a prison camp. The last visit of these four officials was on April 23, 1982. On both occasions Jacob was not home. After their departure, Lidia phoned Kosinets, deputy head of the emigration office in Krasnoyarsk. Again she was given no answer concerning the family's emigration. Fearing imprisonment of her brother Jacob, she and all of her sisters and brothers peacefully demonstrated for emigration in the center of Chernogorsk that afternoon of April 23, 1982, at 2:00 P.M. They were severely beaten, including Abraham age 8 and Sarra age 11. Seventeen year old Dina's teeth were knocked out, and Lidia was choked to unconsciousness. All were put in jail for a few hours and then returned home. On April 27, Lidia and her sister Vera were summoned to the procuracy office. At that time the Soviets showed them three warrants for the arrests of Lidia, Vera and Jacob. Fearing imprisonment of these three, the family again peacefully demonstrated in Krasnoyarsk on April 28. Again they were put in jail a few hours and returned home. On May 1, 1982, a house arrest of the Vashchenko children was put into force. Soviet police were outside and inside their home 24 hours a day. Their electricity was cut off and their garden was destroyed. No one was allowed to work. Again they were promised an answer about their emigration on May 15. There was none and by May 22 the children were searching the local garbage heaps for food. Two weeks after the Soviet sponsored Peace Conference in Moscow, the children finally were given an answer to their application to emigrate. It was no. There would be no emigration until their mother and father left the American Embassy. The children received this information on July 2, 1982. Because of the demonstration, Alexander now has a penalty mark in his work book and will not be allowed to work for at least six months. He could be arrested for "parasitism", a charge often made agains policital dissenters. As of the end of July, none of the other children were working. Exactly four years after the seven Vashchenkos and Chmykhalovs entered our Embassy in Moscow, Lidia and her sister Vera in Chernogorsk began a second hunger strike. They were joined in this strike by their mother Augustina and younger sister Lilia in the American Embassy. Recently the Vashchenko children wrote Brezhnev a letter. The letter reads: 6th July, 1982 Leonid Ilyich, Until this day you have not wanted to listen or resolve the question The picture of you together with your granddaughter was published We, the children of the Vashchenko family, have begun to doubt that We also desire to be together with our parents, but we are forced Now we are forced to conduct once again a hunger strike that has When, at last, will humanity appear in your consciousness? When On July 6, 1982, I called the Soviet Embassy in Washington. First Secretary Boris Davydov spoke with me at length, denounced the Vashchenkos and the Chmykhalovs as criminals and suggested that they be thrown out of the U.S. Warren Zimmerman's letter to Lidia in February of 1982 reads, "Be assured that we in the Embassy will not abandon you but will continue to support the efforts of you and your family to emigrate." Now is the time to show this support strongly. We of S.A.V.E. ask that the family's permanent residency bill be acted on and passed immediately by this Congress. We are very happy that their permanent residency bill in the Senate S.312 had 71 cosponsors and passed July 13, 1982. We as well as the Vashchenko and Chmykhalov families are hopeful that their permanent residency bill will now pass expediently through the House and become law before Congress adjourns in 1982. If it be within the bounds of this Committee, we urge some action for the families' permanent residency bill, especially in view of the fact that a new American Embassy is under construction and this legislation is needed to safely move the Vashchenko and Chmykhalov families from the old building across Soviet territory to the new building. We of S.A.V.E. urge your support of linkage of trade (technology and grain) to that of the plight of human rights in the U.S.S.R. It is inconceivable that the problem of emigration of the Vashchenko and Chmykhalov families could not have been resolved by now in light of the fact that the Soviets depend on our trade. Quoted from a letter recently sent to President Reagan from the Research Center for Religion and Human Rights in Closed Societies and S.A.V.E., are these words: "In a radio talk you (President Reagan) gave on October 2, 1982, you (President Reagan) said: "Detente is supposed to be a two-way street. Our wheat and technology can get into Russia why can't the Vashchenko and Chmykhalov families get out?" - We applaud your decision of June 18 to embargo the export of General Electric compressor rotors and Caterpillar pipelayers for the Urengoi pipeline and to prohibit the manufacture abroad on license of American equipment destined for it. At the end of May, however, your Under Secretary of Agriculture, Mr. Seeley Lodwick, met with Soviet agricultural officials in Paris and, according to newspaper reports, offered to make available to them American grain over and above the 23 million tons your administration agreed last August to sell the U.S.S. R. during the current grain year. Mr. Lodwick is reported to have told his Soviet partners that he would encourage American banks to extend short-term credit to the U.S.S. R. for the purchase of additional grain." We of S.A.V. E. suggest that there be no summit meeting with the U.S.S. R. in October nor a renewal of the grain agreement in September, until this problem is solved and the Vashchenko and Chmykhalov family members in the Embassy as well as those at home in Chernogorsk, Siberia, are granted emigration. How can business as usual take place while such examples of violations of human rights guaranteed by the Helsinki Accords and the Declaration of Human Rights are living in our Embassy in Moscow? We urge the Committee's support of this position and ask that the Committee's support be communicated to the President. Again we express our gratitude for the Committee's concern and interest in the Vashchenko and Chmykhalov plight. We are most appreciative of your expedient passing of Resolution H. Con. 100 in March 1982 in their behalf and of this hearing today. Please continue your support. Moscow. Hospital Botkin. Open Letter. I would like to express my deep gratitude to the people and governments who took a part in the solution of the problem of my life during thehospitalization. It is true that the Soviet doctors have been kind to me during my stay in the hospital and I understand why. As I understand it their treatment relative to me was dictated by the top political leaders. If the order would have been different, then the treatment of the medical personel would have been different as well. The political leaders made the decision because people of the whole World have been watching how the question is going to be resolved. Of course, it is not for me to reach the top leaders but I believe that even now if the Soviets would consider the question of the emigration of my family positively, then they would receive the approval of the whole World. Since my family begining with my grandfather has never belonged to the Communist system, why now in front of the whole is it necessary to deal with us or to prevent us from emigration revealing in this the powerlessness of the atheistic system in the reeducation of such a small group as my family (16 persons)? For what reason is it necessary for the Soviet leaders to fight with us since we have been always been nothing in their eyes? But we have God who is leading us and is there anything stronger than Him? My request to all people and goverbnments who are concerned about us is that they please ask the Soviet government to allow the emigration of my whole family. Lidia Vashchenko. (Translated from the Russian text by Moscow. Embassy of the USA. |