PREPARED STATEMENT OF ARYEH NEIER, Vice Chairman, Americas Watch

My name is Aryeh Neier. I am Vice Chairman of the

Mr.

Americas Watch, Vice Chairman of the Helsinki Watch, and Adjunct Professor of Law at New York University. I appear here today on behalf of the Americas Watch. Chairman, as requested in your letter inviting me to testify at this hearing, I will review U.S. policy on

torture.

Mr.

Chairman, in my view, the most effective ways

in which the United States can combat the widespread use of torture is by exposing the practice, condemning it ourselves, and by effectively organizing international condemnation of torture. commit the United States to follow this policy. They create the office of Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights to place someone in charge of this effort; they require that reports should be published annually every country chronicling their practices; they

The laws of the United States

require that the United States should deny military assistance and arms sales to governments that consistently practice torture; they require that the United States should deny most forms of economic assistance to governments that consistently practice torture; and they require that the United States should not support multi-lateral development bank loans to governments that consistently practice

torture.

Regrettably, some of these laws have been honored principally in the breach. Limiting myself to the Western hemisphere which is monitored by the Americas Watch, the present Administration has repeatedly violated the laws requiring us not to aid militarily, economically or through support of multilateral loans such governments as those in Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Paraguay and Uruguay, where torture is regularly practiced. Equally bad, in an attempt to justify its violations of these laws, the present Administration has frequently put itself into a position where it denies or belittles the evidence that torture is

practiced.

In

Consider the case of Guatemala. Over the past two years, torture in Guatemala has been documented in several lengthy reports published by the Americas Watch. addition, Amnesty International and the Organization of American States' InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights have documented the extensive use of torture in Guatemala.

Under the previous Administration, all U. S. aid to

Guatemala was terminated and the U. S. opposed multilateral

development bank loans to Guatemala. The present

Administration, on the other hand, reversed U.S. policy.

More

In its first year, it sold trucks and jeeps to Guatemala and purported to get around U.S. law by reclassifying this equipment as something other than security assistance. recently, the Administration dropped this pretense and openly sold equipment to Guatemala for military purposes. In addition, the present Administration has supported multilateral development bank loans to Guatemala. In 1983, for example, these included one loan for $20.5 million and another for $50 million.

To justify this support for Guatemala, in December 1982 President Reagan characterized accounts of abuses in as torture as "a bum rap;" in May 1983,

Guatemala such

Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, Elliott

Abrams, dismissed accounts of abuses such as torture as the tales of "guerrilla sympathizers;" and in January 1984,

Abrams proclaimed publicly

-

against all the evidence

that the U. S. saw great improvements in the human rights

situation in Guatemala.

What happened in this instance, apparently,

is that the Administration determined that its policies in

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Central America would be furthered if the U. S. provided military and economic support to Guatemala. A difficulty

in implementing this policy was created by the reports by human rights organizations that torture and other gross human rights abuses are consistently practiced in Guatemala. A further difficulty was created by U. S. laws which would prohibit the aid that the Administration wanted to provide to Guatemala if those reports by human rights organizations Accordingly, the Administration solved the

are true.

problem by disputing the truth of the reports of torture and other gross violations of human rights in Guatemala.

Unfortunately, the solution hit upon by the

Administration does a disservice to the cause of human

rights and to efforts to wipe out practices such as torture. Far from exposing torture, condemning it ourselves and organizing international condemnation, the Administration has put itself into a position where it denies the practice, condemns those who condemn it, and fights efforts to organize international condemnation. The Administration's representative at the United Nations, Ambassador Jeane

Kirkpatrick has distinguished herself as a leader in

combatting efforts to condemn abuses such as torture.

The least bad part of the present Administration's performance has been in the preparation and publication of the annual country reports on human rights. Though these are seriously flawed* and the language that is chosen to characterize reports of torture often varies depending on whether the country is allied to the United States, they reflect a conscientious effort to collect information and, because of their comprehensiveness, they are an invaluable

resource.

Regrettably, despite the information assembled in the country reports, it is virtually impossible to find any example in which the U. S. has publicly condemned torture in a country allied with the United States and no example comes to mind in which the U.S. has organized international condemnation of torture in such a country. I am aware, of course, that the Administration says it favors quiet diplomacy with friendly nations and I believe that quiet diplomacy is frequently the best method to promote human rights in a particular case. To the best of my knowledge, the Administration effectively acts in many particular cases through the use of quiet diplomacy and it deserves

commendation for these efforts.

*

See "Critique: Review of the Department of State's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1983," Americas Watch, Helsinki Watch, Lawyers Committee for International Human Rights, March 1984, 84 pp.