The Selling of a Nation’s Soul?
| February 4, 2004 | ||
| By David Jerke/The Epoch Times | ||
BACKGROUND: In 1789, human rights and democracy pass into French law when its National Assembly approved Article 2 of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which included this statement: “The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression.” France gives the Statue of Liberty to the U.S.A. In 1949 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) takes control of Mainland China as the Kuomintang flees to Taiwan. “In the 20th Century Communist governments killed more of their own citizens, than human beings that have died in all the wars in all the history of mankind.”* Chairman Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” and subsequent CCP movements such as the “Great Cultural Revolution” result in tens of millions of Chinese citizens being killed. In 1989, CCP tanks roll over the bodies of student democracy-advocates in Tiananmen Square. The symbol of the movement was a miniature Statue of Liberty. In response to the Tiananmen Square Massacre, western European democracies impose an arms embargo against the sale of military goods to China. In 1999, the CCP launches “Mao-era mass movement against [Falun Gong]” with the intention to “eradicate Falun Gong.”** AND THEN, RECENTLY: The CCP continues to build up the number of missiles pointed at Taiwan. Taiwan plans a referendum to determine whether it should beef up it defenses if the CCP does not remove the hundreds of missiles aimed at the island nation. France proposes that the European Union end the ban on military arms to the CCP. France invites the City of Beijing to help organize the largest-ever Chinese New Year parade and celebration in Paris, to coincide with a visit by the CCP’s top official, Hu Jintao. The City of Beijing threatens to pull out of all participation if Falun Gong practitioners are allowed to participate in the celebration. Falun Gong practitioners and all groups or associations not allied with Beijing are prohibited from participating in Chinese New Year parade by the City of Paris. The Paris Book Fair, scheduled to highlight Chinese authors is reportedly excluding Gao Xingjian, a Chinese dissident author living in Paris who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2000. The CCP’s Hu Jintao arrives in France. The French proposal to lift the arms embargo against China was outvoted 14 to one by EU’s foreign ministers. Four Falun Gong practitioners file a lawsuit against visiting CCP Culture Minister Sun Jiazheng, who is accompanying Hu, for “incitement to massacre and persecution” and “crimes of torture.” Falun Gong practitioners are arrested by Paris police “because yellow is illegal in France.” A Reporters Without Borders public protest is broken up by Paris police. The Eiffel Tower is bathed in red. The CCP’s Hu wines and dines with French President Chirac and the French business elite. In a banquet to honor Mr. Hu in Paris, French President Chirac sides with the CCP, saying Taiwan’s proposed referendum was a “grave mistake,” amongst other pro-CCP statements. More than half of France’s 577-member National Assembly boycott a speech by Hu Jintao over the CCP’s dismal human rights record. WHAT’S GOING ON HERE? France’s Chirac takes the side of the world’s largest authoritarian government over a flourishing human rights -respecting democracy. The City of Paris practices outright public discrimination against individuals opposing CCP policies. Paris officials help import a CCP genocidal persecution to French soil. Can it be as Annette Lu, Taiwan’s Vice President has said, that French President Jacques Chirac had “sold out the national character and spirit of France?” Perhaps… One must wonder, what has the CCP offered France? LET’S TAKE A STEP BACK… Throughout history, those who are remembered are those who acted upon principle… No one ever said that these things called liberty, human rights and democracy would be easy… One must ask, is any amount of trade and monetary gain worth it? Do France’s principles really have a price? What about the Statue of Liberty? Are the leaders of France selling its nation’s soul? *William J. Murray, Chairman of the Religious Freedom Coalition opened a July 2003 rally in Washington DC with this quote. **According to CNN’s Senior China Analyst, Willy Wo-Lap Lam, in a 2000 article, the quote “to eradicate Falun Gong” was made by former head of the CCP, Jiang Zemin, during the initial banning of the Falun Gong mediation practice in July 1999. |
