China's Envoy to U.N. Rights Forum Slams U.S.

Reuters - Tuesday March 21 9:02 AM ET

GENEVA (Reuters) - China Tuesday accused the United States of using the issue of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement to politicize the main U.N. human rights forum and score points in a U.S. presidential election year.

But Qiao Zonghuai, China's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, said that any country which presented a resolution on China in support of the ``evil cult'' would be humiliated.

Qiao was speaking to a news conference at China's diplomatic mission a day after the U.N. Commission on Human Rights opened its annual six-week session to examine violations worldwide.

The United States has announced it will present a resolution criticising China for ``deteriorating human rights conditions,'' including repression of the popular Falun Gong, banned last July.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is expected to seek support for the U. S. resolution when she addresses the 53-member forum in Geneva Thursday.

``The U.S. decision to table a draft resolution is purely for internal reasons. As you know, this is a U.S. election year,'' Qiao said.

``Once again the decision to table a draft resolution is a typical action to politicize the work of the Commission. We think this will poison the atmosphere of this session,'' he said.

Qiao said Beijing's outlawing of Falun Gong had won the support of most countries.

``Like many cults, Falun Gong practices sect-leader worship, spreads fallacies, exercises mind control, collects money and resources illegally, organizes secret associations and endangers society.

``If some people will use Falun Gong as an excuse to table a draft resolution on China in the Commission on Human Rights to support the evil cult, they will only end up with ruined reputations and an indecent result,'' he said.

China has defeated Western attempts to rebuke it every year since 1990, the first Commission session held after student protesters were killed in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in June 1989.

Beijing denies it is repressing political and religious groups. It banned Falun Gong, which combines elements of Buddhism, Taoism and meditation, after members demanded official recognition for their faith in a series of protests.

U.S. Says Mood Has Shifted Against China

But Harold Koh, Assistant Secretary of State and the top U.S. human rights official, was upbeat Monday about the prospects for putting China in the Commission's dock.

Koh, speaking to a news briefing in Washington, said the mood had shifted against China in the past year, creating the best chance in years for a vote on its human rights record.

In recent years, China has managed to quash all critical Western resolutions by winning a vote on its own ``no-action motion,'' which prevents debate on the resolution itself.

``We believe that now there is a very significant possibility that a no-action motion can be defeated,'' Koh told a briefing.

``Therefore there will be, in our expectation and hope, a vote on the merits of China's human rights conduct in late April.''

European Union foreign ministers, meeting in Brussels on Monday, criticized China's record but did not say what the bloc's stand would be at the Geneva forum.

The EU, seven of whose 15 states are members of the U.N. rights body this year, is facing American pressure to back a resolution.

The EU ministers expressed concern about ``continuing and widespread restrictions on fundamental freedoms,'' singling out freedoms of assembly, expression and association.