From DEBRA@oln.comlink.apc.orgWed Sep 6 12:15:34 1995 Date: Mon, 04 Sep 1995 14:31:00 +0100 From: Debra Guzman Reply to: beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org To: beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org Subject: WCW: Huairou leaders speak out [The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] ## author : theearthtime@igc.apc.org ## date : 04.09.95 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Huairou leaders speak out By C. Gerald Fraser Earth Times News Service Practically at the halfway mark, the NGO Forum's 28,500 participants are "working and having a good time," said the convener, Supatra Masdit, but intensive Chinese security, transportation foul ups and for the disabled a lack of access to forum sessions and facilities has distressed thousands. As a result of problems plaguing the often-rain-muddied-and-puddled site, the forum's 19-member Facilitating Committee demanded a meeting with eight Chinese "decision makers." of the Chinese Organizing Committee. The Facilitating Committee announced details of the problems and the agreement by which they hope to eliminate the problems during an untidy 45-minute news conference. Out of the committees' meeting came "the assurance that from now on," said Irene Santiago, "within those 42 hectares persons are totally free to carry on their activities. There will be no security, no censorship and no surveillance." Santiago is the forum's executive director. Santiago said NGO members will monitor compliance with the agreement for 24 hours. If the Chinese fail to live up to the agreement, the NGO Forum committee will consult with NGO members on what actions to take. Answering repeated queries as to what the NGO committee would do if the agreement was not kept, Salamo Fulivai said, "If no action is taken by the end of the 24 hours, I am the focal point for Asia and the Pacific. I will call the Asia-Pacific region and say what do you want? Do you want to cancel? Do you want to boycott? Do you want to riot? What! But I have to go to them and ask them. I cannot decide that from here." Security was most irritating to many forum participants. Afah Mahfouz, of the Facilitating Committee, said "friendly meetings of exchanging greetings" in an area seat aside for relaxation and conversation were asked to disperse. There were attempts to confiscate audio visual material and the disappearance of some. "And one incident I witnessed myself," Mahfouz said, "was when I was questioned about the content of a song in cassettes which one of the regional tents wanted to play." The Chinese also agreed, said committee member Rosalind Harris, that meetings in hotel rooms would not be "broken up." She said nongovernmental organization members would be "free to go to their [hotel] rooms and meet with others." During the news conference a questioner said there was "continual harassment at the lesbian tent by photographers taking pictures through telephoto lenses, videotaping the women and also removing material that's written in the Chinese language from that tent." That issue was discussed with the Chinese committee, Santiago replied, and they agreed that there would be no taking pictures of people in workshops, of peoples' badges; "no going into workshops, no following people around." Journalists were by Harris that the Chinese said if they wanted to stay in a hotel with persons accredited as NGOs they could "if you can find the room and absolve the hotel of responsibility of expensive material." On the transportation issue, more buses were to be provided to transport people from Huairou to Beijing. There was also a "readjustment of shuttle buses" running in the Huairou area. To try and solve the third problem, access for the disabled, Facilitating Committee member Marlene Parenzan went around the forum site with people in wheel chairs and others. As a result, the focal point for disabled persons activities, the "disabled tent," was to be moved to another and the Chinese will provide the disabled with more buses, buses later in the day, and more buses around the site. The first question Santiago handled referred to the inability of three newspapers, this one, a publication planned by the Women's Feature Service and a french paper to publish because of the Chinese government's refusal to allow facilities in Beijing to print the papers. Santiago replied: "As far as the NGO Forum is concerned our letters of agreement stated that there are three newspapers that are going to be allowed in the forum site: two chinese dailies, one in chinese, one in english [World Women] and an independent forum newspaper which is this newspaper [holding up `Forum '95']. We were not involved at all in the negotiations with the other three newspapers that you are speaking of. I think that that's something that needs to be resolved between you and whoever it is that you got the permission from." Actually, even her newspaper, Forum '95 missed one day when the printer told the editor, Birgit Wiig, that a press was broken. At the same time, the Chinese told her, she said during a brief interview, that her license to print here did not include the right to print Terra Viva, a newspaper usually published by Inter Press Service at major UN conferences. On Thursday Forum '95 included four pages under the Terra Viva banner. Friday there was no newspaper. Saturday's edition did not include no Terra Viva. Wiig, a Norwegian, also published the NGO forum newspaper at the 1985 women's conference in Nairobi, Kenya. This news conference, attended by scores of journalists sitting and standing in the press room and apparently run by a group of North American women, started late and lacked discipline. At one point electronic journalists began removing their microphones from the lectern as a committee member answered a question. Questions were asked in english, french, and spanish and there were no translations for either questions or answers. In general, briefings have not been held at regular times. An irritated male journalist who cited these matters to the director of media relations, Nell Merlino, was told, "you're only talking to me this way because I'm a woman."