Scuffle Mars China Ceremony for Women

Elaborate welcoming ceremonies at the Great Hall of the People for the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women were marred today by a scuffle at the entrance when South African representative Winnie Mandela and her entourage were denied entrance to the building.

Security guards refused to let Mandela and several dozen other women from South Africa and Kenya into the hall because they had arrived late. The women held their ground and began to chant “Let us in,” until police rushed the group to break it up.

“I was invited by the government as the head of the Women’s League of South Africa,” said Mandela, before the standoff dissolved into a chaotic shoving match. “To close the doors on us, women from all over the world, is humiliating.”

The incident was another in a series of clashes between assertive women and tense security forces as China tries to win international prestige by hosting the world conference. President Jiang Zemin, who called for “full and equal participation by women” in society, was among top Chinese officials at the welcoming ceremonies.

Earlier, concerned that complaints of heavy-handed security procedures are detracting too much from the important issues of the conference, prominent delegates urged that attention be refocused on the conference itself, which was due to open later today.

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, a delegate to the conference, said Sunday that although police harassment and surveillance of some participants are unacceptable, it is time to get back to work on advancement of women’s concerns.

“Most of the delegates have faced bigger problems in their own countries than they have in Beijing. They are pros who are not going to let these side issues distract them,” she said.

On Saturday, the organizing committee of the Non-Governmental Organizations Forum on Women gave their Chinese counterparts 24 hours to tone down the intense police presence after some participants protested that police and plainclothes security people were shadowing, photographing and intimidating them.

Although police agreed to reduce their numbers, the harassment continued Sunday, and NGO Forum leaders announced they would seek mediation. U.N. Undersecretary General Ismat Kittani, however, implied that the United Nations was not going to push the Chinese government.

“There are problems, such as problems about security, but we have this everywhere,” he told the official New China News Agency. “I’m optimistic that once we get down to business [today], many of these problems would have been solved and you can concentrate on the conference.”

Police pressure has been focused on a handful of active human rights groups that China considers a threat to its national interests. The forum site--in the isolated suburb of Huairou, an hour’s drive north of Beijing--is supposed to be a sanctuary protected by U.N. rules, not Chinese laws, which forbid unapproved demonstrations and criticism of government policies.

Nine exiled Tibetan women who are protesting human rights abuses in their Chinese-controlled homeland have been particular targets of unwanted police attention.

Police also seized materials about forced sterilization in Tibet from Canadian lawyer Eva Herzer on Sunday, the day after organizers met with the Chinese Organizing Committee to demand an end to such interference. “The harassment is supposed to be stopped, but I think that the U.N. and the NGO have no idea how to control security at the conference,” said Herzer.

But generally, the mood seemed to be shifting away from initial gripes to the nitty-gritty of the 150-page Platform of Action that the women are here to create.

While international delegates will initially debate bracketed words and phrases in the document, which signify much larger disagreements over abortion and sex education, for instance, Shalala urged people to “look outside the brackets.”

The delegates will be confirming advances in women’s health, education and working to halt violence against women. “There are big issues at hand here,” she said.