Teresa Heinz Kerry

Howard Heinz Endowment

625 Liberty Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15222-3115
via email
30 June 2016
Dear Mrs Kerry
I am writing to you from Free Tibet, a London-based international organisation campaigning for
Tibetans to be able to determine their own future and for their human rights to be respected. I am
contacting you today in regard to the reported Heinz family trust shareholding in Tibet Water
Resources Ltd (previously Tibet Water Holdings Ltd) i, a Chinese-owned company producing bottled
water in the most repressed region of Tibet. We believe this investment runs counter to the values
that you and the Heinz family have upheld through your philanthropic work and I urge you to give
very strong consideration to ensuring that this investment comes to an end.
The most recent State Department reports on human rights and religious freedom in Tibet have
again made clear how deep a problem human rights abuse in Tibet is:
the government engaged in the severe repression of Tibets unique religious, cultural, and
linguistic heritage by, among other means, strictly curtailing the civil rights of Chinas
Tibetan population, including the freedoms of speech, religion, association, assembly, and
movement Other serious human rights abuses included extrajudicial detentions,
disappearances, and torture.ii
Chinas human rights abuses in Tibet stem largely from Tibetan opposition to Chinese rule and
policies - including Chinese exploitation of Tibets resources and damage caused to its environment
by Chinese companies. The bottled water industry in Tibet threatens its environment, as well as
being fraught with political, commercial and regulatory risks.
Free Tibet has produced a short report detailing the impact of the water bottling industry in Tibet.
As it establishes, Tibets environment and water resources are under severe threat from a range of
environmental factors, including pollution, climate change and the effects of massive damming and
water diversion projects undertaken by the Chinese government. Far from being a low-impact,
green business responsibly commercialising a renewable resource, water bottling in Tibet is
contributing to the destruction of Tibets environment and the depletion of its water resources.
Tibet Water Resources Ltd produces the Tibet 5100 brand, which has been bottled inside the Tibet
Autonomous Region (TAR) since 2006. The TAR was at the centre of the Tibetan Uprising of 2008
and has been the most intensely repressed part of Tibet ever since.
Chinese dissident website Boxun reports that the company has complicated origins and it has also
been associated with alleged corruption: when its longstanding contract with China Railway
Express, a state-owned transportation company, was cancelled in 2015, Chinese news website Sina

Free Tibet
28 Charles Square, London N1 6HT
Tel: 44 (0)20 7324 4605 E-mail: mail@freetibet.org Web: www.freetibet.org

reported an anonymous source saying halting the commercial partnership between 5100 and
Railway is an action carried out to limit the corruption within the railway system. [] In the current
atmosphere of repressing corruption in China, this kind of action was to be expected.iii The
relationship was key to Tibet 5100s success - by 2013, the company was buying 90% of Tibet 5100s
output. (Free Tibet is unable to corroborate the corruption link and has no further information
about the episode.)
Tibet 5100s impact on the local community is another cause for concern. The company states it
has created a 60 square kilometre water protection zone around its bottling plantiv. As you may
be aware, Tibetan pastoralists have been relocated from their traditional areas in their millions,
often leading to impoverishment and social problems - the State Departments most recent Country
Report for China notes the negative impact of forced resettlement. A consequence of Tibetan
pastoralists being removed from their land is that it becomes available for commercial exploitation.
No information is available about how the protection area was created and is enforced but in the
context of the negative impact of resettlement and the enthusiasm of local authorities to develop
the water bottling industry in the TAR, there is a clear risk that water protection has come at a
cost to local Tibetans.
Free Tibet has already written to Secretary Kerry regarding this matter but we understand, of
course, how busy he is and that the reported investment, if it is still held, is through the Heinz
family. I should like to be clear that Free Tibets ongoing campaign regarding this company is not
directed at yourself or your husband: its focus is institutional investors in Tibet Water Resources
Ltd. However, as the Heinz family holding has now come to light, we have taken the opportunity to
contact you both to explain the concerns arising from this investment. We entirely understand that
you are unlikely to have had knowledge of this specific investment or the negative impacts
associated with it when it was made. We also pay tribute to the work your husband has done on
behalf of human rights in Tibet during his tenure as Secretary of State. We hope that in light of the
information we have now provided, you will consider it consistent with the values your family has
long promoted to ensure that the Heinz Family Trust divests its shares in Tibet Water Resources Ltd.
Thank you for your consideration of this request. If we can be of any further help in this matter,
please get in touch. I can be contacted at the address below or at Eleanor@freetibet.org and I look
forward to your reply.
Yours sincerely

Eleanor Byrne-Rosengren
Director

Daily Caller 5 April 2016 http://dailycaller.com/2016/05/04/kerry-and-wife-invested-in-chinese-company-thatexploits-represses-tibet/

ii
State Department Country Reports 2015
http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/humanrightsreport/index.htm?dynamic_load_id=252757&year=2015#wrapp
er
iii
Sina.com http://finance.sina.com.cn/chanjing/gsnews/20150727/105822799679.shtml, accessed 11 May 2016
iv
Tibet Water Resources Ltd website http://twr1115.net/pages/our_environment, accessed 11 May 2016

Free Tibet
28 Charles Square, London N1 6HT
Tel: 44 (0)20 7324 4605 E-mail: mail@freetibet.org Web: www.freetibet.org