May 8, 2002
Volume 4/ Number 11
Dear Colleague:
As a State Department delegation prepares to go to China to investigate UNFPA’s involvement in China’s coercive one-child policy, all those opposed to forced abortion need to let President Bush know: Enough whitewashes! Zero for UNFPA!
President Bush may be reached via email at: [email protected]; through the White House comment line at: 202-456-1111; or via mail to: 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Washington, DC 20500.
Steven W. Mosher
President
U.S. Delegation to China: Another Whitewash in the Making
When the State Department announced that it was sending a delegation to China to look into U.N. Population Fund family planning programs there, I was tempted to tag along. But I soon thought better of the idea.
China is a police state, as everyone knows, where the comings and goings of foreigners are closely monitored, and Chinese live in fear of speaking out of turn.
But there are even more specific reasons to be skeptical of the State Department delegation going to China this month:
The Chinese government has agreed to “receive” the State Department delegation. Chinese officials, past masters at “barbarian management,” will be hard at work to shape the views of the delegation from the moment they arrive.
The State Department delegation will be traveling with official escorts from the Chinese government, who will make sure they do not see or hear any evil about the one-child policy or the UNFPA.
Even if the State Department delegation manages to slip their official guide, the delegation will be watched, its activities monitored. The delegation will be tailed wherever they go, and the hotel rooms where they stay will be bugged.
The Chinese government has agreed to let the delegation go wherever they wish, but with the provision that the delegation provide twenty-four hours notice of the places they will visit. A day is more than enough time for the Chinese government to alert officials of their coming, and for cover stories of “voluntarism” to be in place. Victims of forced abortions will be hustled out of sight.
Will the State Department delegation believe the lies that they are told? In the end it really doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters–to the UNFPA and China–is that the delegation does not find out the truth.
On its return to the U.S., it is reported that the State Department delegation will issue a report to help President Bush decide if the UNFPA supports forced abortion and non-voluntary sterilization in China, and is in violation of a provision of federal law known as the Kemp-Kasten Amendment.
But President Bush has designated the role of interpreting Kemp-Kasten to Colin Powell. And Powell has interpreted Kemp-Kasten just like Bill Clinton. According to Clinton and to Powell, UNFPA’s existence in China–where forced abortion and non-voluntary sterilization is the universal law of the land–is not enough to demonstrate that UNFPA supports forced abortion and non-voluntary sterilization and violates Kemp-Kasten. According to Powell’s interpretation of the law, which President Bush has agreed to follow, UNFPA can fund China’s one-child policy and U.S. taxpayers can be forced to fund it.
This interpretation of Kemp-Kasten violates two previous interpretations of Kemp-Kasten by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, who determined that UNFPA’s existence in China alone was sufficient cause to defund it. In addition, Powell’s interpretation of Kemp-Kasten undercuts the spirit in which Kemp-Kasten was signed into law in 1985.
Despite this flawed interpretation of Kemp-Kasten, last September PRI obtained first-hand evidence showing that UNFPA’s “model” county program in China is universally coercive. In response, UNFPA now admits that forced abortion may exist in its “model” county program, but still it does not support coercion according to Powell’s interpretation of “support.”
How will President Bush respond to this State Department whitewash? Will he, like Ronald Reagan and his father, permanently defund UNFPA because it supports forced abortion and non-voluntary sterilization in China? Or will he follow in the footsteps of Bill Clinton?
