By Melanie Cheary
VLAARDINGEN, The Netherlands – The International Campaign for Tibet urged the European Union on Friday not to lift its arms embargo on China because of Beijing’s poor human rights record.
Richard Gere, Hollywood star, Buddhist and chairman of the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), said that allowing China to buy European-made weapons would have dire repercussions in Asia and further afield.
“It’s not just Tibet. It would have consequences for the entire world,” Gere told Reuters in an interview. “It completely changes the balance of Asia in terms of armaments.”
The EU imposed its arms embargo on China after Bejing’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The 25-nation bloc plans to end the embargo despite objections from the United States and Taiwan, which has said regional security would be endangered.
“This is not good for India. It’s not good for Pakistan. Clearly, it’s not good for Japan,” Gere said. “And for Taiwan, it sets off a whole other race of arms… ”
Gere, in the Netherlands to accept the top Dutch Geuzen Medal human rights award for the ICT, said China’s human rights record had not improved since 1989.
“So why should they be rewarded, given new weapons? It makes no sense whatsoever,” said the star of Pretty Woman and Chicago, who has been campaigning for Tibet for 25 years.
Communist China invaded Tibet, a deeply Buddhist Himalayan region, in 1950. Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama fled to India nine years later after a failed uprising against Chinese rule. China refuses to allow him to return.
Critics of China’s rule in Tibet say Beijing has systematically destroyed Tibetan culture and tortured monks and nuns who support the Dalai Lama.
Beijing dates its claim to sovereignty over Tibet back more than 700 years. It still regards the Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, as a dangerous separatist.
The ICT, which has a membership of 30,000, supports the Dalai Lama’s belief in greater autonomy for Tibet and says there should be a political solution between him and China.
The group, which is receiving the Geuzen Medal for human rights work, advocates non-violent resistance but Gere said he has at times wondered about the success of peaceful struggle.
“Doubts about it? Of course, of course. Non-violence is not fast. Non-violence takes a very long time,” he said but added that a solution achieved without violence was more lasting.
Looking to the future, the grey-haired actor said he was optimistic China would ease its harsh rule on Tibet.
“We’ll see a rational approach to a problem and not again a kind of knee-jerk, ideological approach, which was basically the communist approach,” said the 55-year-old actor, who was named People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” in 1999.
