A 20-member Tibetan Delegation has succeeded in attending the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa, despite numerous attempts by the Chinese government to bar the delegates from participating. The delegates have already presented testimonies and reports at the Summit, which runs from August 26 to September 5.
The objective of the WSSD is to lay out plans for improving the lives of people throughout the world, by finding solutions to poverty that are compatible with responsible and forward-looking stewardship of natural resources. The Summit comes as a follow-up to agreements on a range of environmental and development issues drafted by delegates at the first Earth Summit in Rio in 1992.
The Tibetan delegation, in an August 29 statement objecting to Chinese attempts to censor dissenting groups, said, “We call on the NGO community interested in peace, justice and democratic debate to uphold the rights of all peoples to contribute to the global dialogue on sustainable development and to make special efforts to support the many occupied and oppressed peoples represented in this gathering.”
Of primary concern to the delegation are population transfer and environmental degradation on the Tibetan Plateau, and the construction of a railway linking Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, with China’s railway system. Opponents of the project are concerned that the railway will bring more Chinese settlers and a stronger military presence to Tibet with little benefits to the Tibetan people.
Though the Chinese government succeeded in preventing three NGOs from participating in the Summit, by using political pressure and procedural measures to block the accreditation of groups such as the International Campaign for Tibet, members of the delegation were allowed to participate in the Summit with the support of NGOs who accredited them as their representatives.
Mr. Jampal Chosang, Representative of H.H. the Dalai Lama in South Africa, and the head of the Tibetan delegation, made the following statement in reference to China’s claims that Tibetan delegates have no place at the Summit: “We are attending this important UN meeting to urge the international community to pay adequate and urgent attention to environment and development issues confronting Chinese-occupied Tibet. We are definitely not here to engage in 'Anti-China' activities as the People's Republic of China may term our participation.”
