SUNDAY 12th MARCH - VIGIL FOR TIBETAN WOMEN'S UPRISING DAY Report by Alicia Tomsett On March 12th 1959, thousands of Tibetan women gathered below Potala Palace in Lhasa to protest against the Chinese Governments Occupation of their country. This became known as the Women's Uprising, and to commemorate this event, we held a special Vigil outside the Chinese Embassy on March 12th this year. I sent flyers to appropriate people and groups, and informed the Metropolitan Police, as we always do on special occasions. About 23 people came on the day, which wasn't bad for a sunny Sunday afternoon, this included 4 Tibetans, supporting us in our support of them! We had our placards and flags, and a Women's Day banner, and got a fair number of 'Honks' from passing cars. About an hour into the Vigil, we started to organise our bunches of daffodils - we were going to take them over to the Embassy and lay them down on the pavement in memory of all those women who had suffered and died on that day in 1959, and those who suffer still. However, the sight of 14 women carrying 3 daffodils each, proceeding across the road, threw the Embassy Policeman into such a nervous state that he was calling for backup by the time we reached him. I was very conscious of being the 'person in charge' of this particular event, and wanted to do things right, so I explained to the Policeman what we wanted to do. This request was denied, because apparently last time we did this (March 10th 1999) "It caused the Chinese Embassy some embarrassment", Heaven forbid! We were told to go back over the road while he contacted his superiors for advice - after some discussion we went to the middle of the road. Once there, though, we decided to just go ahead with our plan, so returned to the Embassy and laid our flowers. By the time we were back in the middle again, 5 Embassy Police cars had sped up with their sirens on, to rescue the helpless Chinese from evil attempts to harm them with flowers. Then 2 motorbike Police arrived, and a dog unit van drove slowly past, assessing the situation, before deciding it maybe wasn't absolutely necessary. The Embassy's protectors tried to look tough, but looked more embarrassed - one of them asserted his authority by denying us our desire to lay the rest of the daffodils down - he compromised and 'allowed' us to lay them on the middle island. After hanging around for a suitable amount of time for us to get some good taunting in ("Don't sniff the daffodils") they sauntered nonchalantly away to save the rest of the world from threats by nature such as attacks by grass. A very entertaining time was had by all, in fact, but the underlying message was serious and depressing - the Chinese Government is still being pandered to by our government and its puppets, and the blatant human rights issues are being ignored. I believe in the phrase "truth will out" - the government and Tony Blair can't get away with this. We won't let them! As one of our loyal Vigil-antes said to the Policeman most emphatically - "This is Britain!" We have the right to Free Speech and we must use it on behalf of those who can't - how can we have knowledge of such issues and not react to them? So we intend to carry on embarrassing the Chinese Embassy and its "officials" - WE WON'T GO 'TIL THEY DO!