ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 15, 1993                   TAG: 9306150075
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: VIENNA, AUSTRIA                                LENGTH: Medium

LAUREATES BOYCOTT RIGHTS CONFERENCE

A U.N. human rights conference that started Monday was boycotted by 13 Nobel peace laureates protesting a ban on the Dalai Lama. Their absence was ignored by keynote speakers.

U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Austrian officials opening the World Conference on Human Rights stressed the need to reaffirm the universality of human rights and to fight political and racial discrimination.

They didn't refer to the 13 Nobel Peace Prize winners, who had been invited by the Austrian government and were expected to attend the opening ceremony as its guests.

Ibrahima Fall, the conference secretary-general, said last week that the Dalai Lama, also a Nobel peace laureate, wouldn't be allowed to enter conference premises after China lodged a diplomatic protest.

Protesting the ban on the the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, Pierre Sane, the secretary general of Amnesty International, said: "It is a very dangerous signal that governments are sending to the world."

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, in Vienna for the conference, said the Clinton administration would urge the Senate to approve four human-rights treaties signed by President Carter but allowed to languish unratified by his Republican successors.

"The United States realizes that we have a solemn duty, that we have to take steps of our own," Christopher told the World Conference on Human Rights after calling on the United Nations to investigate violence against women.

Two of the treaties aim to eliminate racial discrimination and discrimination against women. The other two are the American Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Carter, also in Vienna for the conference, applauded the decision and said he hoped it signaled that President Clinton would become a more forceful human-rights advocate. 


 by CNB