NEWS & VIEWS
NEWS& VIEWS Exporting Repression Michael T. Klare takes another hard look at international trade in police techniques and technology, and finds the United States still at the supply end...
...Klare's primary thesis is that the U.S...
...Almost as Heneghan's story went into print the German court was setting aside the law which enabled young men to refuse—without challenge—military service on grounds of conscience and opt instead for alternative service in, say, a hospital or old folks' home...
...The book will appear under the title, Does God Exist?, An Answer to the Question of God's Existence...
...Finally, he says, Congress must face head-on the problem of the 'national security" waiver, by which restraints on administrative discretion can be set aside if a President determines that national interests are at stake...
...For those keeping count, more than 90 women were ordained priests during 1977, the first year in which women were formally allowed into Episcopal orders...
...More on COa The West German federal constitutional court in Karlsruhe did not look as positively on that country's new conscientious-objectors' law as did Tom Heneghan in the Dec...
...Among other items the trade includes revolvers and pistols, submachine guns and rifles, ammunition, riot gear, tear-gas grenades, gas guns, MACE and armored cars...
...There's to be a review and a final judgment delivered on March 1. Meanwhile, opponents of the court's ruling will try to push through another bill under which tribunals for conscientious objectors will be retained, but would operate more simply and effectively...
...In fact," he says, "its relative durability suggests that the delivery of repressive technology to authoritarian regimes abroad is a consistent and intentional product of our foreign policy, rather than a peripheral or accidental one...
...From the beginning of August, when the law took effect, and mid-December, some 40,000 conscientious objectors had been registered...
...The traffickers are private corporations and official government agencies...
...This compared with 36,000 for the whole of the year before...
...In it, he said, he will deal with the question of whether Jesus was the Son of God...
...Surely," he declares, "we can affirm that the basic principles of human rights and non-intervention preclude adoption of any policies which condone our involvement in the internal policing operations of a foreign government...
...However, he adds, "his capacity to act on this issue [of exported repression] is severely inhibited by commitment to the principle of 'national security,' as that has been defined by all Presidents since the end of World War II...
...He also criticized the bishops for not having enough patience and insight to wait until his new book is published...
...Disturbing the court was the large number of young people availing themselves of the option open to them...
...NEWS& VIEWS Exporting Repression Michael T. Klare takes another hard look at international trade in police techniques and technology, and finds the United States still at the supply end of a pipeline of repression, furnishing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of hardware and knowhow annually to police forces of foreign dictatorships...
...The judgment is only an interim one, however...
...Thus, despite all the pious speeches about human rights, there is no evidence, Klare finds, of the pipeline of repressive technology being dismantled...
...Klare, a Visiting Fellow at Princeton's Center of International Studies in 1976-77, now directs the Project on Militarism and Disarmament of the Institute of Policy Studies...
...The challenges, he writes, are to plug all the loopholes in the 1974 congressional ban on aid to police forces abroad, and to lay down specific requirements for insuring compliance...
...I'm guessing s. JOHN DEEDY 20 January 1978: 34...
...President Carter's commitment to human rights appears unimpeachable, Klare concedes...
...Ironically, their business takes place against the background of an administration committed again and again on the record to human rights in the world...
...The court looked at the figures and ordered the old system restored with only five days' notice...
...Kung Under Fire Germany's Catholic bishops have made official their attitude towards Father Hans Kiing's latest book To Be a Christian: despite "positive and praiseworthy passages," parts must be corrected before the book can be accepted as an expression of doctrine...
...About two-thirds of them are in some sort of stipendiary position in parishes or with church and secular institutions, such as college, prison or hospital chaplaincies...
...His latest findings on the export of police techniques and technology appear in a 56-page booklet, Supplying Repression, published by the Field Foundation...
...The juxtaposition of announcements raised anew the poser: As Episcopalianism goes, so again will go Catholicism...
...The survey came from Episcopal Church headquarters in New York, the day before release of the latest report of the Anglican - Roman Catholic Consultation in the USA citing convergences between the two Churches and alluding to the two as "sister Churches" in the one Christian Church...
...He also argues for a prohibition on the sale of arms, ammunition, computers, riot gear, surveillance devices and other internal security hardware to foreign governments, at least to those guilty of consistent patterns of gross violations of human rights...
...Kiing, in response, has labeled the bishops' statement a "doctrinaire attempt at self-justification without a trace of self-criticism...
...In a 10-page statement, the bishops object particularly to the treatment of Christ's divinity, which they find "too short and inadequate" and open to grave misunderstandings...
...Among others, this would cover collusion, no doubt, with such old pals and practitioners of repression as South Korea, Iran and the dictatorships of Latin America...
...Such a policy," he adds, "must unequivocally, by definition, preclude any sort of support for the police or internal security forces of another government, no matter how benign its legal system...
...should have a foreign policy "that restores primacy to the principle of non-involvement in other countries' internal affairs...
...Study of the export of repression has been a Klare specialty, beginning with his Commonweal piece of 9/18/70, "Policing the Empire...
...So long as the administration is committed to the survival of the Cold War alliance system, it is effectively constrained from taking decisive action to halt the supply of arms and equipment to those foreign dictatorships which are aligned politically with the United States...
...Odds and Ends —The Toronto Globe and Mail provided the Old Year's most arresting news: "Montreal police don't hesitate to use whatever laws, regulations or persuasion they feel they need to control morality in the city and prevent it from getting a foothold in any one part of the city...
...23 Commonweal ("COs or Cheap Labor...
Vol. 105 • January 1978 • No. 2
