Vancouver Sun Letter to the Editor: Investors shouldn't be blind to human-rights abuses

By Ryan Moffatt

January 11, 2005 Tuesday

Vancouver Sun

Re: Mayor to head delegation to sister city in China, Jan. 10

When Nazi Germany was a rising star economically and had won its bid for the Olympics, everyone was trying to invest their money with Adolf Hitler.

Anyone trying to raise awareness of the growing campaign of hatred and terror against the Jews was considered an irritant, an odd-ball, troublesome. Yet when the true extent of the atrocities of the Holocaust was revealed, these same investors were horrified and we all vowed: "Never again."

The ones who listened to the truth, the ones who did not go against their conscience, are considered heroes today. The others, at best, are looked at askance.

I ask Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell to consider this, while he is considering how best to invest our money in China. I ask him to remember the millions of innocent people -- the Tibetans, the people of faith and the democracy advocates who are in labour camps, being cruelly tortured and murdered. Three relatives of Vancouver citizens, who practise Falun Gong, are in concentration camps in China. Three more relatives of Canadians are imprisoned right in our sister city, Quanzhou. Perhaps Campbell can speak on their behalf.

Ryan Moffatt

Vancouver

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