Angela King, an assistant secretary-general who heads the U.N. division for the advancement of women, said in a statement: "My staff wrongly intervened in the decision" of who should speak on behalf of a voluntary nongovernmental task force on women and health last Wednesday.

"I have instructed my staff to ensure that this situation does not occur again," she said in writing after apologizing orally to delegates at Friday's meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women.

King asked the commission to allow Losang Rabgey to make her statement "as a means of enriching our discourse."

Both Canadian and U.S. delegates at the meeting, which is evaluating compliance with decisions taken at a major U.N. women's conference in Beijing in 1995, protested the action.

Rabgey, an ethnic Tibetan with Canadian citizenship, said she had been given permission to address the commission as one of five speakers on behalf of a health task force but was told at the last minute she could not testify as the representative from a caucus of Asian women's groups.

She said Tibet would not have been named in her speech.

"I was told the reason I could not speak is that my name is recognizable as Tibetan and it might offend the Chinese and would jeopardize our nongovernmental status in the future," she told Reuters, adding that there were witnesses to the conversation. King did not mention China in her statement.

Canadian diplomat Florence Levers demanded an explanation as to why Rabgey had been denied the floor. She said later she was reassured by King's statement.

U.S. delegate Linda Tarr-Whelan supported Levers, saying that Rabgey represented a U.N.-accredited group and had a right to speak before the commission, regardless of her name or ethnic background.

China, which took over Tibet in 1950 and annexed it nine years later, has been sensitive about human rights abuse complaints that it said interferes in its internal affairs. But there was no known protest from China's envoys to Rabgey's intended address.

Several hundred advocacy groups or nongovernmental organizations, from business associations to environmental groups, are accredited to the United Nations. They are permitted to testify before various committees and investigatory forums on areas that fall under their areas of expertise.

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Last updated: 9-Mar-99