Montreal – Demonstrations will mar Bombardier’s annual general meeting today
as an international coalition of Tibet groups demands that Bombardier Inc.
withdraw from a controversial deal with the Chinese government. Bombardier
recently announced its intention to supply railcars for the Gormo-Lhasa
railway, a project that forms the cornerstone of China's efforts to tighten
its control over Tibet. Tibetan rights groups have launched a campaign
calling on Bombardier to withdraw and will demonstrate today from 9am to
12pm outside the Sheraton Hotel, 1201 Rene-Levesque Blvd. West, Montreal,
where the meeting is being held.

"As a Tibetan and a Quebecer, I’m ashamed that Bombardier is helping the
Chinese government build the railway," said Tenzin Dargyal, President of the
Canada Tibet Committee. "I support development in Tibet, but not development
that is imposed by Beijing and principally serves the interests of the
Chinese Communist Party, rather than the great majority of Tibetans."

Slated to begin test runs in 2006, the railway threatens to increase
environmental pressure on Tibet’s high-altitude ecosystem, bolster China's
military strength in the region, and facilitate the entry of large numbers
of Chinese settlers onto Tibetan lands, further marginalizing Tibetans
socially and economically. Many Tibetans see the railway as the final phase
in China's strategy to wipe out Tibetan identity and culture.

"To Tibetans inside Tibet, the railway is a death sentence,” said Lhadon
Tethong, Executive Director of Students for a Free Tibet. “The Chinese
government already encourages Chinese settlers to move into Tibet in order
to assimilate Tibetans and eliminate their resistance to Chinese rule. The
railway will increase this population transfer exponentially, posing a dire
threat to Tibetans’ survival as a people."

"Bombardier takes no responsibility for the fact that Tibetans have not been
consulted about whether they even want the railroad to be built. No matter
the impact on Tibetan people or lands, they have told us there is ‘no way’
they will pull out," said Mary Beth Markey, Executive Director of the
International Campaign for Tibet. “Yet the project contradicts Bombardier’s
own Code of Ethics and the International Union of Public Transport Charter
on Sustainable Development, to which Bombardier claims to be a 'full
signatory'."

The coalition, led by the Canada Tibet Committee, International Campaign for
Tibet and Students for a Free Tibet, first expressed its concerns to
Bombardier in October 2002. At the time, the company replied that it was
"not involved" and had "taken good note of your arguments against this
project". In February of this year however, Bombardier, the world's biggest
maker of train equipment, abruptly announced its intention to build and
deliver 361 railcars to China for the widely criticized project between
December 2005 and May 2006.

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