Freedom Trail From Helsinki To Madrid

...FREEDOM TRAIL FROM HELSMKI TOMADRD WILLIAM KOREY Five years ago, the Soviet Union solemnly affixed its signature to an international agreement specifying that human rights derive from "the inherent dignity of the person...

...He was referring to a particular section in the Covenant which restricts "the right to leave the country" on grounds of "national security," "public order" and "the rights and freedoms of others...

...Instead of manifesting a "positive and humanitarian spirit," Soviet policy-makers require applicants for exit visas to run a gauntlet of prolonged torment...

...Reviewing the role United States diplomats had played at Helsinki— essentially passive—the Soviets had no reason to think that Basket III would be taken seriously by the West...

...Second, the Final Act provides for, in embryonic form, an instrument of implementation...

...Shumilin failed to note that such "restrictions" are to be applied only as they are "provided by law...

...The result has been a sharp cutback in emigration, approaching but one-half of the 1979 rate, and a massive increase in the refusenik population, particularly in Odessa, Kiev and various other Ukrainian cities...

...In fulfillment of this objective, governments were to handle applications for exit visas "as expeditiously as possible" and "to ensure" that exit visa fees were set at a "moderate level" or even lowered "when necessary...

...As applied to the Final Act, the principle of linkage means that progress in Baskets I and II—a consummation devoutly sought by the USSR—required a corresponding advance in Basket III...

...The Soviet Union's version of 1984 was detailed on November 9, 1976 by Tass and published the next day in Izvestya...

...The head of the Office of Visas and Registration (OVIR), Vladimir Obidin, has announced, "We are now putting a stop to all arbitrary emigration...

...Reunion with a brother, aunt or grandparent could now be halted...

...Activists and dissenters in Eastern Europe perceived Helsinki as merely a ratification of Soviet domination of the area...

...This is a trump card of the Western world, provided it maintains a unified front, and insists upon a line-by-line review of implementation as well as a case-by-case illustration of abridgements...

...It is the idea of linkage, an essential and decisive element which is built into the Final Act itself...

...Especially important was the provision that the signatory powers would The Helsinki Final Act, which for the first time in the history of international agreements accorded human rights the status of a fundamental principle in interstate relations, was initially greeted by the Soviet Union (and its East European partners) with enthusiasm...

...In this way, even the restrictive provision of the right-to-leave clause in the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is emptied of meaning...

...emphasis added) Thus the human rights principle is formally as important as any of the principles dealing with security, and it must be taken into account in applying the others...

...The Madrid forum offers an invaluable opportunity for exposing both the Soviet violations of Helsinki and the Soviet pattern of Orwellian inversion by which the Kremlin seeks to mask its violations...

...All the principles set forth above are of primary significance and, accordingly, they will be equally and unreservedly applied, each of them being interpreted taking into account the others...

...Andrei Sinyavski reports that he wept bitter tears when he read the texts of the Act...

...Utter arbitrariness prevails in the decisions of OVIR...

...The American Administration, which had supported the agreement as an element in its policy of detente, saw the human rights provisions as symbolic...

...Human rights is defined not as a privilege extended by a government, but rather as something inherent in the human condition...

...The fact that the site is a democratic country and provides maximum opportunities for a free press is itself of signal importance...

...the manner in which they ought to manage their internal affairs...

...treat visa applications in a way that would "not modify the rights and obligations" of the applicant or of members of the family...

...the secrets of a State are always its exclusive property...

...The first review meeting was held in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, from October 4, 1977 to March 8, 1978...

...In accordance with the decisions of the agreement at Helsinki, we shall let people go only where it is for reunification of families, and a family, in accordance with the Code on Marriage and the Family of the USSR, consists only of husbands, wives, and their unmarried children...

...Deputy Minister of Interior Boris Shumilin has declared: "Restrictions that we sometimes impose proceed directly from the clauses of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights...

...As the provisions of Basket III became known to the people of Eastern Europe, kindling among them hopes and demands for both emigration and greater freedom of expression, the Kremlin became increasingly uncertain, irritated and angry...

...Western demands for adherence to Principle VII—"respect for human rights and fundamental freedom"— were declared to be a violation of Principle VI, which obliged the signatories to "refrain from any intervention, direct or indirect, individual or collective, in the internal or external affairs falling within the domestic jurisdiction of another participating state...

...other Americans saw the entire agreement as a betrayal of the cause of freedom in the USSR and Eastern Europe...

...To the extent that d?tente is indivisible, reciprocation is indispensable...

...Gross abridgement of the "reunion of family" provisions of the Final Act has been, and especially now remains, a distinctive feature of Soviet policy...

...That sanction was finally incorporated in the Final Act, which also endorsed cooperation in trade, science and technology, all important Soviet objectives...

...they felt that the West had capitulated to Soviet demands without extracting any compensatory benefit...

...Repression of the watchdog committees—itself a violation of the Act—was accompanied by a massive propaganda display of Orwellian inversion...

...Others are refused because their field of research might become, in the future, a state secret...

...Caprice of an all-embracing character exists in Soviet decisionmaking in this field...

...Izvestia, on August 8, 1975, called it "a law of international life," and Breshnev told the 25th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, six months later, that the "main thing now is to implement in practice all of the principles and understandings agreed upon in Helsinki...

...With no published law covering such restrictions, applicants are deprived of a fundamental right spelled out in the Helsinki Final Act, "the right of an individual to know his rights...

...In an ideal world, this formulation would appear denigrating, perhaps unpalatable...

...Equally egregious is the use of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to negate the application of the Helsinki Final Act...

...Shumilin has reversed the clear intent of the clause...

...But in the real world of balance and d?tente, it indicates the leverage Continued on page 51 available to promote human rights...

...In the face of the language of the Final Act, and confronted by growing public pressure for its implementation, the Kremlin has resorted to various additional Orwellian measures...

...Accommodation in one field requires a reciprocal response in another...

...Indeed, the thrust of the right-to-leave clause in the Covenant is in the direction of greater freedom of movement...

...Originally, the Soviet Union was exultant with the Helsinki Final Act, which it had vigorously promoted as a way of winning international endorsement of the status quo in Eastern Europe...

...It derives, says the text, from "the inherent dignity of the human person and is essential for his free and full development...

...While a genuine dialogue was never achieved at Belgrade, nor were any new proposals adopted, the meeting was successful in establishing the principle that human rights has a legitimate place on the East-West diplomatic agenda...

...In most cases, the refused applicant either never had access to "state secrets" or had ceased his employment in a security-type Soviet institution long before he made application to leave...

...The purpose of the Final Act, of course, was to ease emigration procedures...

...Ironically, some of America's Western allies who had pressed for Basket III during the negotiations now shifted to a position of caution...

...And yet, "national security" is today the principal reason given for refusing exit visas...

...A decent respect for the opinions of mankind must be precisely the aim of the West even as it remains the banner of Soviet Jewish activists...

...The response of the Kremlin was hardly surprising...

...A useful procedure is to require in advance that the Madrid Conference not adjourn until a meaningful concluding document is agreed upon and the time and place of the next review meeting are approved...

...Beyond that revolutionary—but still abstract—acknowledgement, the agreement, known as the Helsinki Final Act, promised "respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief," and it committed its signers to the "freer movement of ideas and peoples...

...The question of "reunion of families" was the heart of the fundamental and critical concern for "freer movement of peoples...

...Harassment of applicants— loss of job, expulsion from an academic institution, removal from one's apartment, demotion in employment, and the sudden drafting into the army—is widespread and increasing, despite the obligations to "not modify" their rights...

...If the West is to champion human rights, its message should reach beyond formal government delegations to the public...

...it should be ours...

...Or, perhaps, the Kremlin supposed that Basket III was merely a rhetorical flourish, the kind of symbolic—but meaningless— language that frequently finds its way into international compacts...

...A survey conducted among "refusenik" families indicated that three-quarters of the refusals were based on "security...

...The reasons for this early enthusiasm...

...Refusals of visas on grounds of "insufficient closeness of relatives" are currently quite common...

...Moreover, that standard, the signatories agreed, carries a transcendent significance: Respect for human rights is declared to be "an essential factor for peace" and is a major element in their "mutual relations...

...The text of the other Principles was left untouched...

...The quality of that judgment will tell us less about the Soviet Union, whose dismal record on human rights issues is all too obvious, than about the nature of the Western commitment to human rights as a central element in international affairs...

...But only one week after his election, President Jimmy Carter declared that "consummation of the Helsinki agreement concerning human rights would be an ever-present consideration" in his thinking about Soviet-American relations...

...The third consideration is by far the most important...

...The Soviet Union will be anxious to avoid tarnishing beyond repair its image as a civilized member of European society...

...The effort to define "criticism" as a form of "intervention" blithely ignores the provisions of the Act itself, which defines that which is prohibited as "armed intervention or threat of such intervention," "any other act of military, political, economic or other coercion," and "assistance to terrorist activities...

...In the first place, the Act sets a standard in the human rights field and for all the signatory powers and, thereby, legitimizes inquiry into whether and how the standard is fulfilled by each of them...

...The sentiments of the Kremlin became blatantly manifest when, in redrafting the Ten Principles of the Helsinki Final Act for incorporation into the new Soviet Constitution, Principle VII was carefully redrafted, and the phrase "including the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief was deliberately deleted...

...Perhaps the Kremlin had simply not paid much attention to the language of Basket III, preoccupied as it was with those sections of the Act which deal with "Refraining from the Threat or Use of Force," and "Inviolability of Frontiers," the "Territorial Integrity of States," and "Nonintervention in Internal Affairs...

...One applicant may be permitted to leave while a colleague with exactly the same job and experience is turned down...

...It projected an initial "follow-up" meeting and "further similar meetings...

...And the decision, at Belgrade, to set the time and place of the next meeting—the forthcoming Madrid conference— ensured that the pressure to implement the Helsinki agreement would be maintained...

...If the Final Act is, fundamentally, a product of diplomacy, it also demonstrates that the Soviet Union considers human rights to be a negotiable item on the international agenda...

...F Dr...

...Since 1954, the USSR had been doggedly pursuing the formal diplomatic sanction of the West for the status quo in Eastern Europe...

...No one paid very much attention to the Final Act's sections on human rights, which had been included largely as a result of the determination of the British, the West Germans, the Canadians and the French...

...Linkage is at the very heart of d?tente...

...Such refusals were initiated in May 1979 in the Ukraine, spread to Moldavia, then to Uzbekistan and, by early 1980, to the Russian Central province...

...Further, the West must meet Soviet resistance with an insistent stubbornness...

...Moreover, there is no known provision in Soviet law that deals with the restrictions permitted in the Covenant...

...This is a crucial point...

...So, too, is the fact that multiple audiences will be listening, including the powerful Communist parties of Western Europe...

...Among East Europe's dissidents—Jews included—there are many who see Helsinki as their best hope, and Madrid as their most promising forum...

...The monumental Kremlin effort to manipulate and distort the language of the Final Act testifies to the significance of Helsinki, not to its inadequacy...

...This "Basket" embraced four sections: "Human Contacts," "Information," "Cooperation and Exchanges in the Field of Culture," and "Cooperation and Exchanges in the Field of Education...

...It emphasizes that the right to leave "shall not be subject to any restrictions except those which are provided by law...

...That is why it is an internal question for the Soviet Union to decide which specific works or information are to be considered secret...

...Family," for example, has been redefined so as to circumscribe the emigration rights pertaining to "reunion of families...

...1 The drafters of Basket III had correctly perceived the right of emigration as a core human rights issue...

...Throughout history, from Socrates through Magna Carta to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the right to emigrate was held as central to human liberty...

...The Soviets have managed to invert it in a way that limits emigration...

...That is their hope for Madrid...

...The focal point of the Orwellian inversion was Basket III—particularly the central item of its "Human Contacts" section, which dealt with "reunion of families...

...The text stipulates that the signatories "declare .. . their resolve to continue the multilateral process" through an "exchange of views" on "the implementation of the provisions of the Final Act...

...Today, prominent conservative voices in America clamor for U.S...

...Voluntary committees sprang up in virtually every Communist country (the "Helsinki watchdog groups") in keeping with the Act's provision regarding "the right of the individual to know and act upon his rights"—and the Soviets, realizing the inherent threat of these committees to their totalitarian interests, have mounted a major assault against them...

...But embedded in the Final Act was a set of provisions known as "Basket III," dealing with "Cooperation in Humanitarian and Other Fields...

...William Korey is Director of B'nai B'rith International Policy Research and author of The Soviet Cage published by Viking Press...

...Some applicants are refused on grounds that their relatives in the USSR have knowledge of state secrets...

...or other Western delegations from holding regular, even daily, briefings for the press and non-governmental representatives...

...Thus, human rights is formally declared to be intimately linked with other aspects of state relationships...

...While most of the sessions of the Madrid Conference, except for the opening plenary meetings, will be closed to the press and the public, nothing precludes the U.S...

...Indeed, Brezhnev sought to argue that the "major" conclusion reached at Helsinki was that "No one should try to dictate to other peoples...

...What is required is a determination and commitment to use the leverage for that purpose...

...Next month, in Madrid, the performance of the Soviet Union—as of the other signers—will be judged...

...withdrawal from the Final Act as a means of punishing the Soviet aggression against Afghanistan, while Soviet Jewish activists, as well as democratic dissenters throughout Eastern Europe, who originally opposed the Act (see box), look forward to Madrid with keen expectation...

...Signatories of Helsinki had pledged themselves to "deal in a positive and humanitarian spirit with persons who wish to be reunited with members of their family...