Busy news day in the world, this November 9, 1997.
Starting with news from Moscow and Beijing. Fresh from a historic summit with another important Asian neighbor, Japan, President Boris Yeltsin heads to China today to shore up ties with the region’s looming giant. Chinese President Jiang Zemin is also just back from a successful U.S. visit, with promises from President Clinton for vital expansion of trade and economic ties between their two countries. But in the post-Cold War world, analysts here and in Beijing say, one diplomatic relationship’s gain doesn’t have to mean detriment to another, and Russian and Chinese officials are predicting further breakthroughs toward regional stability and cooperation during Yeltsin’s three-day visit. “Russia and China are both interested in the political and economic stability of the entire region, and the only way* to achieve this stability is through the development of solid economies in all the countries,” said Vladimir Rakhmanin, deputy director of the Asian affairs department of the Foreign Ministry.
Like other Asia-watchers, Rakhmanin cites economic cooperation as the most troubled aspect of relations between Beijing and Moscow. The volume of trade has never exceeded $7 billion a year – a pitiful sum for two huge countries. The two leaders have reached an agreement to increase bilateral trade turnover to $20 billion a year,” Yeltsin’s spokesman, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, told reporters. Yeltsin’s visit to Beijing is expected to be “extremely important, epoch-making,” said Arkady Volsky, president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and leader of a delegation of 57 prominent business people accompanying the Russian president for the summit. Sino Volsky predicted that the business envoys will make progress in sewing up long-term projects such as a gas pipeline from Russia’s Irkutsk region, nuclear power plant construction and delivery of electricity to energy-starved China.
Meanwhile – Since the Oct. 26 arrival in the United States, Chinese President Jiang Zemin has been dogged by demonstrators. None of them have been more strident and belligerent than those advocating Tibetan independence.
Supporters of Tibetan independence have been heartened by the growing popularity of their cause, the deification of the Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama, and Hollywood’s successful romanticization of Tibet. They demand that President Clinton act forcefully to compel China to change its policies toward Tibet. This growing pressure creates a dilemma for Clinton because Tibet is insignificant. It has no economic, strategic, or political interests for the United States. China, however, is a burgeoning world power. Protesters raise moral issues concerning human rights and independence, emotional issues often in direct conflict with pragmatic foreign relations. Protesters are not alone.
With little understanding of Tibetan history and politics, congressional and journalistic critics of the administration also badger Clinton to act. Yet, in reality, there is little the United States can do directly to help Tibetans.
And finally – In the dead of a moonless night, at an auspicious moment to be determined within the next few weeks, the priests of the Hari Siddhi temple, high on opium and local brew, will slaughter and drink the blood of five kinds of animal. Then, if they fulfill all the customs of the ancient ritual, the ceremony will culminate in the sacrifice of a human being, preferably a child. Precisely what will occur within the temple confines is a fiercely guarded secret. The temple gates are closed to the outside world, and the priests refuse to divulge the intricacies of their rite. But the approach of the festival, which only takes place once every 12 years, has spread panic among the country dwellers of this remote region of Nepal.
Parents have been alarmed by recent reports that three children a month are, on average, disappearing from their homes in the Kathmandu valley. They suspect that the missing children are being stolen to be used as sacrifices in bizarre, rituals. “Extremely bloody animal sacrifices are a ritual part of every festival in the Kathmandu valley,” said a British scholar and long-term resident. “But in cases where the goddess is hard to propitiate, a human sacrifice is required. “The law is that it should be a virgin girl, which usually means a child, and it has to be done in secret.” Local concerns focus on seven temples in the Kathmandu valley that are dedicated to bloodthirsty mother goddesses. Worshippers believe the volatile deities can only be appeased with copious offerings of animal or, preferably, human blood. The Hari Siddhi temple, an old, dark pagoda in a village far off the beaten track, is the most feared of the temples in the Kathmandu valley.
For the past three months Hari Siddhi’s priests strange-looking men in filthy white robes and long matted hair who come from 29 priestly families in the village, have locked themselves inside the temple, allowing entry to no one. Inside, they are engaged in a five-month-long ceremony that is so secret and allegedly potent that even people of the surrounding villages do not know what it entails.
And that’s just a small sample of what happened, this November 9, 1997 as reported by the BBC World Service program Newshour.
