THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 10, 1995 TAG: 9509080024
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
Critics of the Clinton administration said the first lady should not attend a U.N. Women's Conference in China. And if she did go, she should keep her mouth shut. Instead, Hillary Rodham Clinton attended and spoke her mind.
There was plenty of loony liberalism and New Age nonsense at the conference, especially at the unofficial meeting running in parallel. But despite all the dire warnings, what Mrs. Clinton had to say was nonpartisan common sense.
Mrs. Clinton said women's rights were simply a subset of human rights. She denounced the kind of forced abortion, sterilization and infanticide that the host country is infamous for engaging in, as well as its refusal to grant visas to representatives from countries not on the best of terms with China, including Taiwan and Tibet.
Mrs. Clinton also spoke out against government oppression and in favor of the freedom to assemble, debate and organize. She deplored in the harshest possible terms the Indian practice of incinerating wives whose dowries are too small and the barbaric use of rape as a tactic of war that has characterized the conflict in Yugoslavia.
Members of both political parties in this country praised the first lady's forthrightness. However, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., who is seeking Mr. Clinton's job, said that though he agreed with its sentiments he thought the speech was ill-timed and ill-sited.
``We have so many issues we have to settle with the Chinese,'' Lugar said. ``This is another in a series of mixed signals.'' Yet there seemed nothing confusing or even particularly objectionable about this statement of core beliefs.
Those who favor diplomatic caution always feel any unambiguous statement of views is undiplomatic. Maybe it is. But the United States stands for some things - always has and always should. Mrs. Clinton stated several of those beliefs clearly and convincingly.
There are things China stands for as well, such as crushing demands for democracy with tanks and killing female babies. Is a difference of opinion over such principles a reason for an American first lady to remain silent?
No. If China didn't want to hear a defense of the rights of women and children, it shouldn't have sponsored this conference.
On these issues, Mrs. Clinton was on the side of the angels, and one doesn't have to be on the same end of the political spectrum as her husband to think so. In criticizing barbarity and violence against the helpless, Mrs. Clinton spoke for the vast majority of Americans. by CNB