Name: Jigme Ugen
What is your job?
Vice-President
of SEIU Healthcare - Minnesota (Service Employees International Union)
representing over 17,000 healthcare workers in the state, part of the largest
and strongest labor union in North America with over 2.2 million members.
What causes are most important to you –
and why?
I participate
and stay involved in any and all causes and fights that emphasize the disparity
on racial, social and economic justice, anywhere in the world. But my most
important fight of course is for my country Tibet’s independence.
Since China
illegally invaded Tibet in 1949, over 1.2 million Tibetans have been killed,
more than 6000 ancient monasteries destroyed; there are countless political prisoners, forced labor camps, systemic torture, corrosive
colonization, cultural genocide forced
settlements of nomads, coercive birth control, population transfer, environmental
destruction, and the list goes on. Innocent Tibetans peacefully rallying on the streets of
Tibet are mercilessly shot with automatic weapons, ruthlessly beaten with
spiked batons or were later arbitrarily sent to prison to be tortured or killed.