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China US Tour, Protests, Breckenrid



Here is found information on upcoming china tour and protests, please
organise groups for Free Burma action whereever possible. Also
has this pathetic canadian company Breckenridge Resources 
been active in Burma? Please protest their current invasion of Tibet, 
destroying indigenous Kham culture there. (The Kham region upper Nepal,
lower Tibet ten years ago was still "off limits" to tourists, but since
1989 democracy victory in Nepal opened to travellers.If Breckenridge
isnt in Burma yet, they most likely will be demain)

dawn star, paris

> ------------------- World Tibet Network News 
>   Archived at:      http://www.tibet.ca
------
> 1. Maverick Canadian Company seeks to mine Tibet
> 2. US will not silence Protests against Jiang (CNA)
> 3. Critics Fine Tune Anti-Jiang Protests (Reuters)
> 4. Gere uses film premiere to press Clinton on China(AP)
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 1. Maverick Canadian Company seeks to mine Tibet
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Drillbits & Tailings
> Volume 2 , Number 20
> October 21, 1997
> 
> 450 miles west of Chengdu, in the Kham Province of Tibet (called Sichuan by
> the Chinese), Canadian Breckenridge Resources wants to develop a mine
> against the wishes of local Tibetans. The proposed Xiacun Silver-based
> metals mine would be the first such foreign-led venture in occupied Tibet.
> The Canada Tibet Committee has urged investors not to provide loans,
> financing or any support to Breckenridge or its parent company, Athabaska
> Gold, until they conform with the Tibetan governments demands.
> 
> The feasibility studies suggest that this would be a polymetal mine
> extracting 1,500 tonnes of ore per day, with copper, silver, zinc and lead
> being sold to Chinese smelters. Underground and open pit mining techniques
> would be utilized, with operating costs of about US$18 million per year for
> 15 years, and Breckenridge estimates that it can recoup its original
> investment within three years. It is the majority stakeholder in this
> joint-venture with a consortium of Chinese state-owned metals companies.
> 
> The Xiacun mine would be located just north of Lithang, a small town atop a
> plateau over 14,000 feet above sea-level. The ecosystem is extremely
> fragile although it survives the gentle nomadic grazing of Tibetan
> livestock. Industrializing this landscape with a mine, new roads, and town
> as planned by Breckenridge would have a devastating effect especially since
> no environmental concerns were considered in the feasibility study
> conducted for the company by Rescan Engineering of Canada. Social and
> cultural issues are equally vexed.
> 
> According to an exiled Tibetan who comes from the region of the mine and
> recently returned home, Kham is already experiencing a major influx of
> ethnic Chinese despite its rugged remoteness. The major towns near the
> mine, Bathang and Lithang, are already dominated by Chinese merchants and
> "the fear with any major project is that the only people who come in and
> work are Chinese". Tibetan indigenous peoples are already subject to major
> land rights violations since it is an occupied country, but the problem of
> over population by the Chinese poses the greatest threat to the survival of
> this nation. Such an in-migration is also likely to have major
> environmental consequences. According to Breckenridge's press releases
> a town will be built to accommodate "labor" brought into the area, and an
> airstrip and hydroelectric plant will also be developed nearby.
> 
> There are also fears Tibetan people will be pressed into service to
> facilitate this road building effort. According to locals some families
> have been made to provide labor by Chinese authorities under the excuse of
>  "civic duty". Rarely are they paid minimum wage, if at all.
> 
> Carole Samdup, a representative of the Canada Tibet Committee says that any
> development project in Tibet should follow the guidelines of the Tibetan
> government-in-exile: "Breckenridge's project clearly does not and unless it
> makes some efforts then we demand it does not go forward till they are able
> to comply." The Tibetan government in Dharamsala requires measures are
> taken to safeguard the environment of any project in occupied Tibet, that
> independent Tibetan businesses are sought as partners, and that Tibetans
> are not discriminated against by the operation. With no
> accountability to local people in the development plans for the
> Xiacun mine, Breckenridge is clearly not following these guidelines.
> 
> SOURCE: pers. comm. with a Tibetan who wishes to remain anonymous, October
> 21, 1997; pers. comm with Carole Samdup, October 21, 1997; Case Study on
> Xiacun Silver-Base Metals Mine In Occupied-Tibet, by the Canada Tibet
> Committee, 1997.
> 
> WHAT YOU CAN DO: Fax Breckenridge Resources and urge them to work with the
> legitimate government of Tibet!
> 
> Write to Chair Peter Lim Tsung Thiam and President James S. Kermeen telling
> them that you oppose the way Breckenridge has operated in Tibet to date,
> and that at the very least it needs to work with the government-in-exile of
> this occupied nation before proceeding. If it cannot comply with these
> simple demands it should get out of Tibet.
> 
> Breckenridge Resources Ltd.
> 1200-1185 West Georgia St.
> Vancouver, BC V6E 4E6
> Canada
> Tel: +1 604 684 4691
> Fax: +1 604 684 4601
> 
> Drillbits & Tailings is the mining, oil and gas update published
> twice-monthly online by project underground. Back-issues are archived on
> our web site <http://www.moles.org>. We welcome submissions or news items,
> however we cannot offer remuneration.
> 
> Subscriptions to D&T are $50 institution; $25 non-profit organization; $15
> individual/low budget organization.
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 2. US will not silence Protests against Jiang (CNA)
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> China News Agency (Taiwan based news agency)
> 
> Washington, Oct. 22 (CNA) The White House said Wednesday that Washington
> would not silence protests during mainland Chinese President
> Jiang Zemin's visit here next week, noting that it considers it a positive
> thing for "leaders of a totalitarian system" to see a healthy debate on
> controversial issues.
> 
> "It's welcome to democracy," White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry told
> a regular press briefing when asked to comment on remarks by a
> mainland Chinese embassy official earlier in the day urging the US
> government to silence demonstrators. "That's not going to happen," McCurry
> added.
> 
> McCurry said that Washington has tried to help the Beijing leadership
> understand the vibrant political culture that the American people
> have, the way in which Americans freely express their ideas, and
> the importance they, as a free people, attach to the right of
> dissent, the right of expression, and the freedom to openly express one's
> views.
> 
> The press secretary said that Washington has made it clear to Beijing that
> "they can anticipate seeing that reflected in the very healthy
> debate about China that will occur during the state visit."
> 
> "They will be able to read in our newspapers, see in our streets, encounter
> anecdotally the way in which Americans deal with controversial issues," he said.
> 
> "And we think that will be a positive and good thing for leaders of a
> totalitarian system to see that healthy debate should not be feared," he went
>  on.
> 
> In fact, he said, Washington believes Beijing should embrace such debates
> because mainland China's move toward a market economy requires
> the political freedoms that are associated with a democratic system.
> 
> Meanwhile, Jeffrey Bader, director of Asian Affairs at the National
> Security Council, said at a Foreign Press Center briefing here
> that a state visit involves first-class treatment of the visitor,
> and there are certain perquisites and certain protocol arrangements associated
>  with it.
> 
> At the same time, Bader pointed out, there are Americans who have strong
> feelings about one or another aspect of Beijing's policy --
> whether in the area of human rights or Tibet or something else --
> and that the US Bill of Rights guarantees the right to demonstrate.
> 
> "We are not going to abrogate the US Constitution in order to provide the
> right atmosphere for this visit," he said. (By Bill Wang)
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 3. Critics Fine Tune Anti-Jiang Protests (Reuters)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> October 23, 1997
> 
> WASHINGTON October 23 (Reuters)-- A coalition of groups fine-tuned protest plans
>  on Thursday to drive home diverse messages during Chinese President Jiang
> Zemin's coming eight-day U.S. tour.
> 
> Organizers focused on plans for an Oct. 29 rally outside the
> White House bringing together a wide range of protesters, including labor union
> leaders, anti-abortion activists, human-rights campaigners, Tibetan monks and
>  Chinese dissidents.
> 
> The AFL-CIO, which links 78 U.S. trade unions with 13 million
> members, said its president, John Sweeney, would address the event to
> decry China's "persistent violation of labor rights, human rights,
> trading rights and environmental standards."
> 
> U.S. Park police have given the protesters permission to use the eastern half of
>  Lafayette Park, the part farthest from Blair House, where Jiang will stay as
>  President Clinton's guest across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House,
>  organizers said.
> 
> The Lafayette Park rally was scheduled to start at noon, just as
> Clinton and Jiang wind up 90 minutes of Oval Office talks before
> holding a joint news conference in the White House East Room.
> 
> The International Campaign for Tibet, a Washington-based advocacy group with
>  close ties to the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual and political
>  leader, said five busloads of their backers, 90 percent of them Tibetans, would
>  arrive
> from New York City to join the protest.
> 
> Also scheduled to address the rally were anti-abortion activist Gary
> Bauer; Harry Wu, a human-rights activist who spent 19 years in
> the Chinese prison camp system; Representative Nancy Pelosi, the
> California Democrat who is co-chair of the congressional
> working group on China; and the actor Richard Gere, a long-time advocate
> of Tibetan autonomy.
> 
> Project Democracy in China, a coordinating group, said pro-democracy
> activists were planning as much as possible to tail Jiang's
> motorcade in Washington in five prison style wagons to remind people of the
>  bloody 1989 crackdown on dissidents in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
> 
> Organizers said the smallest protests may await Jiang in Hawaii, where he
> arrives on Sunday on the first stop of the first U.S. tour by a
> Chinese chief of state in 12 years.
> 
> "We have demonstrations planned in every city that he's going," but fewer
> people lined up in Honolulu than elsewhere, said John Ackerly,
> director of the campaign for Tibet.
> 
> Other protest sponsors include the U.S. chapter of Amnesty International,
> the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights and Human Rights in
>  China, founded by dissident Chinese students.
> 
> Protest arrangements were still being made for Jiang's other stops, including
> Williamsburg, Virginia, a restored 18th century colonial capital where he
> will spend Monday night before flying into Washington.
> 
> Ackerly said Tibetan supporters in Washington had rented a 15-person van
> to travel to Williamsburg. He said local organizers nationwide
> were cashing in on China's negative publicity from the recently released Brad
>  Pitt film "Seven Years in Tibet."
> 
> After Washington, Jiang will travel to Philadelphia, New York City,
> Boston and Los Angeles. To make it tougher for protesters, the
> Chinese embassy has released few details on Jiang's schedule in these cities.
> 
> "We should have the whole atmosphere guaranteed by the host country so
> that the visit should not be disrupted," Yu Shunning, the embassy
> spokesman, told reporters at a briefing about the visit on Wednesday. "To have
>  the visit go off smoothly we should have an amiable atmosphere."
> 
> The president of the campaign for Tibet, Lodi Gyari, said on Thursday
> that he hoped Jiang was "grown-up enough" to understand that his
> group was not targeting its protests against him personally but against Chinese
>  policies on Tibet.
> 
> Gere, the Hollywood star who chairs the campaign's board, will host 300
> invited guests in champagne toasts at a "stateless dinner" on
> Wednesday night as Clinton and Jiang clink glasses at a state dinner a block and
>  a half away. (Reuters)
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 4. Gere uses film premiere to press Clinton on China(AP)
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Jam (Online magazine)
> Thursday, October 23, 1997
> 
> WASHINGTON (AP) -- While official Washington prepared for next
> week's state visit by Chinese President Jiang Zemin, actor
> Richard Gere turned the spotlight of his latest film premiere onto
> President Clinton, asking him to stand firm against the Communist
> giant.
> 
> "We're not going to pretend this is a new, cuddly Communist
> Chinese government we have here. They haven't proven themselves
> yet," Gere said at a party late Wednesday following the premiere of
> "Red Corner." In the film, which opens in theaters Oct. 31, Gere
> plays an American executive framed on murder charges in Beijing by
> corrupt officials.
> 
> An outspoken critic of China's human rights record and its control
> over Tibet, Gere planned a protest rally outside the White House next
> week plus his own "State-less" dinner, to coincide with the pomp
> and circumstance of the state dinner Clinton is hosting for Jiang.
> 
> "We've had a president who has been neither clear nor firm on
> China's human rights since the very beginning and that waffling ...
> with China has sent a message of weakness," the actor said.
> 
> Clinton has refused demands from human rights' activists and many
> religious leaders to condition China's "Most Favored Nation" trade
> status to improvements in human rights.
> 
> Gere's co-star, Bai Ling, said in quiet English that she hoped
> the film would focus international scrutiny on oppression in
> China, where her parents still live. Having left her country five years ago,
> the former Tiananmen Square protestor said she is now even more afraid to return
>  after her role in "Red Corner."
> 
> "The Chinese people have suffered for so long and they're living in
> fear," she said. "Somebody has to speak out. It's a great thing for the
> world to see China for what it is and demand change."
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> end WTN NEWS 97/10/24
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Shanna Langdon
> Information Coordinator
> project underground
> 1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley CA 94703
> +1 510 705 8981
> http://www.moles.org
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> ---- End of forwarded message ----
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Shanna Langdon
> Information Coordinator
> project underground
> 1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley CA 94703
> +1 510 705 8981
> http://www.moles.org
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> ---- End of forwarded message ----