Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, September 5, 1995 TAG: 9509060123
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: BEIJING LENGTH: Medium
Declaring that women are ``no longer guests on this planet,'' Tanzanian political leader Gertrude Mongella opened the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women here Monday amid continuing controversy over pervasive Chinese security and hopes for an international consensus to reduce domestic and state violence against women.
In a lavish welcoming ceremony held in the capital's Great Hall of the People, Mongella, the conference's secretary-general, announced to cheers and trills from thousands of women: ``This planet belongs to [women] too. A revolution has begun.''
Despite the enthusiasm, this week's conference heralds less a revolution than a holding pattern. International delegates are digging in to preserve positions on abortion and sex education that were agreed upon last year at the U.N. Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt. ``There will be no unraveling of commitments - neither today's nor last year's, and certainly not this decade's commitments,'' said Mongella. ``This revolution is too just, too important and certainly long overdue.''
As Mongella and others spoke inside the hall, South African representative Winnie Mandela and her entourage were turned away from the ceremony because they arrived late. An ensuing clash with guards who shoved them from the steps of the building heightened tensions between hypercautious security forces and activist women who have filled the capital for the conference.
Some participants at the parallel Non-Governmental Organizations Forum on Women an hour north of Beijing in Huairou have complained of being harassed, followed and intimidated by police who fear the women are hurting the interests of the country.
On Monday, nearly 1,000 women dressed in black and carrying candles scuffled with police three times as they marched to the edges of the forum site to protest the United Nations' failure to back up their right to demonstrate there without interference.
Although prominent delegates have urged that women refocus on the issues of the conference and not on its host, China's human-rights record and strict family-planning policies constitute an electric undercurrent in conference discussions.
Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto emphatically condemned female infanticide, a practice reportedly still common in China, in her opening-day address.
``As we gather here today, the cries of the girl child reach out to us,'' Bhutto said. ``This conference needs to chart a course that can create a climate where the girl child is as welcomed and valued as a boy child, that the girl child is considered as worthy as a boy child.''
Joaquin Navarro-Valls, official spokesman for the Vatican delegation to the conference, commented: ``I find it sad that people at the conference are talking about the problems of female [infanticide] in Africa but do not mention it here in China, where the practice is most widespread.''
Joining the official American delegation to the conference Friday was Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., a leading anti-abortion member of Congress who has accused the Chinese of conducting thousands of ``forced abortions and forced sterilizations'' as part of the country's strict family-planning program.
In the congressional debate leading up to the women's conference, Smith led an unsuccessful effort to cut off funding for the American delegation. After failing, he decided to join a four-member congressional delegation to the conference and has seized the opportunity to loudly condemn Chinese family-planning policy.
Smith urged first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who arrived in Beijing late Monday night, and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright, who chairs the 44-member American delegation, to speak out against the Chinese record on human rights.
``The Chinese coercive population-control program has destroyed more than 150 million babies since 1979,'' Smith said at a Beijing news conference. ``An overwhelming majority of these were baby girls, and many millions of these babies were destroyed against the will of their mothers. To attend a women's rights conference in Beijing without commenting on this would be like attending a human-rights conference in South Africa 10 years ago without condemning apartheid.''
Hillary Clinton is scheduled to make two speeches during her two days in Beijing. This afternoon, she is slated to address a special session of the women's conference.
Wednesday, she will travel to Huairou to deliver a speech there.
by CNB