Making Helsinki Matter

...An effective Western strategy must take advantage of the accord's balanced-progress provision by exploiting the Soviet desire for action on security issues as well as on those involving trade and exchange (Basket II) to get Moscow to honor its human rights commitments...

...Still, in the midst of a seemingly endless talk-fest a breakthrough appeared probable...

...Emigration has certainly not shown signs of reviving under Gorbachev...

...Perhaps more important, on August 19 chief Soviet delegate Oleg A. Grinevsky announced that the USSR agreed "in principle" to a specified number of on-site inspections of troop movements...

...Helsinki Commission last June that at Vienna "it may prove easier to achieve real progress on humanitarian issues" because "all the 'baskets...

...Former Undersecretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger told the U.S...

...The Gorbachev challenge on this front is sophisticated and cleverly crafted...

...will be under consideration...

...The State Department's principal official dealing with Helsinki-related matters, Assistant Secretary for European and Canadian Affairs Rozanne Ridg-way, noted in testimony to the U.S...

...In July, Gorbachev reminded visiting French President Francois Mitterrand that the U.S...

...Considering the ongoing human rights violations in the Soviet Union, often involving irrationally cruel treatment or heartrending family separations, one cannot help recalling the official slogans displayed on the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell's 1984: "Freedom is Slavery...

...A few days later the State Department complained that "broadly defined 'closed areas'" were not included...

...had stood alone in rejecting the neutral document, thus cleverly implying that it is an obstacle to solving European problems...

...For both activists within the USSR and policy makers in the U.S., compliance is the name of the Helsinki game...

...The Kremlin initiative was rebuffed, but not before some Western delegates found themselves wondering whether Gorbachev actually meant the opposite of what he had said about the "humanitarian sphere...

...Such references were absent at Bern...

...delegation to the Vienna conference, has declared that the U.S...

...Since January 1984, a Helsinki-sponsored conference in Stockholm has been discussing "confidence-building measures" aimed at reducing the chances of surprise attack...

...Democratic forces within the Soviet bloc have a rather different perspective...

...Ridgway further noted in her testimony that the Helsinki process stimulated the Soviet Union "to respond— even if cynically—in the same humanitarian language" used in the accord itself...

...The second is Moscow's cutting Jewish emigration from an average monthly flow of4,500 in 1979 to a current trickle of 60, and accompanying this with a brutal crackdown on the teaching of the Hebrew language and Jewish culture...

...Once confidence-building measures are agreed upon, the delegates are to take up ways to promote disarmament itself...

...Two egregious Soviet transgressions have been especially underscored...

...Two decades ago, after Brezhnev first proposed a "Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe" —an idea that evolved into the Helsinki Accord—Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko divulged to Party comrades that its ulterior purpose was to remove the American military presence from Europe...

...Official references to the agreement have in general become quite rare...

...Addressing the 27 th Party Congress last February 25, the General Secretary, in the course of citing several "fundamental principles" of Soviet foreign policy, spoke of the "humanitarian sphere" that obliges the USSR to approach "questions" related to the reunion of families "in a humane and positive spirit...

...As if to put the icing on the cynical Soviet cake, July also saw the unprecedented creation of a "Department of Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs" within the Soviet Foreign Ministry...

...For Poland's Solidarity, the Charter 77 group in Czechoslovakia, Jewish activists and dissidents in the USSR, the Helsinki Accord codifies an invaluable standard and provides an essential medium for bringing up human rights concerns...

...Ambassador Warren Zimmer-mann, the newly-appointed chief of the U.S...

...wiiliam kori -i, director of International Policy Research at B 'nai B 'rith, recently rcccival u three-year Ford Foundation grant to study American policy relating lo the Helsinki process...

...Placing violations before the tribunal of international public opinion has had at least some happy consequences...

...Overall, exposure of Soviet rights abuses has dampened Moscow's enthusiasm for the accord...

...to remind the world of their failure to meet their commitments" to its provisions...

...The USSR was initially uninterested in concrete proposals of that sort, pressing instead for a treaty affirming the non-use of force, a freeze on military spending and the creation of nuclear-free zones in Europe...

...At previous Basket 111 meetings, Soviet representatives at least alluded to the possibility of progress on Jewish emigration and other human rights matters in the context of improved detente...

...Skeptics in the United States—mainly, but not exclusively, conservatives —will no doubt renew their efforts to impugn the usefulness of the Helsinki Accord...

...Measures advanced by the West have included, for instance, notification of military maneuvers by units of 25,000 or more (far smaller than the size mandated in the Helsinki Final Act), and on-site inspections to verify that proper notification is being given...

...Veteran American foreign policy experts agree...

...Recent developments in the Basket I area of security have given the West some sober cause for hope...

...The legend over the Soviets' new department might read: "Humanitarianism is Oppression...

...Inasmuch as that represents a propaganda opportunity to the Soviets, they seem to see Stockholm as a valuable stepping-stone...

...At the same time, American strategy on Helsinki as a whole must be kept flexible enough to maintain the support of neutral nations as well as allies...

...Helsinki Commission (largely a Congressional body) that the accord "gives us a forum that the Soviets simply cannot ignore...

...Even though Brezhnev was originally its leading advocate, the USSR in 1980 deleted the slogans about Helsinki that used to be part of the annual celebration of the Bolshevik Revolution...

...Persistent recalcitrance held little advantage for the Soviets, however...

...Ambassador Michael Novak—after delivering a moving address on the emigration issue—distributed a list of Soviet citizens, mainly Jewish re-fuseniks, waiting to be reunited with family in Israel...

...The heroic Anatoly Shcharansky affirmed soon after his release from the Gulag that the "struggle to induce the Soviet Union to fulfill the agreement it signed at Helsinki is more urgent than ever...

...He not only told Mitterrand that "the theme of human rights becomes ever more acute on the threshold of the 21st century," but stressed that "people refuse to tolerate arbitrariness and lawlessness within their countries and in international relations...

...At Bern, Soviet delegates engaged in an extraordinary maneuver to remove Jewish emigration from the Helsinki agenda: They attempted to introduce language that would limit the mandatory granting of visas for family visits and reunions to "participating states," i.e...

...His Russian counterpart called the list "libelous" and charged that it smacked of "McCarthyism...

...Of greater significance at the moment would be the insistence that a correlation be maintained at the Vienna review conference between forward movement on security and human rights questions...

...Observing human rights, he concluded, is "one of the components of the all-embracing system of security...

...War is Peace...

...Both determination and assiduous documentation will be necessary if the United States is to drive home the facts of human rights abuse in the USSR...

...He also noted that the agreement "gives us a place in a forum which discusses European issues," making them "American issues as well.' Eagleburger's second point is more significant than may be generally recognized...

...A compromise makes advance notification compulsory only for those air exercises that are directly connected with exercises by ground forces...

...Whatever Gorbachev's intentions, he clearly is not about to be cowed by human rights attacks and is instead taking the rhetorical offensive...

...Gorbachev himself has assured the Western media that the major reason for refusing an exit visa—security considerations, stemming from the job the applicant had—would no longer obtain af ter a period of five or 10 years...

...CHALLENGE IN VIENNA Making Helsinki Matter BY WILLIAM KOREY Although the prospect of another Ronald Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev summit is preoccupying policy makers, the next firm item on the East-West agenda is the upcoming conference in Vienna lo review compliance with the 1975 Helsinki Accord among its 35 signatories —the nations of Europe (excluding Albania) and North America...

...delegates have been adamant that the principles enunciated by Basket III be respected...

...Pressed as to their motivation, Soviet delegates acknowledged the obvious: to exclude Israel, the one country Soviet Jews may give as their destination in requesting a visa...

...In the past they would have been allowed to leave for Israel after completing their terms of servitude...

...Ambassador Zimmermann will have his work cut out for him w hen the Vienna conference convenes on November 4...

...The harassment and intimidation theseindividualsaresubjected to include the loss of their jobs, threats of arrest for "parasitism," expulsion from the universities, social ostracism, and at times physical attack or trial and sentencing on trumped-up charges...

...But the main issues of this conference, by their very nature, require a practical approach and have offered little opportunity for shrill rhetoric...

...Concessions were also elicited from other Eastern European countries that already have far better records than the USSR on matters of travel, family visits and reunions...

...Kampelman likened the nato alliance to an "orchestra," where "there is need for a drummer as well as a harpist [but] what is most important is that we play together...

...Soviet conferees became much less resistant to Western demands on notification, and went so far as to drop their own Western-opposed demand for notification of air exercises...

...Asamatterof fact, coordination of headway in the areas defined by the three baskets is explicitly built into the Helsinki Final Act...

...That is no longer true...

...As if to accentuate their obduracy, the Soviet delegates responded with a burst of rage in a closed plenary session when U.S...

...If there was no consensus on confidence-building there would be no time for dealing exclusively with disarmament before the September 19 cutoff date...

...And Soviet defector Arkady Shev-chenko has disclosed that the principal Foreign Office architect of Helsinki policy, Anatoly Kovalev, never received the Central Committee appointment he so diligently sought...

...One is the Kremlin's imprisoning or exiling of the members of the half-dozen Helsinki Watch committees initially organized in the So viet Union in 197 6 by Yuri Orlov, Yelena Bonner and Anatoly Shcharansky—despite the Helsinki provision that individuals be allowed "to know and act upon" their rights...

...Soviet Jews who wish to be reunited with kin have hardly found this to be the case...

...Again, greeting Mitterrand at the Kremlin in July, he said the Soviet Union is committed to "international cooperation on humanitarian problems," and added that "these are not mere words...

...Observers have urged that this asymmetry be rectified in the planning of future specialized conferences...

...Ambassador Max Kampelman, fully aware of Soviet designs, made Western unity a centerpiece of his strategy when he headed the U.S...

...That Stockholm is expected to succeed and the human rights meetings in Ottowa, Budapest and Bern ended without agreement would appear to be partly a function of time: Whereas security questions were allotted negotiating periods on the order of years, the meetings concerned with human rights were each restricted to approximately two months...

...The head of the U.S...

...What warranted discussion, they said, were the trade issues of Basket II...

...The fate of thousands of "refuse-niks,' whose applications to emigrate have been repeatedly turned down, is scarcely testimony to Gorbachev's sincerity either...

...Ignorance is Strength...

...The pivotal Helsinki issue for the West remains human rights, and the U. S. has led the way in raising and documenting gross violations of accord provisions by the USSR and, to a lesser extent, by its client states...

...to the 35 signatories of the Helsinki Accord...

...Scheduled to open November 4, with no certain closing date (the previous one, begun in Madrid in November 1980, ran three years), the conference will consider a broad range of issues encompassing security and arms control, trade and cultural exchanges, and human rights...

...He is now in charge of overall arms control negotiations in Geneva...

...At the Helsinki-sponsored experts' meeting on "human contacts" questions this spring in Bern, the Russians publicly gloated about the rift that developed in nato ranks because the United States deemed inadequate a concluding document prepared by the neutral European bloc under the leadership of Switzerland and Austria...

...will rigorously draw the balance between promises made and promises kept...

...Another 93 have been waiting for more than 10 years...

...At Madrid, and at the subsequent experts' meetings in Ottowa, Budapest and Bern, U.S...

...In early June—shortly after Mitterrand's visit to the Kremlin—Moscow suddenly shifted gears...

...This conference is an outgrowth of concerns expressed at the Madrid meeting by the Soviet Union and the Western European democracies, particularly France...

...Nor does "humanitarian" describe the Soviet treatment of 25 former "prisoners of conscience," among them Ida Nudel and Viktor Brailovsky...

...They complain that while virtually no progress has been made in the human rights area defined by Basket III of the agreement, its Final Act is tantamount to ratification of the Kremlin's dominion over Eastern Europe...

...delegation at the Madrid review conference...

...Yet out of a list of nearly 800 Soviet Jewish scientists seeking to emigrate compiled by the New York-based Committee of Concerned Scientists, 606 applied for visas between five and 10 years ago and are still waiting...

...delegation, Robert L. Barry, has expressed optimism that "acomprehensive agreement" will be reached by September 19, and Grinevsky has concurred...

...Moscow's thrust has not changed...

...At Bern, for example, the Soviets finally agreed to allow 246 individuals from divided families to j oin spouses or rela-es in the United States, thereby resolving about half of the cases of this type that Washington has raised with Moscow...

...Soviet delegates told Western interlocutors at Bern that they considered Basket III a finished subject...

...Strikingly, for example, Gorbachev seems to have embraced the very term "humanitarian"—central to Basket III formulations and previously totally alien to Bolshevik political literature...

...to the contrary, the rate so far this year is one-quarter lower than last year's historically small level and may end up as the lowest in nearly 20 years...