INTRODUCTION 1991 HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT This report is submitted to the Congress by the Department of State in compliance with Sections 116(d)(1) and 502B(b) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended.* The legislation requires human rights reports on all countries that receive aid from the United States and all countries that are members of the United Nations. In the belief that the information would be useful to the Congress and other readers, we have also included reports on the few countries which do not fall into either of these categories and which thus are not covered by the Congressional requirement. Congress amended the Foreign Assistance Act with the foregoing sections of law so as to to be able to consult these reports when considering assistance programs for specific foreign countries. One of the very important consequences--perhaps unintended--of these legislative provisions is that they have made human rights concerns an integral part of the State Department's daily reporting and daily decisionmaking. A human rights officer in an Embassy overseas who wants to write a good annual human rights report on the country in which he or she works must carefully monitor and observe human rights developments throughout the year on a daily basis. As a consequence he or she will report on such developments whenever something of human rights significance happens in the country of assignment. In the past 13 years, the State Department has become decidedly better informed on and sensitized to human rights violations as they occur around the globe. * Section 116(d)(1) of the Foreign Assistance Act provides as follows: "The Secretary of State shall transmit to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, by January 31 of each year, a full and complete report regarding... "(1) the status of internationally recognized human rights, within the meaning of subsection (a)... and (A) in countries that received assistance under this part, (B) in all other foreign countries which are members of the United Nations and which are not otherwise the subject of a human rights report under this Act." Section 502(B) (b) of the Foreign Assistance Act provides as follows: "The Secretary of State shall transmit to Congress, as part of the presentation materials for security assistance programs proposed for each fiscal year, a full and complete report, prepared with the assistance of the Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, with respect to practices regarding the observance of and respect for internationally recognized human rights in each country proposed as a recipient of security assistance." (VII) The For most of the Twentieth Century the principal ideological challenge to the cause of democracy and respect for human rights has come from the doctrines laid down and the movement created at the beginning of the century by Vladimir Lenin. horrors of World War II, devastating as they were to those directly affected, were, as to their impact, limited in time and place. It was Lenin and Communism which cast the longest shadow by far, influencing developments across the entire globe decade after decade. Hand in hand with Communism's messianic promise came the dreaded secret police apparatus, whose task it was to repress all dissenting views and thus deprive all those under its rule of basic human rights. In these volumes we have during the last 4 years chronicled the significant changes effected in the state and party created by Lenin, the loosening of totalitarian rule under the leadership of Mikhail S. Gorbachev. We need now to take note of the poignant events of 1991, which brought Lenin's social experiment to an end in the very country which gave it birth. In this account of human rights developments we should take special note of the event on August 22, 1991, when the statue of Felix Dzherzhinsky was toppled from its pedestal in front of the KGB headquarters in Moscow. "Iron Felix,' Lenin's secret police chief and the founder of a network of agents of brutal repression which spanned the globe, and which as late as August 20 had tried to impose its will on the Soviet Union, had finally been removed from his place of honor. It was a symbolic act, but it duly marked the end of an era. Yet, far from its place of birth, Leninism, though in decline, still is the faith in whose name people are being repressed. And there are other less traditional challenges to human rights as well as potential new challenges. Now that the Albanian people have put their country on the road to democracy, the set of beliefs which originated on the European continent and which Stalin dubbed Marxism-Leninism has by and large disappeared from Europe. As a foreign import it survives, however, in China, where it controls the lives of one-fifth of humankind, and in four other countries: North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos. The faith which once inspired the movement is long gone. Communism is today more a system for the exercise of power by aging ruling elites, which are increasingly out of touch with the thinking of their subjects but still try to use the power which they possess to suppress all independent thought. Repressive government is, however, not limited to the countries which still espouse Leninist principles. Dictatorships offering unique ideologies of their own, or no ideology at all, continue to exist. Burma, whose imprisoned popular leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, received the Nobel Peace Prize, attracted particular attention in 1991. So did, of course, the one-man dictatorship of Iraq. These are merely two examples of a category of countries in which, either in the name of a religious or a secular ideology or without any ideological commitment, all opposition to the State and all independent institutions are repressed through a pervasive secret police or domestic spy apparatus which instills fear in the citizenry. Between the totally repressive dictatorships, on the one hand, and the democracies, on the other, there is the vast array of authoritarian regimes, regimes which do not seek to control all forms of social interaction in their countries but which will carefully guard their position and prerogatives against any group that seeks to replace them. The number of regimes in this category is in decline, particularly in Africa, where multiparty democracy and free elections have in a growing number of countries replaced one-man rule and rigged elections. Sub-Saharan Africa continued in 1991 as the region in which democracy and respect for human rights are making new strides forward. Zambia, where a long-established one-party regime was overwhelmingly defeated in a free and fair election, is a particularly noteworthy case in point. Although democracy provides the foundation on which a system of government respectful of human rights can be built, the mere fact that the executive and legislative leaders of a country are chosen in free and fair elections does not necessarily guarantee that the fundamental freedoms and human rights of all citizens will be fully protected. This is particularly true in the absence of an independent judiciary capable of safeguarding the rights of citizens against actions by the executive or legislative branches which are in conflict with internationally recognized human rights standards. The ascendancy of democracy throughout the world is unquestionably good news for human rights. We must note, however, that even democratically elected governments can be guilty of serious human rights violations. New democracies, in particular, may not as yet have the institutional safeguards in place which protect against the arbitrary use of executive power, particularly by security forces. The most common such human rights violations are the use of undue pressure or even torture to obtain confessions from persons suspected of having committed serious crimes, particularly those accused of terrorism. The more serious the terrorist threat, the greater the number of incidents of police abuse. (Police abuse and torture are, of course, also commonplace under authoritarian and totalitarian rule.) In the absence of an independent judiciary and solidly rooted democratic popular instincts in the new democracies, the recent advances are by no means secure. The danger of relapses into authoritarian rule are greatest where the expectations for early economic improvements have been disappointed. The challenge to the world's established democracies is to help those new to the fold to sustain themselves. The sharp decline in the influence of the worldwide Communist movement has not only spelled the end of Leninist dictatorships in many countries but has also caused violent conflicts and human rights abuses based on political ideology to decline worldwide. At the same time, regrettably, we have witnessed an upsurge on all continents of serious armed clashes and human rights abuse stemming from ethnic and religious differences. The creation of mechanisms to help resolve disputes based on ethnicity and religion and efforts to combat intolerance are undoubtedly in the forefront of the challenges now facing the international community. To sum up, the year 1991 was one of great progress for the cause of democracy and human rights worldwide. But the problems faced by the world in consolidating such progress and dealing with old and new threats to fundamental freedoms must not be underestimated. Richard Schifter Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs |