Bo Chi <chi@vlsi.waterloo.edu> (02/03/91)
* C h i n a N e w s D i g e s t *
(News General)
February 3, 1990
Table of Contents # of Lines
News Briefs .................................................................9
1. Albanian Foreign Minister Demanded Resign After China Visit .............19
2. China Rebuffs International Human Rights Mission ........................20
3. State Department Sees Gains in Human Rights Globally ....................32
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
News Briefs .................................................................9
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: chenh@ucs.indiana.edu, <INT3FWU@mvs.oac.ucla.edu>
Source: AP NEWS 2/1/91
-- Pentagon sources said Thursday that a U.S. plane with a crew of 14 was
downed behind Iraqi lines. CBS said the plane was said to be engaged in
special operations.
-- Iraqi armored units crossed the frontier north of Khafji again Friday and
fought allied forces in tank and artillery duels. Iraqi tanks also crossed
into Saudi Arabia from the Kuwaiti border town of Umm Hujul about 50 miles
west of Khafji overnight and were engaged by U.S. Marines.
-- China expressed sympathy Thursday for the civilian casualties in the
Persian Gulf War and appealed to both sides to stop fighting.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Albanian Foreign Minister Demanded Resign After China Visit .............19
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: chenh@ucs.indiana.edu
Source: AP, 2/1/91
TIRANA, Albania - More than 1,000 demonstrators demanded the resignation of
Foreign Minister Reis Malile Thursday in a rare public protest.
Students and workers joined pensioners and housewives opposite Tirana's
Foreign Ministry, chanting ''Resign, Resign!''
They waved placards saying ''China, Cuba, we don't need them,'' and intoned
''Down with dictatorship.''
The protests were organized after the foreign minister's recent visits to
China and Cuba to secure a market for spare parts and trade to help Albania's
nearly bankrupt economy.
Albania's Communist rulers have sought to edge the nation out of decades of
self-imposed isolation with reforms and renewed links with a range of
countries. Its new friends include Communist China, with which Albania has
been estranged for 15 years.
But Malile's trip last week to Beijing angered students.
Students earlier forced reforms with December protests remembering China's
massacre of pro-democracy students in 1989.
The crowd raised their hands in V-signs that symbolize the Democratic Party,
Albania's first independent opposition group. That party was formed Dec. 12
after the ruling Communists reversed 46 years of policy and allowed
independent parties.
The Communists have also slated multiparty elections for March 31 and made
strides to open up the economy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. China Rebuffs International Human Rights Mission ........................20
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: chenh@ucs.indiana.edu
Source: AP, 2/1/91
BEIJING -(AP-DJ)--A three-member international human rights team left Friday
after Chinese authorities refused to answer questions about the closed-door
trials of democracy activists. "It was like a Kafka novel. All the doors
were closed to us," said Jean-Pierre Mignard, a French attorney. He and Jean-
Marie Biju- Duval came as representatives of the International Movement of
Catholic Jurists and the Paris Bar.
The third man, Dr. Jean-Louis Boujenah, represented Doctors of the World, a
Paris-based humanitarian organization. The three arrived Tuesday and visited
the Foreign Ministry, Justice Ministry and Beijing Intermediate People"s
Court. Officials at the ministries said they had nothing to do with the
trials, and a low-level court official said the trials were an internal
affair. The official told the team to go back to the Foreign Ministry, where
they had started their inquiries, "so a circle was achieved without any
results," Mignard said.
The team said they will report to the Council of Europe, United Nations Sub-
Committee on Human Rights and French government as well as their own
organizations. Mignard said that at the start of the team"s visit the French
Embassy in Beijing promised to notify the Chinese Foreign Ministry of its
support for the team.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. State Department sees gains in human rights globally ....................32
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>From: Zuofeng Li < zuofeng@pollux.wustl.edu >
Source: UPI, Feb. 1, 1991
By Jim Anderson
WASHINGTON -- In its annual report to Congress on the state of human rights
around the world, the State Department Friday saw some improvements in Eastern
Europe, but expressed concern that those gains could easily be reversed if
current trends continue.
The 1,800-page report on 186 countries said that in 1990 ``vast numbers of
citizens continued to exercise newly won political rights'' in the Soviet
Union. However, the report continued, those gains were unevenly distributed
and many are not yet supported by changes in the country's laws.
In addition, the report said moves by the Soviet Union's central government
``to reassert military authority over the republics, particularly the use of
military force in Latvia and Lithuania, raised concern over the future of the
recent reforms, with dangerous implications for the entire country.''
The report said that an encouraging development was the democratic ferment in
sub-Saharan Africa, where Namibia became an independent, multi-party state and
democratic reforms were passed in Gabon, Ivory Coast, Congo and Zambia.
``There was significant movement away from apartheid, in South Africa,'' the
report said.
A dark spot in the otherwise improving human rights picture, the report said,
was China ``where serious human rights abuses continued. As the year ended
hundreds of Chinese people remained imprisoned for their role in the democracy
movement, while students and intellectuals who took leadership roles in the
1989 protests were being brought to trial and sentenced to prison terms.''
The annual report, required by Congress, can be a significant factor in
weighing future U.S. economic and military aid and tariff benefits for other
countries.
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Editor of this issue: JD < B366JDX@UTARLVM1.BITNET > |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| To Subscribe to CND General News, send "SUB CHINA-NN <Your Full Name>" |
| to LISTSERV@ASUACAD.BITNET. To sign off send "SIGNOFF CHINA-NN" to |
| same address. US Readers: to receive CND-US/Visa News, send "SUB |
| CHINA-ND <Your Name>" to LISTSERV@KENTVM.BITNET. Canadian Readers: |
| send all requests to XLIAO@ccm.Umanitoba.CA. |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| For technical assistance, contact: Tan Shi <tan@venus.ycc.yale.edu> |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+