The Problem of Human Rights

...According to a proclamation signed by President Harry S. Truman in 1949, Americans were to observe the day "with such ceremonies as may best promote an understanding of a respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and contribute to their universal and effective recognition and observance...

...With regard to the country's dismal record on torture, intimidation and suspension of civil rights, Washington has declared that "the issues of war and peace and the nation's security in the face of external threat are of overriding importance and must weigh heavily in the balance...

...These are awaiting committee action...

...One wrote in the Department's November report on human rights that "political, economic, social, and cultural problems which cause human rights abuses to occur need to be resolved before real improvements in human rights conditions can take place...

...It has, in fact, been the cause of some inconsistency in State Department policy of late, with two senior officials last month publicly expressing opposite policy lines on the subject...

...Few knew of its existence...

...Its security is also essential to Japan...

...Yet the difficulty of weighing national security against human rights becomes apparent in the case of South Korea...

...In past years it has presented at least four major arguments against tying foreign aid to human rights performance: (1) that economic and social underdevelopment breed repression, and these must be dealt with first...

...The examples of South Korea, Taiwan and Brazil, where extraordinary economic growth has led to more modern and sophisticated uses of oppression, should have killed the "economic development breeds political development" argument long ago...

...When David Popper, the U.S...

...Disheartening conclusions like these, combined with the State Department's seeming callousness toward the issue, have led several congressmen to take action on their own...

...introduced similar amendments to the Administration's $4.7 billion military aid request...

...Embassy in Chile, testified before the House subcommittee on international organizations and movements that "we cannot impose our political and legal status on others...

...The subject of past congressional hearings on human rights violations, South Korea is considered a symbol of American credibility to its alliance commitments...

...Will the amendments help...

...In September, Congressman Tom Harken (D.-Iowa) and South Dakota's two Democratic senators, lames Abourezk and George Mc-Govern, introduced an amendment to the Administration's $2.87 billion foreign assistance bill denying economic aid to governments "which engage in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized rights.' The amendment passed both houses of Congress and is now in joint conference committee...

...In November, Congressmen Donald Fraser (D.-Minn...

...official who served in Korea told the House subcommittee on international organizations that "for at least four years the internal situation in Korea has been deteriorating, and relations between the government and the people have been eroding...

...The words are Henry Kissinger's...

...The reasons are plausible enough, but they have not withstood the test of time...

...and Stephen Solarz (D.-N.Y...

...But their efforts have not always been supported by the State Department...

...2) that "quiet" diplomatic efforts bring more human rights relief than dramatic denunciations and political gestures, which only inflame nationalistic consciences...

...Few Americans celebrated Human Rights Day...

...it must be admitted that several U.S...

...There are cases where we clearly have the latitude to "seize the moral opportunity," as he put it...

...3) that international law requires "noninterference in the internal affairs of Bonnie Potter, a free-lance journalist, is based in Washington, D.C...

...other governments...

...We currently have 42,000 troops stationed in South Korea...

...But they will certainly force a closer look by Congress and the State Department at what constitutes the national interest, and how that interest can best be served.' Not long ago, one of our distinguished statesman said: "Many of our decisions are not imposed on us by requirements of national survival...

...As for "quiet diplomatic efforts...

...Nor would they have spared American missionary Fred Morris 17 days of torture and electric shock in Brazil...

...But little matter...

...The question of interest is not so cut and dry...

...In 1974, Harry Schlaud-eman, the former Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S...

...Now they may well be given substance by the Congress...

...Nonintervention is a fine principle, but in practice it has never been adhered to...

...Altruism stops short of saving the next person at the cost of seriously harming oneself, and the State Department has maintained that "terminating security assistance to certain countries could have an adverse effect on our own security...

...This argument was strong enough to cause Fraser and Solarz to add an escape clause to their amendment, permitting the President to extend assistance when "on all the facts it is in the national interest of the United States...

...If both sets are passed, will next Human Rights Day, December 10, 1976, see any improvement in the treatment of individuals around the world...

...in 1975, we contributed $145 million in military assistance and $105 million in economic aid...

...The economies of the [Western] Hemisphere have made considerable progress since 1960...

...A Korean professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Chong-Sik Lee, told the same committee that "government suppression has split South Korea to such an extent that it may weaken the people's resolve to defend their way of life when challenged from the north.' In this instance, therefore, it may be the "idealists" who are the "realists.' As an aide on the House international organizations subcommittee put it, "We won't know if the human rights amendments will actually help the victims of rights violations until we try them...

...One former U.S...

...The State Department would say No...

...Our power will not always bring preferred solutions," but "we are still strong enough to influence events, often decisively...

...Celebrations would not have resurrected the mutilated body of Chilean folk-singer Victor Jara...

...Ambassador to Chile, expressed concern over mistreatment of political prisoners to the Chilean Minister of Defense in 1974, Secretary of State Kissinger cabled him to "cut out the political science lectures.' Moreover, many Foreign Service officers have a personal stake in not arousing the ire of their "clients"—the regimes they must deal with from day to day...

...officials have intervened behind the scenes in human rights matters...

...The struggle toward democracy, however, if one can sum up the experience of the Hemisphere, has not been as successful...

...Instead, it sent the Senate Foreign Relations and House International Relations committees a bland summary stating that "repressive laws and actions, arbitrary arrest and prolonged detention, torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, unfair trials or other flagrant denials of the rights of life, liberty and the security of the person are not extraordinary events in the world community...

...Nor would they have brought relief to countless political prisoners crowding the jails of South Korea, Indonesia, South Africa, Uruguay, Spain, Turkey, Iran, the USSR Actually, human rights violations are of such proportions that the State Department has refused to release a recent country-by-country study on the subject that was specially requested by Congress...

...Another told a Boston foreign affairs group that "it now appears we exaggerated both the importance of reform for stability and our ability to induce reform and democracy...

...But the recently released Senate subcommittee study on "Covert Action in Chile, 1963-73," indicates that the United States spent about $14 million over those 10 years in covert efforts to influence Chile's press and politicians...

...In another section of the same testimony he stated that "the United States is not and cannot be responsible for everything that happens in Latin America...

...What complicates things is the domestic effect of repression...

...American policy there is based on the 1952 Mutual Defense Treaty, requiring this country to come to Seoul's defense in the event of an armed attack...

...and Senator Alan Cranston (D.-Calif...

...and finally, (4) that human rights considerations often conflict with America's political and strategic interests...