CO-SEP-1993
15:31
POLITICAL ADVISER'S OFF.
29.09 93 13.32
$32 572 8910
952 804 6733
P.E
Asia Watch. H.K.
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of their reng methodology, the sufferings of prison life. For their own security reasons, however, I believe they would probably refuse to have any contact at all with me.
3. My international contacts
After arriving in the USA in September 1992, I established highly cordial relations with many labor unions and other international groups, and this year I went to Europe twice to attend conferences and meet with people. Western unions have often told me sincerely that, in order to help promote the free labor-organizing rights of their worker brothers and sisters in China, they would be willing to provide me with any necessary assistance. These unions and groups include: the U.N.-sponsored International
International Labor Organization (ILO); the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU); the Internation Union of Food Workers (IUF); Public Servants International (PSI); International Metalworkers Union (IMF); International Textile Workers Union (TWARO); labor confederations in Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Britain, France, Italy, Germany. Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Australia and Canada; Poland's Solidarnosc; America's AFL-CIO; the American Teachers' Union; International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU); the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU); and three labour education groups, namely the Hong Kong Trade Union Education Centre (TUEC), the U.S.'s George Meany Labor College, and Harvard University's Labor Education Center.
Besides labor unions, I have also established very good relations with human rights organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and its affiliate, Asia Watch.
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In addition, I was awarded the 1993 George Meany Human Rights Prize by the AFL-CIO. And in October of this year, at the All-America Labour Convention to be held in San Francisco, I will be presented in absentia with the 1993 Democracy Award of the USA's National Endowment for Democracy (a small replica of the Tiananmen Square Goddess of Democracy.)
As the history of the international labour movement tells us, workers throughout the world have always given each other mutual assistance and support, and they have developed together in close mutual dependency. Indeed, it is well known that the ultimate aim of the labor movement is to form a worldwide federation of all workers. Moreover, the "Vienna Declaration and Plan of Action," passed by the World Human Rights Conference this May, once again stressed and reaffirmed the universality of human rights.
Are my contacts with these various labor unions, human rights groups and foundations, then, to be considered as "conspiring and colluding with overseas anti-China organisations"? And do my speeches and appeals at these various international conferences, helped by the labor unions, on behalf of the Chinese workers' rights to freedom of association, really constitute "endangering state security, seriously harming the national interest, and damaging China's international reputation"? Both the law and the facts of the matter speak eloquently, and people will judge for themselves in accordance with their own sense of justice. The empty old charge of "relying on foreign reactionary forces"
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