This judgment that we ought to be totally evenhanded in terms of human rights violations between our friends and foes seems to me to be a fairly unrealistic one, frankly.

Idealistic and proper, but it seems to me to violate the human nature. We are not going to treat out friends and our enemies alike, either as a country or as individuals.

If you have a friend and a foe and each make a mistake, you're going to handle them differently, and it seems to me that the human rights movements in this country need to recognize this and come up with an answer which is, I think, more realistic, but which also speaks to solving the problem which I think all of us want to solve.

I say that not by way of criticism.

Mr. NEIER. Mr. Kostmayer, if I may respond to that, I think there are different functions that are performed by human rights groups and that should be performed by a Human Rights Bureau within the administration.

One function is the reportorial function. Simply gathering information. It seems to me that

Mr. KOSTMAYER. I just said something that the gentleman from New York would probably agree with, although I'm sorry that he wasn't here when I said it.

Mr. SOLOMON. I welcome you to repeat it.

Mr. NEIER. It seems to me when you're gathering the information and when you're reporting the information, you have a responsibility to be as evenhanded as is humanly possible and not ever to distort the information.

Then, there is the question of what techniques you pursue to try to secure amelioration? It seems obvious that there are going to be different techniques that are used when a country is a friend or when a country is a foe.

If a country is a foe, and you have virtually no relations, of course, you have no opportunity to deal quietly with that country and to try to seek amelioration in that fashion.

And, so, public statement is the first resort. When you have friendly relations, it is understandable that one would try to deal privately with a country and try to secure amelioration in that fashion before you go public.

But, I think it's when we confuse the technique of amelioration with the duty to report honestly that we get into trouble. It is when you distort your reporting in order to serve your other policies that the worse difficulties take place.

Mr. KOSTMAYER. Well, I agree, I agree entirely with that. I think that the human rights groups have an obligation to report the facts regardless of what country they occur in.

I think you—the Government and the President-obviously operate under some constraints that you don't operate under, and you have a different function than we do. But, your obligation, I think, is to hold us to a higher standard, and I recognize the purpose, and I think it's an important one.

I only wish that we were able to honor that higher standard more frequently than we are, especially our own country. This is why I quarrel with this distinction between friends and foes.

We ought to be the United States ought to be more appalled at human rights violations committed by our friends than by our foes, in my opinion.

Mr. NEIER. I disagree. I think we ought to be equally appalled, regardless of who commits abuses. I think that it's torture we're looking at, in Afghanistan or Guatemala.

Mr. KOSTMAYER. I think we have less control over what's happening in Afghanistan than El Salvador.

Mr. NEIER. We ought to be equally appalled.

Mr. KOSTMAYER. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. YATRON. Thank you.

Mr. Solomon?

Mr. SOLOMON. I would agree with my colleague from Pennsylvania and the gentleman testifying that we should be equally appalled.

I would take some exception, though, with some of your statements. You talk about the administration violating laws that prohibit military and economic assistance to countries, but my question to you is, who provides that assistance?

It isn't the President of the United States; it isn't the administration; it's this gentleman sitting right here, the chairman of our subcommittee. It's this gentleman from Pennsylvania, right here, the gentleman walking out of the door.

We are the ones that provide all this military and economic assistance to all these countries that you're talking about.

So, let's share the blame, OK?

Mr. NEIER. Congressman, I think that's partially correct and partially incorrect.

Mr. SOLOMON. Right. There are exceptions.

Mr. NEIER. It's incorrect in the sense that the Congress does not control the votes on multilateral development bank loans. The Congress does not license arms sales to various countries.

For instance, the recent sale of helicopter spare parts to Guatemala was something that was in the purview of the administration; it's not a question of the Congress having to sell helicopter spare parts to Guatemala.

Indeed the Congress, up to now, has resisted direct aid to Guatemala.

Mr. SOLOMON. There are exceptions on both sides, but I just wanted to make sure that we all share that blame.

And, you also said that-

Mr. NEIER. I'm going to blame quite a few people.

Mr. SOLOMON. You also said that America is not perceived worldwide as a champion of human rights. But where do the defectors, the refugees, the escapees from these repressive regimes, whether they be left or right, where do they want to come?

I've been in Ethiopia and have talked to just plain people. I've been in El Salvador, and in many other places. I don't share your perception at all.

I perceive these people around the world as believing that we are champions of human rights, civil rights, of democracy. And they all want to come here.

Any time Communist insurgents take over a country, 10 percent of the people flee. And where do they want to flee to? The United States.

Mr. NEIER. Congressman, if I may refine the point, it seems to me that it is recognized worldwide that human rights are practiced within the United States.

I think that people do come, and do try to come, to the United States because of that perception. But, it is also perceived worldwide that the United States supports and even sponsors some brutally repressive regimes elsewhere.

And, very often, you have the phenomenon that refugees flee a country that the United States supports that is brutally repressive. Those refugees are simultaneously antagonistic to the United States because of what it has done within their own country, and, yet, they come here because they recognize that the United States practices human rights within the United States.

I think that perception may more accurately characterize the situation than the global perception that you suggested.

Mr. SOLOMON. Well, just in closing, let me say that I think you're partly correct. There is a perception among certain elements who agree with what you said. But by and large, the vast rank and file of people who are right don't accept that, in my opinion.

And, just like there are elements in the United States believe what you said, the vast majority of the American people think that we are champions of human rights. So, it's a question, I guess, of who-what element you're listening to.

And I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. YATRON. Thank you, Mr. Solomon.

Mr. Neier, we thank you very much for coming here today.
Mr. NEIER. Thank you very much.

Mr. YATRON. Our next witnesses will speak as a panel, and they will explain how they have used their knowledge and skills to combat torture.

The witnesses are Juan Gonzalez, a medical doctor from Chile; accompanied by Carlos Trejo, also a medical doctor from Chile. They are both members of the Chilean Medical Association.

Also on the panel are Juan Mendez, director of the Washington office of Americas Watch; Millard Arnold, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, and a board member of numerous human rights organizations; Alexander Voloshanovich, a former Soviet psychiatrist; and Prudencio Baltodano, a victim of torture from Nicaragua.

We say welcome to all of you, and we will lead off with our first witness, Dr. Gonzalez. You may proceed sir. I would like to suggest, if possible, that you could summarize your statements in a few minutes; the entire prepared statement will be included in the record.

If this is at all possible, we would appreciate it.

STATEMENT OF JUAN GONZALEZ, M.D., ACCOMPANIED BY CARLOS TREJOS, M.D., CHILEAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION Dr. GONZALEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My name is Juan Gonzalez. I am the president of the Chilean Medical Association, and a former professor of surgery in the School of Medicine in Santiago, Chile.

I am here on behalf of my association as a request in a letter in writing to testify at this hearing, and I will try to summarize our speech.

Mr. YATRON. Thank you.

Dr. GONZALEZ. We believe that the problem of torture, the fact that torturers do exist, that they continue to do their job and that they become an institution, shows that the society in which we live is sick.

It would be far too easy to consider that the problem lies only in torturers, understood as depraved and psychotic persons.

Within this context, we determined which was the ethical position of the Colegio Medico de Chile on torture. We realize that torture has been an instrument used by the authorities in Chile during the past 10 years.

A national awareness has come up recently, and especially during the last 2 years. Under these circumstances, in late 1981, the leaders of the Colegio Medico were democratically elected, and, therefore, a more defined strife became possible.

Before that time, the authorities of the Colegio, like those of the professional associations, were designated by the Government.

The new leaders, consistent with the historical tradition of the association, assume the responsibility of being well informed, creating an awareness and struggling against torture, up to where their slunted powers allow.

During those years, some physicians created groups to protect those who were persecuted, to support them and give them medical care and also to denounce what was happening. Basically, all these groups started and survived thanks to the support of the Catholic Church.

Torture was a common practice throughout the country after the coup d'etat. In a scared society, there are always less denounces of torture than there should actually be. A record of these accusations has been kept basically by the Vicariate for Solidarity of the Catholic Church and it is known by the international public opinion.

Amongst these groups, some of the most prominent ones are the aforementioned Vicariate, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights and the National Commission Against Torture, created in late 1982.

Physicians participate actively in all these groups and especially in the National Commission Against Torture, presided by a physician who is at present national counselor of the Colegio Medico de Chile.

Our organization made an important contribution against the participation of physicians in cruel, inhuman, or degrading proce dures by incorporating to its code of ethics a special article that prohibits direct or indirect participation of physicians in torture. This determination to denounce torture allowed us to start investigating physicians who had participated in inhuman and degrading procedures. Said investigations began 1 year ago, and they were initiated in the Department of Ethics of our General Counsel.

The internal summary that the Colegio Medico applies when a physician violates the code of ethics has been completed in only one case so far. Charges have been formulated and another case is underway, and there is a third case involving two physicians who have been identified.

According to the existing statements, prisoners are blindfolded before being tortured. Therefore, direct identification has been virtually impossible, except in the four cases previously described where identification was possible due to exceptional circumstances. The study of court legal files revealed some problems in connection with medical certification. According to Chilean law, any person who is captured and put to jail or arrested in a public place destined to imprisonment, must be examined by a physician when entering and when leaving.

Nevertheless, we know that there are physicians who certify the physical condition of persons arrested in secret places without examining them at all, or performing only a very superficial examination.

These health certifications have been used for different purposes, especially to give torture and arrest in secret places the appearance of legal processes, and, what is worse, to certify in some cases the degree of torture an arrested person can withstand.

The torturers' attempt to know the amount of torment to be inflicted. So, the written certification is a matter of routine, and it is granted with an illegible signature, therefore, it is impossible to know who was the physician involved.

In November 1982, Mr. Sebastian Acevedo immolated himself in the main square of Concepcion, a city in the south of our country, because two of his sons were arrested and presumably tortured by the CNI, secret police.

This had a national repercussion and the protest of the physicians of that region was particularly important. Some physicians have suffered retaliation after denouncing or certifying acts of torture.

In our efforts to prove the participation of physicians in torture, the very fact that these are physicians involved in such a monstrous activity, which is contrary to the medical vocation, is much more important than the number of cases detected.

It means being against the evolution of mankind. Accusing someone as being guilty of torture is so serious that our work is carried out with maximum discretion and secrecy. To cause the slightest doubt in this regard to a physician is an enormous punishment that will be very difficult to bear for him and his family.

It is for this reason that the process is so long and is kept in such secrecy. And, this is also why we request maximum discretion from those who are acquainted with information on these matters. Once charges are made, they must be unquestionable.

To sum up, the task of the Colegio Medico de Chile has to obtain information, to divulge its moral position against torture, to intimidate those physicians that could feel tempted to act, to incorporate in the Code of Ethics an article, from the Declaration of Tokyo, against torture, participation of physicians in the different institutions created on behalf of human rights, and divulgation of the ethics-related subjects in conferences and publications.