Mr. HYDE. Mr. Belli, I appreciate your painful situation in exile from your own country, your homeland, and I understand why. Some day you and I will look up in the Good Book that line in Isaiah that says, "Beware of false shepherds who enter not through the gates but over the wall."

We will commiserate on that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. GEJDENSON. The activism of the church in Latin America has been something that has been much more visible over the last decade. Do any of you see a kind of retrenchment in the church, either because of discrimination or other directives, that there might be some reduction in level of church activity on behalf of the poor in Latin America? You might quickly comment on that.

Reverend. HEHIR. My impression of both the church's mind of its own ministry, of the kind of support it received from the Holy See in that ministry and my contacts with people who visit here from the church in Latin America, all would lead me to think that what one has seen over the past 10 to 15 years will definitely continue in Latin America. I think people feel they are doing the work of the church and doing it well. There are mistakes made but you are asking for a general thrust, and I think the general thrust will be very similar to what we have seen.

Mr. DEKKER. Speaking from the Protestant side, I think what will happen is that the interest and activity will continue but the euphoria that some people were living under during the time of the postearthquake, for example, will be disappearing and that much activity will be carried on under clandestine situations.

Ms. GRIESGRABER. I would agree with Father Hehir that the general trend of religious activism would continue. I would note that probably we would see among the Pentecostalism as a phenomenon in the church that probably it will evolve from this individual theology toward one which encompasses social responsibility and therefore toward activism and thus loose some of the special benefit it gains from a certain protection received from certain governments.

Mr. BELLI. A development we see in Latin America is the social concern of the church turning to the presentation of a partisan view, to an umbrella of what's really Marxism-Leninism in disguise. If you analyze the bulk of what is being presented today in Latin America under the heading of liberation theology, you really will find, that mostly in the practical field, it is Marxism-Leninism disguised as Christianity.

The church has to make an option for the poor, they say and this option for the poor has to be very concrete. It should not be an abstract option. It means taking sides with the poor, which implies taking sides with a group that represents the poor and this party or groups who are representatives of the poor happens to be only the Marxist-Leninist movement.

The falseness of this approach, the one-sidedness of this approach, becomes evident when you see the standards that they apply to violations of human rights. If they come from communist countries, they are treated in soft terms. If there are other regimes involved, violations are overemphasized. You will hardly find any

criticism of violations of human rights in Cuba among the groups that advocate revolution.

All this is a distortion of the gospel, a distortion of the teaching of the church. It is clearly against what the Holy Father stated in Pueblo, when he said that "Jesus Christ could not be reduced to the level of a political fighter: that the church could not reduce its mission to just preaching a worldly or secular kind of message or a political dimension." Yet this is what radical theologians are doing, they use rosy words to speak about the "option for the poor," but what is really going on is a conspiracy against the church.

The church legitimately defends the rights of the poor but we cannot use the church to cover up what it is a Marxist-Leninist group inside the church.

Mr. GEJDENSON. Thank you very much. I think maybe the lesson for our country is if we lent our support not just to the church but to others seeking a change in the climate of injustice, intolerance and inequity that has existed throughout Latin America, as an alternative to the Marxists, maybe fewer people would turn to Marxism.

Thank you.

[Whereupon, at 5:05 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION AS A VIOLATION OF

HUMAN RIGHTS

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1982

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, D.C.

The committee met in open markup session at 9:45 a.m., in room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Clement J. Zablocki (chairman of the committee) presiding.

Chairman ZABLOCKI. We meet this morning to consider various bills and resolutions reported from the subcommittees to the full committee.

Mr. Bonker, the gentleman from Washington, will please explain House Concurrent Resolution 433.

Mr. BONKER. I will be happy to, Mr. Chairman.

The Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Organizations has attempted to take a more realistic approach to America's human rights policy. We have tried to avoid singling out various countries as human rights violators. We have conducted hearings on a regional basis, so that we can explore human rights conditions and U.S. policy in various areas around the world.

One of our real achievements has been to look at human rights in this special manner. We did this in the last session of Congress in a series of hearings on the problem of disappearances as a human rights violation. As a result we were able to call worldwide attention to that human rights problem.

We added language to the Foreign Assistance Act, sections 502(B) and 116, that placed disappearances with other categories that describe human rights violations. We also instructed our delegation to the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva to set up a special working group to deal with the problem of disappearances.

In this session of Congress, we conducted a series of hearings on the problem of religious persecution. I would like to note that we stayed away from the problem of trying to define religious freedom and religious intolerance, which are much broader in scope. By these hearings we identified another aspect of human rights violation, and religious persecution very much falls into that category. The subcommittee conducted nine hearings. We have looked at various problems of religious persecution, notably the church in Latin America and Asia, the Baha'is in Iran, the Falashas in Ethiopia, the Copts in Egypt, the Pentacostals and other Christians in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, as well as the Jews in the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc countries. We have really tried to

identify those areas where religious persecution is a human rights problem.

The resolution that is before us cites numerous references to the fundamental rights of religious freedom in international and national laws. From the testimony that was presented to the subcommittee, the resolution cites numerous examples of religious persecution that exist in different parts of the world.

The resolution, in its operative clause, calls upon the President and other officials representing the United States to work for the establishment of a working group on the elimination of all forms of religious persecution and discrimination at the 39th session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.

I might add that in a subcommittee hearing last week, we heard from the Chief of the U.S. delegation to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, Mr. Michael Novak, as well as Mr. Schifter, concerning this matter, and the delegation fully intends to pursue the problem of religious persecution. It would indeed support this resolution which would raise the issue at the 39th session.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to commend the ranking minority member, Mr. Leach, who has been very helpful in participating in these hearings and in assisting with drafting the resolution that is before the full committee today.

Mr. ZABLOCKI. The Chair will ask the chief of staff to read House Concurrent Resolution 433, so that we can go into further discussion and amendments.

Mr. BRADY [reading]:

House Concurrent Resolution 433, a resolution condemning all forms of religious persecution and discrimination as a violation of human rights.

Whereas the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Final

Mr. BONKER. Mr. Chairman.

Chairman ZABLOCKI. The gentleman from Washington.

Mr. BONKER. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be considered as read, and open for amendment.

Chairman ZABLOCKI. Is there objection?
The Chair hears none. It is so ordered.1
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Chairman.

Chairman ZABLOCKI. The gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Hamilton. Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Bonker, I think you have an excellent resolution, and I certainly intend to support it. I did have some question in my mind about one of the whereas clauses. I would like to call your attention to it and ask if you might be willing to delete that whereas clause for the reasons that I will go into here.

The whereas clause I refer to is on page 3, and it refers to Egypt. It is a brief one, it says: "Whereas in Egypt, the head of the Coptic Christians is under house arrest and some of his followers have been jailed." I think that may be an accurate statement, but there are some mitigating circumstances here that I think all of us should be aware of.

First of all, to include Egypt in a list of countries that are specifically named, such as Iran, Albania, Korea, the U.S.S.R., Eastern Europe, and Ethiopia, seems to me to put Egypt into a company of

1 See app. 26.

nations with which it really does not belong when you are considering the questions of human rights.

I don't want to say that their record is perfect by any means. It is not. But they have had some very special problems, and they are sensitive to the problems of human rights.

My understanding is that most all of the Coptic Christians have been released at this point. The Pope of the Coptic Christians is still being detained, but when I was in Cairo with some other members of this committee just a few weeks ago, we had the assurances of the Egyptian Government that the Coptic Pope would be released within a short period of time.

It seems to me that the best way to handle this problem is to continue to do as we have been doing, which is use quiet pressure through the ordinary channels of diplomacy. That approach has been successful in making considerable progress in getting the release of some of the Coptic Christians who were detained, and we now have the assurances of the Egyptian Government that the Pope himself will be released.

Since that approach has been working and is working, and since we have that assurance of a country which is a close friend of ours in the Middle East, I think Egypt would be quite offended to find themselves in the company of these other nations that are specifically named. So I wonder if the gentleman would be willing to strike that particular whereas clause.

Mr. HYDE. Would the gentleman yield for just a moment on that point?

Mr. HAMILTON. Yes; I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. HYDE. I thank my friend for yielding.

I have an amendment at the desk to do that, but I want to join Mr. Hamilton in asking the sponsors to do that by agreement. We should be very mindful of the fact that politics and religion in that part of the world is about as sensitive a subject as you can discuss. In Iran, religious fundamentalism is one of the great problems of our time. It touches all of the surrounding area. In Lebanon, the fights between the Christian Phalangists and the Moslems might very well bring down that government and that whole part of the world. So Egypt is tremendously sensitive to the blurring of the lines between politics and religion.

Within that context, while recognizing that Pope Shenouda is being held and we wish he weren't, we have to exercise some judgment on the situation and not characterize Egypt in the same class as the Soviet Union, Albania, North Korea, Iran, and Ethiopia. I would urge on you to do what Mr. Hamilton has suggested.

Chairman ZABLOCKI. Would the gentleman from Indiana yield? Mr. HAMILTON. Yes; I yield to the chairman.

Chairman ZABLOCKI. I want to join the gentleman from Indiana and the gentleman from Illinois in their comments. I support the amendment to delete the reference to Egypt from the resolution. As the gentleman from Indiana has reported, Egypt has taken steps to correct the matter, and Pope Shenoud will hopefully be released in the foreseeable future. I would hope that the sponsors would agree to delete that particular whereas clause.

Mr. FOUNTAIN. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. HAMILTON. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.