Demonstrators Tell Jiang Zemin and Big Oil: "Hands off Tibet"

Tibetans and Supporters Plan Protest for Houston Dinner

Contact: Thupten Tsering in Houston, mobile 347.538.5362
John Hocevar in New York, 212.358.0071

23 October 2002

Houston - Tibetans and supporters will protest Chinese President Jiang Zemin and the CEOs of oil giants ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell outside a dinner hosted by the Greater Houston Partnership at the Hotel Intercontinental tonight. Demonstrators are calling on China to end its occupation of Tibet and for an end the egregious human rights abuses committed against the Tibetan people. Moreover, Tibetans and supporters seek to warn oil giants ExxonMobil and Shell against cutting a deal with PetroChina to build the West-East Pipeline, which will enable extraction of Tibet’s natural resources for use in China. Royal Dutch Shell is one of three executive partners in the Greater Houston Partnership.

"While Jiang Zemin is honored at this dinner tonight, the Chinese government, under his leadership, continues its repressive military rule of Tibet," said Thupten Tsering of Students for a Free Tibet. This will be Jiang Zemin’s last visit to the United States as China’s Communist Party Chairman, before he is replaced during the National People’s Congress in November. Jiang will be meeting with President Bush at the President’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, this Friday.

"Tibetans want freedom, human rights, and democracy, and we expect President Bush’s active support," said Migmar Gyalnub, a representative of the North American Regional Tibetan Youth Congress.

Jiang’s meetings with ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell are part of China’s attempts to solidify partnerships with Western corporations in their politically motivated "Grand Exploitation of the West," a strategy designed to increase resource extraction and militarization in Tibet and East Turkestan.

"The West-East pipeline will allow China to steal Tibet’s rich natural gas reserves, with little benefit to the Tibetan people," said Jamyang Wangden, Board member of the Tibetan Association of Northern California. "If they participate in this project, ExxonMobil and Shell will be complicit in the Chinese government’s colonization of Tibet."

Wei Jingsheng, a well known Chinese dissident and democracy advocate who spent fifteen years in detention in China for his political beliefs, will travel from Washington, DC, to speak at the Houston rally.

Sponsoring organizations: Texans for Tibet, the Tibetan Association of Northern California, the North American Regional Tibetan Youth Congress and Students for a Free Tibet.