Mr. HYDE. I just asked a question. I am not criticizing. I just want to know.

Mr. BONKER. This is not the end of the Earth. Only culmination of the hearings on religious persecution and this resolution presented to the subcommittee reflects the evidence presented to us. I don't know whether we will have hearings on religious persecution again next year. This subcommittee might not even be in existence next year; I don't know, but I think as a result of our yearlong work we ought to have a resolution and you are free to offer amendments at any time.

Mr. HYDE. I am merely seeking information. I am not in the least critical of what you are doing or the rational for it. I am merely trying to find out what we are doing and why we are doing it; that is all. I have no criticism at all of your intentions. I merely underscore-I take this seriously. I take the resolution seriously. It is not just a suggestion. We are talking about a terribly important subject: religious persecution.

It just seems to me in talking specifically about a few countries, somehow we have a feeling of a need for completeness on such important topic. I have nothing further.

Mr. BONKER. Is there any objection to including the "Whereas" section on the Coptics that will read: "Whereas in Egypt, the head of the Coptic Christians is under house arrest and some of his followers have been jailed"?

Mr. HYDE. If I objected, would you then move it?

Mr. BONKER. Yes.

Mr. HYDE. I would like to object, but I don't want to be obstructionist. I do object.

Mr. BONKER. I move for adoption of the amendment concerning the Coptic Church.

Mr. HYDE. Could we have a rollcall on that?

Mr. BONKER. A rollcall has been requested.

Of those present, Mr. Leach?

Mr. LEACH. "Aye."

Mr. BONKER. Mr. Hyde.

Mr. HYDE. "No."

Mr. BONKER. Mr. Gejdenson.

Mr. GEJDENSON. "Aye."

Mr. BONKER. And Mr. Bonker votes "Aye." The amendment is adopted.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Chairman, I think it may be appropriate, for the record, in adopting this amendment and in understanding some of Mr. Hyde's concerns to read a paragraph from the State Department "Country Report on Human Rights Practices" that will put this in a little milder context.

Let me quote two sentences which read:

While there are instances of individual discrimination against Copts on the part of Egypt's Muslim majority, there is no evidence of officially inspired or sanctioned acts of discrimination against the Copts or other religious minorities. The large Coptic minority continues to participate fully in the life of the country.

I think it is fair to put that on the record of the subcommittee at the same time we adopt language critical of the situation affecting a few.

Mr. BONKER. Thank you, Mr. Leach.

The only other amendment to the resolution before us concerns the "Whereas" section of the Soviet Union, concerning the Christians and Jews. Staff recommends that we include the Pentecostal as a specific reference since we did devote considerable time in hearings on the plight of the Pentecostals in Moscow. They are, of course, Christians. I just wonder if the situation deserves special reference in the resolution.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Chairman, perhaps I could offer language that would read: "Christians, especially Pentecostals."

Mr. HYDE. Otherwise, there might be an impression that they have left the Christian belief and they might resent that. Mr. LEACH. That would be a way of handling it.

Mr. BONKER. The chairman will also ask if there is any objection to removing the "Whereas" clause on South Africa. If not, it is so ordered.

Are there further comments or suggestions or amendments to the resolution before us?

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Chairman, I commend you and the staff, both minority and majority, in that order, for a most useful undertaking and resolution. I would ask that Congressman John Porter be added as a cosponsor. Congressman Porter's initiative I think started this inquiry, or at least he was one of the earlier underscorers of this very serious situation and I request that he be added as a cosponsor.

Mr. BONKER. Without objection, that will be done.

Mrs. FENWICK. I, too, would like to be included.

Mr. BONKER. That will be done.

Would you like to be included, Mr. Hyde?

Mr. HYDE. Except for the Egyptian reference, I would be glad to. Other than that, I think it is a great resolution.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Chairman, I move adoption.

Mr. GEJDENSON. I second the motion.

Mr. BONKER. All those in favor say "Aye." Opposed "No".

The resolution passes.1

We will move quickly to the second resolution so we can get to our hearing. That concerns the Bingham and Pritchard resolution on expanding the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice.2

Today's hearing is the eighth in a series on "Religious Persecution as a Violation of Human Rights." Over the past year, the Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Organizations has examined many examples of religious persecution, including the Baha'is in Iran, the Christians and Jews in the Soviet Union, the Copts in Egypt, the Falashas in Ethiopia, and the Presbyterians in Korea and Taiwan. This afternoon we will be examining the plight of the Christian Church in Latin America.

The issue of the repression of the church in Latin America is of particular interest to me because several American priests and

1 H. Con. Res. 428, as amended, and reintroduced as H. Con. Res. 433 and amended and reintroduced as H. Con. Res. 434, was passed by unanimous voice vote by the House of Representatives on December 17, 1982.

2 Markup on H. Con. Res. 86 is printed separately as "To Establish a Special Committee on Advisory Opinions from the World Court."

nuns have themselves been the victims of murderous repression-2 years ago, four U.S. churchwomen: Maryknoll Sisters Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel, and lay missionary Jean Donovan were brutally murdered by Salvadoran soldiers. Over 1 year ago when the then-President Duarte appeared before the Foreign Affairs Committee, I asked him about the status of the investigation and prosecution of those responsible for the murders. To this day there has been no investigation of the high-level officers who may have ordered their murders, and no prosecution or conviction of the soldiers who actually carried out those orders. The tragic assassination of Archbishop Romero illustrates the problems of the church vividly.

In nearby Guatemala, two American priests were assassinated: Father Stanley Rother in August 1981 and Brother James Miller in February 1982. Both of these men worked with indigenous communities in rural Guatemala, and both were gunned down by "death squads." A Mennonite missionary, John Troyer, was also killed by unidentified gunmen. Eight Guatemalan priests and dozens of Catholic catechists were victims of government violence last year. The Catholic Church has experienced similar repression in Chile and Brazil. In these countries, the church has emerged as an advocate for the poor, the oppressed, and the tortured.

In Nicaragua, church activities were restricted under the Somoza dictatorship, and priests and nuns were persecuted. I am concerned that church-state relations continue to be tense under the Sandinista government. Prominent clerics have been attacked, the church's access to the media is restricted, and there is an increasing tendency to substitute mob rule for dialog and discourse. And the Moravian Church, an important advocate for the Miskito Indians who have been subject to relocation by the Nicaraguan authorities, is under increasing pressure.

Because of our close proximity to our Latin American neighbors, relations between U.S. church groups and Catholic and Protestant churchworkers in Latin America have been particularly close. We are honored to have with us today several distinguished representatives of the U.S. church community who have close ties with their Latin American coreligionists.

Mr. Gejdenson, would you please assume the chairmanship?
Mr. GEJDENSON. Father Hehir, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF REV. J. BRYAN HEHIR, OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE AND PEACE, U.S. CATHOLIC CONFERENCE Reverend HEHIR. I testify today on behalf of the U.S. Catholic Conference, the public policy agency of the Catholic bishops of the United States. I am accompanied by Thomas Quigley, adviser for Latin American Affairs at the USCČ. I want to express our appreciation not only for the opportunity to testify again in this important series on religious persecution as a violation of human rights but appreciation as well for the signal importance of this subcommittee.

Furthermore, let me express my appreciation, after 10 years of experience working with this committee, for the work it has done. Cardinal Dearden of Detroit, representing the Catholic bishops tes

tified at the first of the hearings of Congressman Fraser, and we have found this subcommittee an enormously valuable voice for human rights in international affairs, and we are very grateful for the opportunity to be able to come before it again and again on a variety of issues, from Eastern Europe through East Asia, Latin America, and the functional role of human rights in U.S. foreign policy.

Mr. Chairman, in the general hearings of this subcommittee, in defining the right of religious liberty I appeared at the first hearing, and I tried at that time to indicate something that will be important to my remarks this afternoon; and that is, the way the right of religious freedom is defined within the Catholic church. Religious freedom is not understood simply as a personal right but it is also a social and corporate right of religious organizations. Religious freedom is not exhausted by the right to worship. It also includes the right of the church to function in a social way, and particularly the right of the church to announce the gospel in support of human rights and human dignity.

Religious freedom is connected integrally with a whole range of human rights. The right of religious freedom is the right to speak on a whole range of human rights. In Latin America today the right of religious freedom as it affects the Catholic church is not principally the question of whether the Catholic church can worship in Latin America. In some other places in the world that is the principal issue. In Latin America it is precisely the social expression of the right of religious freedom which is the key issue. The role of the church, in the words of the Vatican Council, is to stand as the sign and safeguard of the transcendent dignity of the human person. And that task of standing as the sign and safeguard of the transcendent dignity of the human person involves the church in a whole range of other human rights concerns, in exactly the same way that the church in Poland expressing the right of religious freedom must stand in the name of other human rights, like the right of working people to organize.

This testimony about the church in Latin America and human rights is held on a symbolically important day. Tomorrow we commemorate in the church the death of four American missionaries in El Salvador. In a certain sense this testimony can be offered as a tribute to their lives and the lives of other Catholic missionaries in Latin America who daily serve the gospel by serving the poor, and who daily risk their lives in many instances precisely because of their religious conviction and their service to the poor.

In the universal church, the church's teaching on religious freedom and human rights is based in a conviction about the dignity of the human person, the person who is the expression of the image of God. In the universal church that teaching on human rights, that Biblical teaching, is elaborated from Pius XII to John Paul II. There is hardly any theme in Catholic theology that has received more attention from the papacy since Pius XII than the question of human rights, extending from the rights of the unborn through social and economic rights to the right to live in human decency in any society under any government.

Very explicitly the Vatican Council of the church said, in paragraph 76 of the "Constitution on the Modern World" that the task

of the church is to stand as a sign and safeguard of the dignity of the human person. To do that means one has to be involved in a whole range of human rights questions. There is no place in the world, there is no regional part of the universal church where the language of Vatican II has been taken more expressly and decisively into action than the church in Latin America. It has taken the task of standing as the sign and safeguard of the human person, and that has brought it directly into the whole range of social, political, and economic rights that affected the dignity of the person. From the time of the Medellin Conference in 1968 through the Puebla Conference in 1979, the church in Latin America has defined its role as an active role in the transformation of society. It has identified systemic bases for human rights violations, rooted in long-term injustice and human rights violations in the social and economic order.

The church has explicitly said that its work is to make a preferential option for the poor, to stand for those who have no voice. And so the life of the church in the last 15 years in Latin America has been a dramatic story, where the life of the church, the right of religious liberty and protection and promotion of human dignity and other human rights are integrally entwined.

In our testimony we have looked at three cases that are designed to span geographically the sections of Latin America and to span chronologically the last 15 years. We have looked at the church in Brazil, the church in Chile, and the church in Central America. In those three cases we draw three points.

First, the church has been the voice of those who have no voice. That is where it has meant to make a preferential option for the poor, that the church has spoken for those who cannot speak in social and political orders because they simply do not have institutional representation in a way that allows effective protection of human rights. The church has continuously expressed itself in support of them.

Second, the church has suffered, does suffer direct, if at times selective, persecution precisely because of its defense of human rights. The Latin American church lists martyrs in the precise definition of that term over the past 15 years.

Third, we want to stress that outside actors like the policy of the U.S. Government, like the activity of the church in the United States, can be helpful in ameliorating the human rights situation in Latin America and, therefore, stand in support of the church's exercise of religious freedom and ministry thereof.

The Brazilian case, it was the first church to encounter the emergence in the early sixties of the authoritarian military governments that swept across Latin America from the early sixties through the midseventies.

In Latin America those kinds of governments are called governments of the national security state. The Brazilian church was among the first to tie directly the protection and promotion of human rights to the ministry of the church. Today, questions of human rights suppression are less visible in Brazil than they were in the seventies, but they are still present and the Brazilian church continues to press them.