[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 38 (Wednesday, March 10, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Page S2529]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           THE 40th ANNIVERSARY OF THE 1959 TIBETAN UPRISING

 Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr President, today we mark a tragic 
anniversary, 40 years after His Holiness the Dalai Lama and more than 
100,000 Tibetans were forced to flee their homeland as a result of 
brutal suppression by the Chinese government.
  Tibetans were driven from their homes, freedom was driven from Tibet, 
and the Chinese Government began in earnest its campaign to destroy 
Tibet's culture, religion, and national identity.
  But this campaign will never succeed, because Tibet, and the human 
rights of the Tibetan people, are not China's for the taking. It's been 
said that ``a right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can 
take from you.'' The Tibetan people have a right to their freedom, a 
right to openly practice their religion, and a right to live with 
dignity and without fear.
  These human rights--that belong to Tibetans, and to people 
everywhere--bind us to the Tibetan people with a tie stronger than the 
Chinese government's oppression, mightier than the Chinese government's 
policies of destruction, and more powerful than the Chinese or any 
government's attempt to take that which cannot be taken--the dignity of 
the human spirit.
  I am calling on the Administration to pursue a resolution condemning 
China's human rights practices in China and Tibet at the upcoming U.N. 
Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, an action the Senate unanimously 
endorsed by recorded vote in late February. Only through strong U.S. 
leadership can we build the international consensus necessary to 
pressure China to provide the basic human rights the Tibetan people 
deserve. The time to press for these fundamental rights is now and the 
place is the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.

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