China Moves Forum Site; Women Irate : Asia: Activists lobby U.N. to shift conference from Beijing.

Suspicions mounted between the Chinese government and international women’s groups Friday in a logistic squabble that could endanger the U.N. World Conference on Women scheduled for Beijing this September.

Wary of Chinese motives, many groups sent faxes demanding outright rejection of the remote site offered by the Chinese for a forum held in conjunction with the U.N. conference.

The “non-governmental” session would be attended by representatives of women’s groups, rather than by official delegates to the government conference. The non-government participants are considered more forthright than government delegates and, thus, exert pressure on governmental proceedings.

The women’s groups contend that their influence will be diminished because the site for their forum is so distant from the government conference, which will be in downtown Beijing.

If the Chinese fail to come up with a new site nearer the government conference, some groups insisted, the United Nations should move the whole conference from China.

The faxes descended upon the headquarters of the NGO (non-governmental organization) Forum across the street from the United Nations in New York and on the 19 members of the forum’s organizing committee who live in 14 cities around the world.

The committee is expected to reach a decision Monday.

“The faxes coming say, ‘We don’t want this site,’ ” said Nell Merlino, communications director for the NGO Forum. “‘Let’s negotiate for a better site in downtown Beijing.”’

In one fax, Human Rights Watch urged women’s groups around the world to contact their governments and ask them to make clear to U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and the Chinese government that “an accessible NGO Forum site is a critical part of the World Conference, and if it cannot be provided in Beijing, then they must consider moving the conference to another country.”

Other organizations issued similar threats.

The NGO Forum has become a tradition at U.N. conferences, especially at the women’s meetings that have occurred every five years since 1975.

It is regarded as a vital part of the proceedings, and interaction between the forum and the conference is the main way that the problems of women and proposed solutions are articulated.

Some NGO Forum delegates are accredited to the government conference as observers and have the right to speak out on issues there, though they cannot vote. They usually move back and forth between the forum and the conference.

The flurry of discontent about the Beijing conference this week was prompted by a report prepared by a team of women who toured the controversial site a week ago. The report made no recommendation about rejecting the site but set down features that made it seem unacceptable.

The most troubling was the time it would take to travel between the government conference and the proposed forum site--the Great Wall resort area of Huairou more than 30 miles away.

“With a police escort, the ride took 50 minutes on a six-lane highway,” the team said in its report.

Originally, the Chinese had promised to house the forum in a stadium complex near the main conference center. But it switched the site to Huairou in early April, claiming that the stadium was structurally unsound.

But many women’s groups suspect that the Chinese are shocked at the idea of a large number of women activists near the government conference and are attempting to influence proceedings.

NGO Forum organizers say 32,000 women have applied to take part in the forum.

“I don’t think the Chinese anticipated these numbers or the political sophistication of the women who are going to come in,” said Sally Ethelston, who will represent Population Action International in Beijing. “You are talking about women who are articulate. These are not the kind of women who are going to close their mouths and keep quiet about the issues that concern them.”