland media. Negotiators signed several agreements bringing the former arch-rivals — that fought a civil war in the 1940s — closer together by establishing direct air, postal and shipping links.
When it did report on the visit of the Dalai Lama envoys and their dialogue with Chinese officials, the agency struck a harsh note, saying the Tibetan spiritual leader should “face reality”.
But, despite the longer than usual time for discussions, no breakthrough was made, giving rise to even more doubts about the success of the Dalai Lama’s “middle path” doctrine of pursuing autonomy. Tibet and Taiwan are both grappling to find solutions to decades-long standoffs. Taiwan has been ruled separately from China since 1949. The Nationalist troops of Chiang Kai-shek fled to the island after losing the civil war against the communists on the Chinese mainland. Beijing continues to see the island as a breakaway province and has warned that it would use force to prevent Taiwan from declaring formal independence. For Beijing, the latest talks are a breakthrough because they included a visit to Taiwan of Chen Yunlin, chairman of China’s semi-official Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, whose goal is to reunify the island and the mainland. Chen is the highest-ranking Chinese official to visit Taiwan in a half century. He also met with Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou. Ma assumed power five months ago, promising a new era of peace and economic normalisation with China, after years of tense relations under his predecessor Chen Shui-bian. Beijing, which hopes that an economic thaw across the Taiwan Strait would facilitate future reunification, has welcomed his administration. The latest talks however, were dogged by rowdy protesters and faced vocal opposition from supporters of the Democratic Progressive Party, which favors independence. Polls conducted by the Mainland Affairs Council, which oversees Taiwan’s China policy, found that 30 percent of the interviews considered Ma Ying-jeou’s opening up to China too fast in early October, compared with 19 percent who felt that way in March. Beijing had once proposed the “one country, two systems” formula, practised in the administration of Hong Kong as a possible model for Taiwan. The doctrine allows Chinese sovereignty to be applied to a territory, with foreign affairs and defence issues handled by the central government while domestic matters are left to a local administration. The same model, though, is being denied to Tibet. Du Qinglin ruled out a Hong Kong-style solution to the Tibetan question, saying China would not allow Tibet the wide degree of autonomy it has granted territories such as Hong Kong and the former Portuguese colony of Macau. “It is a fundamental political system of China… It does not allow the promotion of ethnic separatism under the banner of ‘genuine ethnic self-governance’,” Du said. “We will never allow someone to hold a banner of ‘real autonomy’ and damage the national unity,” he added. For the Tibetans, the stand-off over their right to self-determination has continued ever since the 15th Dalai Lama fled his homeland in 1951 for India and set up a government-in-exile in Dharamsala. But China has repeatedly accused him of leading a campaign to split off the Himalayan region from the rest of the country. The two sides have held seven rounds of talks before the current one with little progress to show for it. Beijing blamed the Dalai Lama and his followers for the riots. As the current talks were about to begin in the Chinese capital, the authorities announced they had sentenced 55 people for their involvement in March’s anti-government protests. Adding to the gloomy prospects for the dialogue, the Dalai Lama has voiced his frustration with the lack of progress in negotiations, saying Tibet was “now dying” under China’s iron-fist rule. “My trust in the Chinese government is now thinner, thinner, thinner,” he told reporters during his visit to Japan this week. “I have to accept failure”. The future of his “middle path” policy will be the focus of a special meeting, in Dharamsala, on Nov. 17, of around 300 delegates representing the worldwide exiled Tibetan community. Younger and more radical forces among the community have increasingly been calling for a tougher stance against Beijing. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 3rd, 2008 Monday, Nov. 3, 2008 By JUN HONGO The people of Tibet should and will decide negotiation strategy with China later this month through a genuinely democratic manner, the Dalai Lama said Sunday.
The Tibetan spiritual leader, accused by Beijing of masterminding a separatist movement, is in Japan for a week at the invitation of a Fukuoka-based Buddhist organization. During a joint interview with Japanese media at a Tokyo hotel, he explained that envoys from Tibetan communities will meet for a week at Dharamsala, India, beginning Nov. 17, and international groups supporting Tibet will gather in Delhi later in the month to decide Tibet’s approach toward achieving “realistic autonomy” from China. Envoys for Tibet’s government in exile left India on Wednesday for talks with officials in Beijing, but the Dalai Lama said he hasn’t received word yet on how the meeting has been going. While he said he hasn’t given up hope or resigned from his position, the Dalai Lama said he could no longer take direct responsibility for discussions with Beijing, and decisions will be made based on a consensus of the people through a democratic process. The meeting of Tibetan communities and international organizations could alter Tibetans’ strategy with China, and the Dalai Lama said he intends not to talk of his preferences until the meetings are over. Tibetans believe in genuine democracy “unlike the communist democracy in China,” he said, explaining that “people may not express (their thoughts) freely” if he were to voice his position. However the Dalai Lama repeated during the interview that his ultimate goal is not to gain independence from Beijing but to make sure Tibet’s cultural and religious heritage is not destroyed. “We are not seeking separation from China” because remaining a part of the rapidly growing economy will help Tibet’s development, he said. Preserving Tibetan Buddhism and its ideology will benefit China as well, where “very dirty, corrupted capitalism” is emerging, he added. “But the Chinese (government) ignores these things, continues to accuse us, and is full of suspicion,” the Dalai Lama said, criticizing the regime for having “no ear but only mouth.” China has controlled Tibet since invading the region in the 1950s. Beijing has ruled its people through what the Dalai Lama described as “use of force to keep stability,” which has caused scores of riots. Frustration reached its peak this spring, when antigovernment monks rioted. The Dalai Lama criticized Beijing’s crackdowns on the Tibetan people during and after the clashes. Tibet “very much hoped that the Chinese government may see reality, and how many grievances are in Tibetan mind,” the Dalai Lama said, but he expressed disappointment that China has only continued to blame him as the mastermind of separatists and the riots. “There is an iron curtain within their minds, never seeing reality. Never seeing others’ views,” he said. “It is important to know the limitation of material value,” the Dalai Lama said, explaining that repletion of the mind is far more valuable than financial wealth. The Dalai Lama’s health has been a concern after the 73-year-old underwent surgery for gallstones last month, but he said that although the operation was complicated, he has surprised his doctors with his quick recovery. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on October 24th, 2008
FrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, October 23, 2008
On October 21, a U.S. Court of Appeals moved to block the immediate release of 17 Chinese Muslims from Guantanamo Bay, overturning a federal judge’s order this June to set the men free after seven years in detention. The legal controversy surrounding their detention serves as an occasion to reflect on the status of China’s Muslim Uighur minority, which makes up an estimated 1 to 2 percent of the China’s population, and which remains little-understood in the West.
First and foremost, the Chinese government considers the country’s 8.5 million Uighurs a threat to national security. Earlier this week, for instance, Chinese authorities declared that most of its domestic Muslim terrorists – that is, the Uighur – have close ties with similar groups operating base camps in Pakistan, which borders China’s northwest Xinjiang province.
Also this week, the Chinese government issued mug shots of eight Uighurs suspected in attacks prior to this summer’s Beijing Olympics, when Uighur separatists struck Chinese targets over a dozen times. Those attacks included a brazen assault on a police station that left sixteen officers dead. All the suspects are alleged members of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which the U.N. says is a terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda. Rohan Gunaratna, who heads the Singapore-based International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, recently said that there is overwhelming evidence that Uighur terrorists are being trained at ETIM camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Gunaratna reports that a village “exclusively for the Uighurs” has been built in the White Mountains of Afghanistan near Jalalabad and the Pakistan border.
These warnings underscore China’s mutually suspicious relationship with its Uighur minority. Residing in the north-west Chinese province of Xinjiang, the Uighur’s are Turkic Muslims. Their language is closer to Turkish than to Chinese, and their women often wear burkas. The Uighurs have never accepted Communist rule, so a cycle of sporadic unrest and subsequent crackdowns by Chinese authorities has persisted for decades. Of these the most recent came after the August Olympics, when the Chinese government waited until the Western media had decamped to crack down on the Uighurs.
The government’s suspicions of the Muslims in its midst have been heightened by the Uighur’s ties to radical Islamic groups and charities. Out of concerns that Xinjiang’s mosques have been financed by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, Chinese authorities have closely monitored Uighur places of worship.
This year, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the government implemented strict rules governing all aspects of Uighur religious life. Henceforth, according to a recent report out of Xinjiang province, “official versions” of the Koran will be the only legal ones; imams will be barred from teaching the Koran in private; the study of Arabic will be allowed only at special government schools; and Muslim students and government workers will be “compelled to eat” during the Ramadan fast. Those Uighurs wishing to make the hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, will be obligated to do so through government-run tours that are virtually unaffordable to the average Chinese Muslim.
Not surprisingly, the nation’s “official” Muslim spokesmen have tried to put their co-religionists’ situation in the most positive light. Chen Guangyuan, the president of the China Islamic Association, has claimed that Muslims in the country are enjoying a religious renewal. “Governments at various levels have attached great importance to religious issues, and have implemented financial policies to assist their development,” Chen has said. In his role as a government representative, Chen could hardly suggest otherwise.
Official repression is just one source of the tension between China and its Muslim minority. Another can be found in the Uighurs’ native Xinjiang province, which they share, in varying states of unease, with an almost equal number of Han Chinese. China’s dominant ethnic group, the Han have a different language and religion than the Uighurs and view their Muslim neighbors with suspicion. “The Uighurs are lazy,” one Han businessman was quoted as saying in the International Herald Tribune. “It’s because of their religion. They spend so much time praying. What are they praying for?” For their part, the Uighur have tended to see the Han as agents of the Chinese government. For instance, the Uighur accuse Beijing of encouraging Han settlement in Xinjiang as an intimidation tactic.
No one familiar with China’s oppression of Tibetan Buddhists and followers of the Falun Gong religious group will be surprised by its repressive treatment of the Uighurs. The discomforting question, however, is whether the government’s serial crackdowns are justified by the very real threat of Islamic terrorism.
Opinions differ. Groups like Human Rights Watch insist that the Uighur are blameless. They equate Uighur separatism with the peaceful Tibetan struggle for independence. But others are skeptical. Robert Spencer of JihadWatch urges skepticism toward Uighur groups’ claims that they “don’t espouse violence.” “They don’t espouse violence. They espouse Sharia,” Spencer observes. “Does China want to live under Sharia?”
This prospect seems highly unlikely, to be sure, since the Chinese government is crippled by no moral qualms about how to respond to terrorism. The Chinese Muslims being held in Guantanamo Bay would have been tortured and killed long ago had they been captured by the Chinese instead of the Americans. In fact, this was the main argument against repatriating them to China after all these years.
Still, the Guantanamo detainees’ case suggests that Spencer is right to caution against romantic depictions of Uighurs as noble victims of Chinese oppression. Although they are not considered a threat to the United States, the Uighurs at Guantanamo are suspected members of the ETIM terror group and reportedly received weapons training in Afghanistan. That fact does not justify all of the repressive measures that China has taken against its Muslim minority, but it does indicate that Chinese suspicions about their Islamic countrymen are not entirely unjustified.
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 26th, 2008 EU - save Ukraine from Russia, The European Foreign Policy Council (ECFR) NGO says. Philippa Runner, from Brussels for the EUobserver, August 25, 2008. The European Union should formally recognise Ukraine’s right to join the EU and offer it a “solidarity clause” to help prevent Russia from undermining Kiev’s pro-democratic government in the wake of the Georgia conflict, a European foreign affairs think-tank has said. “The next focal point for security tensions - although not for war - might be Ukraine,” the European Foreign Policy Council (ECFR) warned in a flash report on Monday (25 August), urging Brussels to make a strong show of friendship with Ukraine at an EU foreign ministers’ meeting on 5 September and the EU-Ukraine summit on 9 September. Russian cruiser - the Black Sea fleet has been stationed in Crimea since 1783. In the “mid-term,” the ECFR advised the EU to make a political declaration endorsing Ukraine’s EU perspective, draft a road-map for a visa-free travel deal, and help Ukraine to ready itself for NATO membership and the ejection of Russia’s Black Sea fleet from its old home in Crimea. www.SustainabiliTank.info thinks this is a very raw idea - not even half backed. We have seen Sevastopol and neighboring towns and waters. They are filled with old and newer Russian warships and the people in the towns are mainly Russian. Talking of the people - also in the Eastern part of Ukraine most people are Russian transplants, they speak Russian and feel they want to be part of Russia. We said this many times - to save Ukraine from Russia, the solution is an amicable divorce - so the best the EU could do is to advise the Ukraine to go for their own good to a marriage/divorce councillor and promise them the EU membership if they agree to severance from some of the heavily Russian territories. Surely, the EU can say to the Russian Prime-Minister that moving in with force will be dealt with in economic terms, but we all know that if ,and when, these statements are put to test, the EU will not go to war because of the Ukraine. Further, in the Ukraine case there is not even an argument like we had for Ossetia, where we said that if one opts for independence - this should lead to an Ossetia State that includes both - South and North Ossetia. There is no similar condition in the case of The Ukraine.} The ECFR study sees Russia’s assault on Georgia as part of a wider plan to rebuild the old Soviet sphere of influence, noting that some pro-Kremlin analysts such as Sergei Markov recently floated the idea of a Russia-led “East European Union,” which would mimic EU integration and include countries such as Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Turkey. *** Tensions flare: Russia-Ukraine tensions flared in recent weeks after Moscow accused Kiev of supplying arms to Georgia, and Kiev tried to limit Russia’s use of its Crimea-stationed warships against Georgia. Inside Ukraine, pro-western President Viktor Yushchenko’s senior aide, Andriy Kyslynskiy, last week accused Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko of striking a secret deal with the Kremlin in return for Russia’s support when she runs in the next Ukrainian presidential elections in 2010. Mr Kyslynskiy also said political “interference” by pro-Kremlin elements in the Ukrainian establishment has reached levels unseen since the run-up to the 2004 Orange Revolution, adding that Russian intelligence is funding and steering Crimean separatist groups. Some 60 percent of the 2 million people who live in Crimea are ethnically Russian, hundreds of thousands of whom secretly hold Russian passports, the ECFR says. Crimea was historically Russian and has been home to the Black Sea fleet since 1783. It became part of Ukraine when Ukraine won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, with the Russian fleet set to leave by 2017 under a bilateral deal. In the wider Ukraine, about 25 percent of the 50 million-strong population are Russophone, most of whom live in the east of the country and many of whom oppose Ukraine’s integration with NATO and the EU. *** Warning shots already fired: ——————– Georgian rebels in Abkhazia seek greater EU recognition. Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia, on the Black Sea - is a once a popular holiday spot for Russian elite. The Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia is keen to get EU recognition as an independent country, after the Russian parliament passed a resolution urging the Russian president to endorse Georgian rebels’ ambitions of statehood. “We are not interested in only Russia recognising us,” Abkhaz deputy foreign minister, Maxim Gunjia, told EUobserver on Monday (25 August), adding that he expects Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to shortly back the pro-independence vote by Russian MPs. “We want the European Union and all states to recognise our independence. This is a very positive moment for the EU - it could follow Russia’s example and also recognise Abkhazia. It is the only way to preserve stability and peace in the region.” “We recognise that full recognition is a very big demand of Abkhazia for the EU at the moment,” Mr Gunja added, indicating that Abkhazia would also be interested in other ways of increasing its presence on the international stage. “The EU could instead give a voice to Abkhazia in various European forums and institutions,” he said. “Only Georgia is invited to such forums while discussing the Caucasus, which is why the information the EU is receiving is biased, and why the conflict became possible.” *** The lower house and the upper house of the Russian parliament on Monday both unanimously voted through a resolution urging Mr Medvedev to recognise Abkhazia and a second Georgian rebel territory, South Ossetia, as independent states. The resolution has a largely symbolic value so far, as the legal decision resides solely with the Russian president, with some western experts doubting the Kremlin will follow through. “The game is completely open, but it would be much more reasonable for Medvedev not to do so. If he doesn’t, he holds onto a very powerful bargaining chip with regards to the EU and US, and Georgia itself,” conflict prevention think-tank, the International Crisis Group (ICG), analyst, Alain Deletroz, said. “If he wants to turn a military victory into a diplomatic victory, he will not recognise [the rebel enclaves], because it will then become extremely difficult for the EU to keep an open dialogue with Moscow,” Mr Deletroz explained. “What Russia wanted was a division within NATO. If they go too far, they will only achieve the opposite - a unification within the alliance.” *** The China angle: “Even for the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation [the China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan security alliance], recognition would create problems. For the same reasons that China was not happy with the West’s recognition of Kosovo, Beijing would also not be happy with Russian recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia,” the ICG expert added, pointing to China’s discomfort over its own separatist problems, such as Taiwan. The European Commission was reluctant to issue any reaction to the Russian parliamentary vote ahead of next week’s extraordinary summit on EU-Russia relations, but the EU has repeatedly said it supports Georgia’s “territorial integrity.” “The debate is ongoing in Russia, and we will not react as long as the debate is ongoing,” European Commission spokesperson, Ton Van Lierop, told reporters in Brussels. Abkhazia and South Ossetia broke away from Tbilisi in civil wars in the 1990s, setting up de facto states with their own mini-parliaments and paramilitary forces within Georgia’s internationally-recognised borders during a tense, 15-year long ceasefire that erupted into open conflict on 7 August. Tbilisi has accused Russia of giving the rebels financial and political backing, as well as arms, in order to keep NATO and EU-aspirant Georgia divided. It also accuses the separatist and Russian forces of “ethnic cleansing” in pushing out the last remaining ethnic Georgians from the two territories during the recent war. ———————- UNDP Releases Information on a UN Angle: Please see - http://www.innercitypress.com/undp1georg… It seems that Inner City Press came up with information, acknowledged by UNDP, that together with the George Soros Open Society International, and the Swedish Government, there was a very modest supplemental funding of Georgian officials, including the President, to make it possible for them to run a rather non-corrupt government in the National interest of Georgia, and perhaps also in the interest of the oil buyers of the West. Above link leads to an article that starts: UN’s Engagement with Saakashvili Included $1500 a Month, Soros and Sweden Also Paid. Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis UNITED NATIONS, August 25 — Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was paid $1500 a month by the UN Development Program earlier this decade, on top of his official presidential salary, UNDP has told Inner City Press. UNDP says the goals of these payments, in which the Swedish government and financier George Soros joined, were to allow the Georgian “government to recruit the staff it needed and also to help remove incentives for corruption.” While receiving these $1500 monthly payment, Saakashvili committed to increase tax collection in Georgia. Deals were signed with , among others, British Petroleum, for the Baku - Tbilisi - Ceyhan oil pipeline. UNDP, and presumably its two co-funders, applauded this development. ——- This last article mentions also the old UNDP problem with having helped with injecting hard currency to North Korea that, as the claim goes, has helped them finance the acquisition of nuclear know-how. So, UNDP is a tool for covert actions and not just a victim of side effects in what they consider to be development work? In the tape attached to the article, Matthew Russell Lee points out at the unevenness of the way, North Korea, Sudan, and Zimbabwe were dealt with, and surfaces the idea that the treatment is in relation to the interest of internal politics in the US. So back to our posting, how will the UN be used in the case of the Ukraine - which is rather more of an EU then a US problem?
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 22nd, 2008 From: media at avaaz.org The August 23, 2008 - PRESS RELEASE - Will Appear In the International Herald Tribune and China’s Ming Pao, on the Day of The Beijing Olympics’ Closing. It Willl Say - Love China / Love Tibet / Love Burma / Love Darfur - and Will Promote Human Rights For China - a Hanshake to the World. 175,000 STRONG GLOBAL HANDSHAKE TO LAND IN BEIJING AHEAD OF OLYMPIC CLOSING CEREMONY see avaaz.org A virtual global handshake will land in Beijing tomorrow ahead of the Olympic Closing Ceremony. To culminate the campaign, this weekend, Avaaz.org has taken out an advertisement in Saturday’s International Herald Tribune and China’s Ming Pao to deliver the handshake to the world.
*** The global handshake petition reads: “With this handshake, we reach out to one another as citizens round the world in the Olympic spirit of friendship and excellence, committing to hold all our governments to a higher standard of peace, justice and respect for human dignity wherever they fall short – be it in Tibet, Iraq, Burma or beyond. Dialogue is the best way forward, for China, and the world.” *** AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEW Ricken Patel, Executive Director, ricken at avaaz.org, +1 646 229 5416 *** Avaaz is a global web movement with over 3.3 million members worldwide, working to ensure that the views and values of people everywhere inform global decision-making. Avaaz means “voice” in many languages. Permalink | |