OVERSIGHT OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT'S THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 1993 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL SECURITY, INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION AND HUMAN RIGHTS, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:38 a.m., in room Mr. LANTOS. The Subcommittee on International Security, Inter- Of all the tens of thousands of publications issued by our Govern- I shall explore with the Department of State having a shorter pose. This annual report to the Congress is required by law under pro- This report reviews human rights practices of all countries which This report is the key official statement regarding the observance The principal purposes of our hearing today are twofold. Number (1) ports. And secondly, to focus on the broader issues of the role of human rights in U.S. foreign policy. My own experience in both the field of human rights and with these reports and the government action in recent years, reveals a remarkable dichotomy because, on the one hand, the reports are accurate on the whole. In 1,200 pages there obviously are honest differences of opinion concerning emphasis, completeness, and perhaps some errors, but I think the Department of State deserves a great deal of credit for accuracy in these reports. On the other hand, I believe for a number of years now there has been far less satisfactory performance in drawing the appropriate policy conclusions concerning U.S. activities and actions vis-a-vis the most outrageous perpetrators of human rights violations. It is not enough to issue a report and continue business as usual, whether this relates to China; whether it relates to Iraq, as it did for a good number of years, while the reports indicated an outrageous pattern of human rights violations, while important agencies of the U.S. Government continued business as usual with a gross human rights violator such as Iraq. So the question that I will ask all of our witnesses to focus on is not just how accurate the report is, but how this report is used by the highest levels of the U.S. Government. I intend to discuss this report with the President, the Secretary of State, and others. And I will assure them that this subcommittee is determined to see to it that the findings of this report find their way into U.S. policy formulation with respect to the various nations that are the most outrageous violators of human rights on this planet today. Recent issues of these Country Reports have been relatively optimistic regarding the outlook for increasing democracy and greater respect for human rights. This was probably the result of the breakup of the Soviet Union and the demise of the Communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe. This report is considerably more sober in light of the ethnic, racial and religious conflicts that have followed the collapse of the former Yugoslavia, the former Soviet Union, and central government authority in Somalia. Ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and elsewhere, which the world has witnessed with horror over the past year, represents perhaps the most dramatic and destructive violation of human rights since the end of the Second World War, nearly half a century ago. This morning's New York Times reports a telegram to the Secretary General of the United Nations Boutros Boutros-Ghali, from the High Commissioner on Refugees, a Japanese woman of extraordinary talents, Sadako Ogata, who says the following. I am quoting: "Lots of civilians, women, children and old people, are being killed usually by having their throats cut." This is not a historical document. This is a telegram from the Refugee Commissioner to the Secretary General as of yesterday, late afternoon. To discuss the issues before the subcommittee today, we have a distinguished group of human rights specialists. Our first witness will be the Honorable James K. Bishop, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. Ambassador Bishop is a distinguished foreign service officer who was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights until the change of administration earlier this year. Following Ambassador Bishop's presentation, we will hear from Mr. James O'Dea, Director of the Washington Office of Amnesty International; Ms. Holly Burkhalter, Washington Director of Human Rights Watch. Before turning to my good friend and distinguished colleague from Nebraska, the ranking Republican of this subcommittee, I would like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of the bipartisan staff of this subcommittee in the preparation of this hearing. I particularly want to express my personal appreciation to Dr. Bob King, Chief of Staff of this subcommittee. Congressman Bereuter. Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is important to take a few minutes to set the context of the report that we are receiving and reviewing today with the help of some witnesses. It is an opportunity to review the U.S. human rights policy in general and to take a closer look at the recently released Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1992. This is the 17th Annual Report by the State Department, and there is a general consensus that the quality and the breadth of these reports has significantly improved over the years. The Country Report is now generally considered an authoritative source book in human rights conditions around the world. I join the chairman in commending the State Department for the continued progress in preparing this report. Like the chairman also, I note in this year's report an overall change in tone. For the last several years, the Country Reports have conveyed a sense of dramatic improvement approaching mild euphoria over the changes in Central Europe and the former Soviet Republics, as well as positive changes in longstanding trouble spots such as Nicaragua, Golan, South Africa. Unfortunately this enthusiasm was closer to being appropriate at the time than it is now. For while there are still many positive trends in international human rights behavior, the overall picture is far from rosy. 1992 witnesses the return of concentration camps, systematic raping of Moslem women in Bosnia, and the introduction of the term "ethnic cleansing" into the lexicon of man's inhumanity to man. Because of the nightly news, we have all become better acquainted with the tragic events and conditions in Bosnia and Somalia. But there are countless other trouble areas where the television cameras have not been able to provide coverage. There is, for example, a bloody junta in the North African country of Sudan that is implementing a policy designed to exterminate much of the native population. Conditions in Sudan are every bit as horrendous as conditions in Somalia, even worse because the Sudanese Government has effectively crippled international humanitarian assistance. In Burma we have slave labor working to build roads to reach tourist spots. The students who in 1990 were arrested during democratic protests are now slaving on construction crews so that the Burmese Government can build an international vacation spot. I would also mention Tajikistan, where as many as 100,000 people have, over the course of a few months, lost their lives in a bloody civil war between Islamic fundamentalists and the unrepentant hard-line Communists. Nor should the world forget about the Kurds in Northern Iraq, or the Shiites, including the Marsh Arabs, from the southern portion of Iraq. I have seen some satellite imagery of what is happening in the Marsh area in southern Iraq. From week to week, you can see how villages along the causeways have been destroyed, homes are being systematically burned out, the U.N. enforced nofly zone notwithstanding. It has become quite clear that Saddam Hussein has a carefully orchestrated campaign to eliminate all centers of opposition among the Shiite population in southern Iraq. Indeed, as the Country Reports point out, the Iraqi Prime Minister was video taped last year giving instructions to his generals to wipe out at least three Shiite Marsh Arab tribes. The subsequent attacks by the Iraqi armed forces resulted in thousands of casualties. These attacks were followed by widespread arrests and execution of Shiite civilians. For example, the Country Report goes on to note that 2,500 men, women and children from the Al-Keba'ish Marsh were rounded up and taken to a military detention camp last summer. A prisoner who managed to escape has relayed horrifying tales of groups of 100 being taken out and shot every night. Mr. Chairman, the Human Rights Country Report makes for terrible reading, but useful because it underscores the depth of human rights problems worldwide. It is hard to convey graphically what has happened without having a report of this size. I would urge those who are being asked to serve in the Clinton administration to read the Country Reports with great care. I know they will. This is an eye-opening report. It is illuminating, and, Mr. Chairman, it conveys forcefully the details and locations of thousands of human rights tragedies that occur each and every day around the globe. I conclude by joining you in welcoming Ambassador Bishop and our other witnesses here today. Thank you. Mr. LANTOS. Thank you very much, Congressman Bereuter. You have been a strong champion of human rights during your entire congressional career. And I am delighted to share responsibility with you for this subcommittee. I would like to call on my good friend and great colleague in the cause of human rights, Congressman Sawyer. Mr. SAWYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do not have an opening statement this morning, but I want to thank you and our Ranking Member for your leadership. You really are a model, not only within this institution, but literally around the globe for the kind of attention that we all need to pay to the subject matter of this morning's hearing and the overarching concerns that it represents for this entire committee and this legislative body. I have another hearing I am going to have to chair later on this morning, but just let me conclude by saying the material that is being brought before us today ought to be required reading for every member of this Congress. Thank you. Mr. LANTOS. Thank you very much. I have fought together with my friend from New Jersey on human rights causes across this globe and I am delighted to call on him. Congressman Smith of New Jersey. Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I want to join my other colleagues in welcoming Ambassador Bishop to this important hearing. Let me also say, Mr. Chairman, you too have been an outstanding leader on behalf of human rights worldwide, especially in Europe, especially in Eastern Europe. And we have traveled together to a number of countries from Lithuania to the Soviet Union, to Romania, pressing the human rights cause. And if there is anything that is more true today, it is that human rights are indivisible. And we need to look without rose-colored glasses at every country of the world regardless of its form of government. And I think strongly, that we must condemn those human rights practices that violate individual people and groups of people, regardless of where they take place. I think this can be said with strong fervor with regards to China, where we have been in one accord, Democrats and Republicans, speaking out against the abuses, whether it be in the area of religious repression, the atrocities committed against those pro-democracy people, who suffered the cruelty of Tiananmen Square, or in the area of the coercion in the ongoing population control program in China, which unfortunately gets short shrift sometimes by some in the area of human rights advocacy. So I want to welcome our distinguished Ambassador. The Country Reports on Human Rights remains the very important collection of human rights practices globally and is the source for all of us for an evaluation, country by country, of how well the world is doing in the area of human rights. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. And look forward to Ambassador Bishop's testimony. Mr. LANTOS. Thank you, Congressman Smith. Mr. Ambassador, we are delighted to have you. Your prepared statement will be entered in the record in its entirety. You may proceed any way you choose. STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES K. BISHOP, ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF STATE Mr. BISHOP. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Members of the committee. I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss the latest submission to the Congress of our Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. We are very proud of this document and what I have heard this morning from the Members of the committee makes me all the prouder. I hope that you will continue to agree that it has come to be well respected around the globe. For that reason and because the report is the collective work of hundreds of dedicated Foreign Service officers, it is a particular honor to represent the State Department at this hearing on the report. |