But, that phenomenon in which guerrilla groups, for the most part, communist guerrilla groups, seek to create chaos and, in a sense, to elicit repression on the part of the government. That, I think, is a phenomenon.

They want other people tortured.

Mr. LEACH. I agree with that completely.

Mr. KOSTMAYER. In your judgment.

Mr. ABRAMS. Oh, yes.

Mr. LEACH. I wouldn't differ with that analysis.

Mr. SOLOMON. Could I reclaim what little of my time I have left? Just to answer my colleague from Pennsylvania, I too, was in El Salvador.

Not too long ago, I spent a number of days there in which we traveled extensively out into the boondocks, so to speak, and met with campesino farmers.

I recall vividly Berlin, the city of Berlin, which had been overrun about a week before by the Communist guerrillas. They had blown up the only medical store, the only hospital in Berlin at that time. They had destroyed the waterworks. They had just demolished the power station serving that city.

The guerrillas left the city in a deplorable state. And time after time, just plain people would talk about having been taken prisoner and tortured by the guerrillas. And, then let go.

It was almost as if they were let go so that they would go back and then create some kind of activity in which right wing death squads would go out and retaliate in some way.

I found this time and time again. And one thing that just irks me, Mr. Secretary, I know it's not your fault, but we never read very much about these kind of guerrilla atrocities coming from the left. I know it's difficult for organizations like Amnesty International and others to even develop information on this because they don't have an entity to go to. These activities are hidden and really don't exist except when guerrillas are doing these things.

Mr. KOSTMAYER. Will the gentleman yield for a question?
Mr. SOLOMON. I'll be glad to.

Mr. KOSTMAYER. Does the gentleman from New York see a distinction between atrocities committed by groups such as the guerrillas in El Salvador and-I agree with the gentleman that they do commit atrocities and I share his condemnation of them-and between groups that the United States receives aid from, such as other governments in Guatemala, to say, which would engage in systematic torture?

Mr. SOLOMON. No, I don't think that any of us can condone torture or human rights violations of any kind. And, certainly I don't. But my point is that I gave to this subcommittee about 6 months ago, documented evidence which was produced from a compilation of radio broadcasts from Radio Havana and from Radio Sandino in Nicaragua. These broadcasts revealed that Communist guerrillas had taken credit for over 10,000 rapes and murders and tortures, in El Salvador.

The point I'm trying to make is that in El Salvador, it is not the Government that condones the rightwing death squads. It is not the army that condones it. When you have these things happening, you have local militia who are involved. This is what I ran into in

El Salvador, a local militiaman whose daughter or wife may have been accosted by the Communist guerrillas.

Well, he's not going to forget that. That local militia man becomes a right wing death squad member. He goes out and he's going to kill somebody, he's going to take somebody's life.

I really think that we ought to take these provocations into consideration because they do affect our quiet diplomacy policy.

Mr. ABRAMS. If I could just add one point, Mr. Kostmayer, in the Kissinger Report, there is a quote on exactly this point from Carlos Montigella, who is a Brazilian revolutionary, who wrote the manual of the Urban Guerrilla, about this question of trying to bring chaos and elicit repression from the government as a way of gaining support for the guerrilla groups.

I don't have a page number, I'm afraid.

Mr. SOLOMON. I have no further questions, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. YATRON. Thank you, Mr. Solomon.

I want to say thank you very much for being here today. Although we may disagree from time to time on policy, I want to say that you have been very cooperative and very helpful to the subcommittee, and we appreciate your cooperation.

Mr. ABRAMS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. YATRON. Our next witness is Aryeh Neier, vice chairman of Helsinki Watch.

Mr. Neier, will you please proceed?

STATEMENT OF ARYEH NEIER, VICE CHAIRMAN, HELSINKI

WATCH

Mr. NEIER. Mr. Chairman, if I may, I'd like to submit my prepared statement for the record, and comment briefly.

Mr. YATRON. Without objection.

Mr. NEIER. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I was asked to talk today about U.S. policy to combat torture. It seems to me this is a very important issue.

In a sense, the United States has very firm and very clear policies.

Those policies are embodied in the laws of the United States. We have created the post of Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights to put someone in charge of the effort to promote human rights and to deal with such practices as torture.

Our laws require preparation of reports on each country in the world, documenting the extent to which they engage in such practices as torture. Our laws also require that a number of the programs of the United States in dealing with foreign countries be designed so as to limit the support the United States gives to countries that engage in practices such as torture.

The laws of the United States require that we cut off military aid and military sales to countries that consistently engage in torture. The laws of the United States require that we cut off most forms of economic aid to countries that consistently engage in torture.

The laws of the United States require that we not support multilateral development loans to countries that consistently engage in torture.

Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, in the tenure of the present administration, these laws have primarily been honored in the breach.

When the administration took office, it reversed U.S. policy with respect to a number of the countries which have consistently engaged in torture. For example, the United States has provided various forms of economic aid, military aid, or support for multilateral development loans to countries such as Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Uruguay, Paraguay, which have systematically engaged in torture over a number of years.

This is extremely unfortunate in our view. It's unfortunate, first, because it puts the United States in the position of disregarding its own laws. As a society which believes in law, and believes that the rule of law should be advanced worldwide, for the United States to disregard its own laws in this respect is obviously unfortunate.

Second, it puts the administration in a very peculiar position. The most effective ways to try to reduce such abhorrent practices as torture in our view are to expose and condemn the practice, and to organize international condemnation of the practice.

But, in the process of disregarding the laws, the administration has forced itself into a bind. Various human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International or my own organization, the Americas Watch, produce reports documenting torture.

The administration, nevertheless, continues with a policy which involves military aid and military sales and economic support and support for multilateral development loans to such countries despite the U.S. laws requiring that these be ended if the reports that we publish are true.

That puts the administration in the position where it finds itself disputing the reports that we publish, challenging the accuracy of what we have to say about torture.

Accordingly, the administration is in the position where it very frequently says that the evidence we present for practices such as torture is mistaken. It becomes the defender of governments which various reports say have engaged in torture.

There has been discussion of Guatemala this morning. In December 1982, President Reagan met with former President Rios Montt in Honduras and characterized the allegations of human rights abuses in Guatemala, such as torture, is a "bum rap." Mr. Abrams, who just testified, responded to one report which my organization issued, which included a lot of information that had been supplied by Guatemalan refugees in Mexico, and said that the refugees were guerrilla sympathizers.

Somehow, he disposed of a 100,000 people who had fled their homes, implying that they would leave their homes despite the hardship of refugee existence, in order to spread tales about the Guatemalan Government. In order to tell these tales, he also implied that if their views were views that were opposed to the Government, then those views had to be disregarded when they described horrors that they had endured.

More recently, and Mr. Abrams repeated this today, he has responded to reports of human rights abuses in Guatemala by saying that there are great improvements there.

My recollection is that, when the administration took office in 1981, it justified the reversal of U.S. policy with respect to multilateral development bank loans to Guatemala by saying that there were improvements. That was when President Lucas was in office. Then, when President Rios Montt was in office, and the United States sought to provide support, again we were told there were improvements.

Now that General Mejia Victores is in power, again we are told there are improvements. I would think that if there were all these improvements under these three successor Presidents, by now, Guatemala would be something of a human rights paradise.

In fact, it is not. In fact, it is a human rights disaster area. For the United States to provide support, and to disregard our laws puts the administration in the position where, to get around the law, it virtually has to say that these improvements are taking place. That is the only way for the administration to avoid the charge that it is violating the law.

International condemnation of a country that engages in such practices cannot be organized by the United States under such circumstances.

One of the unfortunate elements of this approach is that there are countries which systematically engage in torture which the United States does condemn publicly, and does so very vociferously. Iran is one country where torture is practiced systematically. Mr. Abrams specifically referred to Iran and its practice of torture in his prepared statement.

The United States tries very hard to organize international condemnation of Iran. I strongly support those efforts of the United States and of this administration.

Similarly, Afghanistan is a country where torture is practiced systematically and where the administration tries to organize international condemnation. Again, I support those efforts.

But, the administration hasn't been very effective in organizing international condemnation of Iran and Afghanistan. I believe, that at least, one of the reasons that the administration has been less effective than it should be in organizing condemnation of torture in countries such as Iran and Afghanistan is that the United States is not perceived worldwide as a champion of human rights and as an even-handed country condemning torture wherever it is practiced.

I believe that the United States would be more effective in condemning the practice of torture in countries such as Iran and Afghanistan if the perception of the United States were that it would condemn torture as strongly in Iran and Guatemala, as strongly in Afghanistan and El Salvador.

Unfortunately, that is not the perception of the United States worldwide.

If I may conclude by just discussing briefly one item that came up previously, and that's the question of police training which Mr. Abrams referred to in his remarks.

I have some experience in police training. For a good many years, I conducted training programs at the New York City Police Academy. I was supposed to provide instruction in civil rights and civil liberties for the New York City Police Department.

My experience at that time was that the influence of the train ing programs was relatively insignificant. What mattered in the New York City Police Department was the leadership in the department.

During part of the period that I was involved in such training programs, the leadership looked the other way with respect to police brutality. Police brutality was then a very serious problem in New York.

Subsequently, we had an administration of the New York City Police Department that was very intent on ending police brutality. The reduction in police brutality was overwhelming. I think the New York City Police Department today reflects that leadership, a leadership that is intent on eliminating police brutality.

I believe that the policies of the Government in charge are so much more significant than how a police force is trained as to make it wishful thinking to believe that we are going to have a significant impact on practices such as torture by supplying some training programs.

With that, let me conclude my opening remarks and respond to such questions as you may have for me.

[Mr. Neier's prepared statement follows:]