Other Governmental Bodies
Belgium Chamber of Representatives Resolution on Tibet (1996) [p.332]
CHAMBER OF REPRESENTATIVES OF BELGIUM
Ordinary session 1995-1996
June 20th 1996
The Chamber,
-in view of the resolution related to the protection of the Tibetan people adopted on March 29th 1994 by the Chamber of representatives of Belgium (Doc. Chamber n 1132/7-92/93);
-in view of the resolution of the Second worldwide Conference of parliamentarians on Tibet which took place in Vilnius, Lituania, from May 26th to 28th 1995;
-in view of the resolution n B4-1007/95 voted by the European Parliament on July 13th 1995;
-in view of the resolutions 1353 (XIV) of 1959, 1723 (XVI) of 1961 and 2079 (XX) of 1965 of the UN General Assembly;
1. History of Tibet
-considering that during its entire history, Tibet succeeded in keeping a national, cultural and religious identity, distinguished from China, until erosion started after the Chinese invasion; -considering that historical Tibet is composed of three regions: U-Tsang, Amdo and Kham;
-considering that before the Chinese invasion in 1949, Tibet was de facto recognized by numerous states and that, according to the established principles of international right and the United Nations resolutions, Tibet is an occupied territory;
2. Nature of the Tibetan problem
-considering that the Tibetan question is essentially a political question: the one of the Tibetan submission by the People's Republic of China and the resistance of the Tibetan people to this domination;
-considering that the specific character of the human rights violations in Tibet concern the Tibetans as far as people confirming its proper identity and its desire to keep it intact, and that the human rights violations in Tibet originate from a racial and cultural institutionalized discrimination;
3. The pacific struggle of the Tibetan people and the Dalai Lama
-aware of the Tibetan people's will-power to get back their fundamental rights and to preserve and develop their culture;
-recognizing the negotiation proposals of the last fifteen years from the Dalai Lama to the Chinese government in order to obtain a pacific solution for the Tibetan problem;
-considering that in his search of a negotiated solution for the Tibetan problem, the Dalai Lama hasn't claimed the entire independence for Tibet and that, in respond to his conciliatory propositions, China hasn't ceased implanting Chinese colonies in Tibet, in such a way that the Tibetans are at present reduced to a minority in their own country;
-considering that the Dalai Lama is ready to negotiate with China and that the propositions, such as his Peace Plan in Five Points (1987) and his proposal to the European Parliament (1988), which were well received on international level, can still constitute a rational ground for negotiations without preceding conditions;
4. The population transfer
-condemning as a serious violation of international right the transfer of the Chinese Han population - officially encouraged - put in operation through various means, and notably, by the substitution with Chinese functionaries of Tibetan competent agents on various levels of administration, as well as by the obligation, in virtue of a recent decision, of the whole military personal to settle in Tibet after service with the threat of loosing their retired pay rights;
5. Discrimination on educational level
-condemning the discrimination by the Chinese authorities in the field of education, depriving the Tibetan children of appropriated facilities; as well to the encounter of Tibetans who want to study their own language and culture as through the recall under pressure of Tibetan children who study abroad;
6. The policy of birth control
-considering that the number of Tibetans living in Tibet (U-Tsang, Kham and Amdo) counts a 6.000.000 souls, that the surface of Tibet is 2,5 million of square-kilometers (or 2,4 inhabitants per square-kilometer);
-stating that the Chinese policy of birth control cannot be justified on the ground of the weak density of the Tibetan population living in Tibet and that this is thus only one of the means used by the People's Republic of China to reduce the number of Tibetans living in Tibet;
7. The problem of Tibet equals an ethnical purification
-condemning the other serious and systematic human rights violations in Tibet, notably, the arbitrary arrest and detention as well as the torture of Tibetans for political reasons; the violations of the women's rights, notably, the forced sterilizations and abortions; the deprivation of religious freedom; all offences which, with the destruction of the rich Tibetan culture and the population transfer, menace the survival of the Tibetan people and are thus equal to an ethnical purification;
8. Problem of the environment
-preoccupied with the destruction of the natural environment of the Tibetan plateau, and notably, the abusive disafforestation, the storage of toxic and radioactive waste, which has consequences for not only Tibet but for the whole region and the entire world;
9. The self-determination right
-reconfirming the Tibetan people's inalienable self-determination right;
10. The interference right
-underlining that the human rights violations, and notable, the self-determination right, as well as all the other violations of international right are, by definition, the legitimate business of every member of the international community, and couldn't be the interior business of whatever state.
1. Requests the Belgian government
-to urge the People's Republic of China to immediately put an end to the policies and practices that violate the individual rights and the fundamental freedom of the Tibetans;
-to support, with all diplomatic means, the negotiation process insisted on by the Dalai Lama and the representatives of the Tibetan government-in-exile, with the Chinese authorities, in view of obtaining the self-determination right for the Tibetan people and the establishment of a democratic peace zone in Tibet;
-to press the People's Republic of China to put an end to the policy of birth control which consists of forced sterilization and abortion of the Tibetan women;
-to demand the People's Republic of China to put an end to the policy of Chinese population transfer in Tibet in glaring violation of article 49 of the Fourth Convention of Geneva (1949); - to obtain that all prisoners with Tibetan opinions kept in the Chinese prisons and concentration camps in Tibet are immediately liberated;
-to insist that the People's Republic of China, member of the United Nations Security Council, respect the Conventions it has subscribed, namely: the Convention of the United Nations against torture (1984), the Convention on the elimination of each form of racial discrimination (1966) and the Convention on children's rights (1989), and in order that are applied the resolutions, adopted by the European Parliament, the European Council and the Chamber of Representatives in Belgium (March 29th 1994);
2. Invites the Belgian government to suggest the European Council of ministers of foreign affairs to take an attitude towards this issue and to inform the authorities of the People's Republic of China;
3. Asks Belgium to put everything in operation in order to obtain the application of the UN resolutions 1353 (XIV), 1723 (XVI) and 2079 (XX) and that the Tibetan government-in-exile obtains without delay the statute of observer in this international institution.